Foundations of Animation & VFX: Digital Art and Illustration is a practical, beginner-friendly course designed to build essential creative and technical skills for learners interested in animation, visual effects, digital art, illustration, and character design. The course begins with the fundamentals of Animation and VFX, introducing learners to the history of the industry, different animation and VFX techniques, production pipelines, industry structure, career opportunities, and emerging areas such as AR and VR.
Learners then develop practical skills using Adobe Photoshop, starting with selection, drawing, scaling, text, brush, layers, blend modes, masks, filters, and effects. The course progresses into photo restoration and professional retouching, including techniques for repairing damaged photographs, colour restoration, and wedding photography retouching. A major section focuses on Digital Art and Compositing, where learners explore photo manipulation, combining multiple images, matte painting, fantasy compositions, surreal compositing, and digital painting. These skills help learners understand how individual visual elements can be transformed and combined to create compelling digital artwork.
The course also introduces Adobe Illustrator and vector illustration, covering raster versus vector graphics, essential Illustrator tools, shapes, gradients, colour palettes, layers, brushes, perspective, and advanced vector techniques. Learners progressively apply these skills to character design, including facial features, expressions, emotions, hairstyles, posture, and body language.
