At Stop Motion University, we believe that creativity should have no boundaries. That’s why we’re thrilled to offer you our FREE Intro to After Effects course—a gateway to exploring the exciting world of motion graphics and animation! Whether you’re a complete beginner or looking to enhance your skills, this course is designed to give you a solid foundation in Adobe After Effects, one of the most powerful tools for animators and designers.

Why After Effects?

Adobe After Effects is the gold standard for motion graphics and visual effects. From animating text to creating stunning 3D visuals, the possibilities are endless. By learning After Effects, you’ll not only enhance your creative portfolio but also gain a skill that’s in high demand across industries like filmmaking, marketing, and digital design.

What You’ll Learn in This Course

Our Intro to After Effects course is broken into 11 short, focused lessons that guide you step by step through the essentials:

1. Workspaces and Panels: Get comfortable navigating the interface and customizing your workspace.
2. Projects and Compositions: Learn how to organize projects and set up compositions for success.
3. Importing Footage: Bring in your media files like a pro.
4. Views and Previews: Understand how to preview your work for seamless editing.
5. Working with Layers and Properties: Dive into the core of After Effects—layer management and properties.
6. Basic Animation and Keyframes: Start animating with keyframes to create smooth motion.
7. Text Animation: Add dynamic and engaging text effects to your projects.
8. Effects and Presets: Explore After Effects’ library of effects and presets to enhance your visuals.
9. Masks and Mattes: Use masks to highlight, hide, or reveal parts of your layers.
10. 3D Layers: Add depth and perspective with 3D tools.
11. Rendering and Exporting: Learn how to finalize and share your projects with the world.

Why You Should Enroll

• 100% Free: This course is completely free, with no strings attached.
• Perfect for Beginners: You don’t need any prior experience to get started.
• Short Lessons: Each video is 1–3 minutes long, making it easy to follow and practice.
• Learn Anytime, Anywhere: Access the course online and learn at your own pace.

Who is This Course For?

This course is ideal for:

• Beginners: New to After Effects? Start here!
• Stop Motion Enthusiasts: Add digital effects to your stop-motion projects.
• Creators & Designers: Enhance your skill set with motion graphics knowledge.

How to Enroll

Ready to take your first step into the world of After Effects? Simply visit Stop Motion University, sign up for the Intro to After Effects course, and start creating today.

About Stop Motion University

At Stop Motion University, we’re passionate about empowering creators with the skills and tools they need to bring their ideas to life. From free courses to advanced training, we’re here to help you every step of the way.

Don’t wait—start your animation journey today with Stop Motion University’s FREE Intro to After Effects course!

Elevate Your Stop Motion Animation Skills with John Ikuma’s Private Lessons at Stop Motion University

Stop Motion University is proud to present a unique opportunity for animation enthusiasts to learn directly from one of the industry’s most accomplished creators. Starting this month, we’re offering private lessons with John Ikuma, the visionary director, animator, and visualization artist behind some of the most celebrated works in stop motion and visual storytelling.

About John Ikuma

John Ikuma’s reputation precedes him in the world of animation. His illustrious career includes credits on blockbuster films like WICKED, Thunderbolts, The Electric State, and Captain America: Brave New World. Beyond the silver screen, he has also played a pivotal role in beloved stop motion projects such as Robot Chicken, Tumble Leaf, BLANK: A Vinylmation Love Story, Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole, and Aquabats Supershow.

With decades of experience and a passion for nurturing new talent, Ikuma brings a wealth of knowledge and creative insight to every lesson. Now, he’s ready to help you unlock your full potential as an animator.

What Makes These Lessons Special?

Whether you’re a beginner dreaming of your first project or a seasoned animator seeking to refine your skills, these personalized lessons are designed to meet your needs. John Ikuma’s guidance goes beyond technical tips—he provides a comprehensive understanding of stop motion as both an art and a craft.

