Focal Point School: Stylized Animation in Blender

Learn how to create stylized animations in Blender like an award winning, senior concept artist Jimmy Duda. This is an in-depth course on creating your very own animated film sequence from scratch. As a creator of ‘’Symbiont World’’ short film he will guide you through a full, extensive process of utilizing a holistic approach in which workflows and storytelling intertwine.

This class comes in 2 TIERS.

TIER 1 (BASIC):  Pre-recorded 15 hours Narrative Video Tutorial broken down into 12 chapters where Jimmy presents his whole process of creating a scene based on the specially crafted assignment. Learn at your own pace and on your own terms. Go systematically from chapter to chapter enveloping the whole project or pick chapters based on what you want to learn at a given moment. 

Go for this option in order to work and learn on your own, any time, any place!

TIER 2 (PREMIUM*): In addition to the 15 hours Narrative Video Tutorial you will be provided with aforementioned assignment and weekly live feedback sessions with your instructor. This tier is meant to maximize your skill gain and sets you up for a proper class format where once a week for a duration of 10/12 weeks you will get individual feedback from your instructor. 

(Live classes will start on 09.04.2026, 10:00 CET Time. Each week on Thursday, for 10 weeks through our online platform.)

*TIER 2 includes all the materials from TIER 1

As long as the participants provide weekly work while going through the pre-recorded material, custom feedback sessions will be provided in order to direct, correct, and tackle all the challenges one might encounter. Efficiency through interaction with your instructor guarantees you solve your own personal challenges while being properly guided in order to absorb the knowledge from the whole class as intended and to create a portfolio ready animation.

Go for this option in order to maximize your skill gain through guidance and interaction with your instructor! 

COURSE BREAKDOWN:

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION
-Meet your instructor
-What is Symbiont World?
-Course Overview and Assignment briefing
-Why sketching is essential?

Chapter 2: Setting up base scene
-Gearing up your 3D tool set (softwares overview)
-Creating a base for your landscape (Sky, sun, water all directly in 3D)
-Blocking out the world
-Exploring camera angles

Chapter 3: Your new adorable buddy (Flobo)
-Overview of modelling techniques
-Understanding the difference between Hard Surface and Organic modelling
-Testing different shapes of our buddy
-Animating world elements around the character with Particles System

Chapter 4: Modelling Surfer Girl (Kontea)
-Intro to Character Modelling
-Animating your hero directly in the final pose
-Animating ponytail hair
-Animating clothes (scarf)
-Shading and texturing

Chapter 5: Creating and having fun with Environment
-creating the Islands (modeling, procedural shading)
-creating the clouds (modeling, scattering, shading)
-creating the trees (modeling, scattering, shading)

Chapter 6: "Wet Work" Creating water waves and splashes
-Animating water
-Animating splashes VFX

Chapter 7: Look, it moves! - animation
-Simple scene rigging (Character, wind, physics)
-Animating Flobo
-Creating fog and setting up alternative camera angles

Chapter 8: The magic of Animation
-Putting the whole scene together
-Modelling windmill, correcting the whole layout and optimize animation
-Overpainting and swapping the assets
-Painting and animating additional VFX effects
-Final Animation scene 01

Chapter 9: Seagulls FTW!
-Modelling and animating Seagulls
-Matte Painting techniques overview
-Final Tweaks
-Alternative Final Animation scene 02

Chapter 10: "Frozen in Time" Turning 3D Animation into Kickass Keyframe Painting
-Overpainting process overview
-Explaining optimized Photoshop layering approach
-Additional 2D effects

Chapter 11: "Sunset" Alternative Sequence
-Turning your sunny day sequence into beautiful Sunset animation
-Adding bloom and atmospheric perspective to your 3D scene
-Combining colors while maintaining Stylized approach

Chapter 12: Anime and changing composition
-Scene layout
-Shader Adjustments
-Camera Work
-Outro