Here’s a glimpse of what you can expect:

• Foundational Skills: Learn the basics of stop motion animation and how to bring your creations to life.
• Advanced Techniques: Master the subtleties of lifelike movement and professional-quality visuals.
• Storytelling Strategies: Dive into storyboarding and visualization to make your narratives shine.
• Industry Insights: Gain behind-the-scenes knowledge of production processes used in major studios.
• Customized Mentorship: Receive tailored advice and support based on your goals and skill level.

Why Choose Stop Motion University?

At Stop Motion University, we believe in empowering creators through education and access to industry leaders. These private lessons with John Ikuma represent our commitment to fostering creativity and excellence in stop motion animation.

Secure Your Spot Today!

Enrollment is now open for John Ikuma’s exclusive private lessons. Don’t miss this chance to learn from one of the animation world’s top talents.

Start Today: Classes are filling up quickly, so act now to ensure your spot.
Sign Up Here: https://stopmotionuniversity.com/product/private-instruction-john-ikuma/

Whether you’re aspiring to break into the industry or elevate your current projects, John Ikuma’s expertise can help you achieve your animation dreams. Join us and bring your creative vision to life!

Let’s first start off by thanking all of you who have submitted assignments to the Beginners Animation Course. Everything as of today has been evaluated and graded. For the most part everyone did great.

However, there were a few video links that I could not see due to the link being bad. Students can update these links if they like and I will re-evaluate and update the grades upon submission.

Everything for the most part is looking awesome!

Good Job…

Now as to Instructor communication. I will be changing the contact email for all the courses so that I can keep the maintenance and company emails separate from the instructor emails.

This will help me stay in better contact with all the students. I noticed the schools main email has just turned into a dumping ground for spam emails and makes it impossible for myself to actually communicate with any of the students in the courses.

I will be updating this contact information and you will be able to find it in the first sections of the courses. It will not be published publicly so as to prevent spamming emails.

Also, I hope to have friend requests built back into our community page so that students and instructors can communicate via the website and avoid emails all together in the future.

This will take a moment to build back since I deleted the code years ago. The hope is also to have this sooner rather than later.

Also, September I also hope to have a live class and Q&A free to enrolled students. Keep an eye out for this. You should be able to find the information here on the blog and in our social media.

I look forward to seeing more of everyone’s work.

Thanks and Keep Animating!

-John Ikuma (Head Instructor)

I am here to inform you that all the courses are being rebuilt with new content and removal of content that is either outdated or is flawed in some way. I know a lot of students have expressed concern about accessing courses that are currently paused and not accessible. This is due to the updating of these courses and the information contained within.

The goal currently is to convert a lot of the text information into actual video presentations which will allow for a quicker and easier path to learning for all our students. Originally, these classes were approached as you would see in a full-blown University setting. But after some time and contemplation I have found that this is holding back a lot of students from being able to achieve their goals in the course. This is because not everyone has the time or learns in the same way.

So firstly, I am currently updating the Facial Animation Course and hope to have that active very soon.

Then I will be addressing the Dragon Frame Course and adding the missing Automation classes and fixing the Dialogue classes as well. This should get the course up to date.

Then I will be breaking down the Beginners Stop Motion Course T1a and making it a 3 sectioned path. 1st section (Free Content to help interested students get started), 2nd section (The Basics with Exercises), and 3rd and last section (Beginners Character Performance).

Once these three courses are updated then I will be able to finally release the “Free” After Effects Beginners Course along with updating the Beginners Puppet Building Course.

I am very sorry for the delay… To give you a little inside information about why the delay happened… Well, I’ve been in full time production on major feature films for Hollywood. Some of the films I can mention which have been released are Chip n Dales Rescue Rangers the Movie, Haunted Mansion, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, and a slew of other high profile films. This plus moving from Los Angeles to Mexico and then to setting up permanent residency in my home state of Maryland has made any focus on Stop Motion University extremely difficult. Good news is I finally have my feet planted and will be dedicating my nights and weekends to updating all the On-Demand Classes. Live Lectures will not be possible until the site is fully updated with all the appropriate course.

Thanks for your patience.

Keep Animating!

John Ikuma – Head Instructor

What a crazy time I have had rebuilding this site. Finally found the certificates that vanished due to migration. I will be building all new certificates for those classes missing them.

Currently T1a, T2a, T2b, and 3D Printing for Stop Motion all have an automated certificate system added to the courses. This means you can now download your certificate with your name on it once you graduate!

Keep an eye out for the new certificates coming to the other programs really soon.

Currently want to give you an update on the site maintenance.

As you know the site is restricted to currently enrolled students and there have been a lot of fixes on the backend of the site. What I have discovered is in January 2021 the site migrated from our old system to our new system and theme update. This caused a lot of old content and features to have disappeared and resulted in missing links, missing content (pictures and videos), along with profile issues and contact features. Forums is a great example. We had close to 10 forums all with content, assignments, user interactions, and uploaded urls and pictures from students. All of this apparently didn’t make it in the migrations and I nearly cried when I discovered this.

So far I have rebuilt the forums to  a base to which it all can be rebuilt into our current and future lessons. YEAH! I have also repaired the comment sections which were being blocked by the system for some reason. There was a lot of SPAM in those comment sections and I have dealt with this and now only real registered students can comment. No more BOT SPAM!

Probably the most important feature that disappeared and caused the most issues is the contact form. This was a way to report directly with myself along with instructors. The old system we used apparently was not receiving the messages internally and not sending them to the sites contact emails. This is the main reason for the lack of communication about missing features and not being aware of students turning in assignments or asking questions. This has been fixed and we have resorted to only allowing messaging in the website. So you can only contact us through the contact form or direct messaging in the website. No more email contacting! This will result in a better way to get your answers resolved and address any underlying issues you may find. Or if you have questions you can ask them there.

Another feature that has gone missing is the submit assignment for each course. This will be dealt with very soon so that students can submit their assignments directly in the website.

Certificates are all missing! This one drives me crazy because one of our prior assistants who I worked closely with had put in many hours in designing these certificates and we spent a lot of time automating this process. I will definitely be dealing with this right away and hunting down the original designs and implementing them back into the automated system.

We currently have a bug in the friend request system and this needs to be hunted down and resolved.

I have also increased the security for the school website which prevents bots from creating accounts and spamming students.

We due have a GDRP system setup but currently this is not displaying properly and will be addressed very soon.

Once this laundry list is resolved I will personally be going through all the courses and placing new images and videos in locations where they are missing. This will hopefully bring all the courses up to date. I will be starting with the T1a course and then making my way through to T2a, T3a and so on.

Thank you all for your patience. Please feel free to contact me through the contact form and I will be more than happy to reply right away.

Thanks – John Ikuma

Please be advised that SMU website will undergo maintenance and updates on January 29th and 30th 2022.

We hope to address a number of issues and problems plaguing the access to courses along with bringing more automation to the courses to make the learning experience more enjoyable.

The site will be on and off during the weekend and we request that you do not attempt to log in or access the site during this period.

Thanks

This now begs the question as to how do we compete with schools charging more than us. Well, for starters we are focused on the students and not the money. We want our students to have access to a lot of content. We also want to attract more and more students and not set limits to our class sizes. Since we offer both live online and learn at your own pace course, it allows us to give a lot and not charge an arm an a leg. Also, out philosophy of students first in everything we do drives us to want more for our students. This combined with cost should keep our school a float and evolving to an ever growing course offering and improved educational experience. To achieve this we need to change things up from time to time and so we have a whole new online website and educational system.

This new system allows us a better way of addressing our students needs through easy access to courses, better tracking of progress, and a more friendly user experience. We are now also able to schedule weekly workshops with industry artists and more emersion in the animation experience for all our students. In the coming days we hope to be adding instructors to our rooster of teachers along with bring our students new courses and an ever expanding curriculum. We hope you are as excited as we are.