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Udemy3d ModelingPaid courseIntermediate levelCertificate

2D Character Animation: Dialogue and Acting (Udemy.com)

Animate a character for lip sync and acting: character animation in Adobe Animate

Created by: Siobhan Twomey

Last updated June 2020

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What you will learn

  • You'll learn animation techniques to bring a character to life!
  • You'll learn how to add a dialogue track
  • How to create mouth shapes
  • How to animate the mouth to the dialogue
  • How to animate key poses, with anticipation + overshoot
  • How to rig your character to animate eye blinks, hand poses and facial expressions
  • How to animate a scene
  • You'll learn Adobe Animate

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Course Description

Thanks for checking out this course on 2D Character Animation for Dialogue and Acting!

If you love animation and want to know how to bring your characters to life, have them speaking and moving around a scene, this course will teach you exactly that. I’m going to guide you through, step by step, the exact process that professional animators use to add lip sync animation to a dialogue track, and set key poses to their character in any scene for a TV show or a movie.

This course is the third course in a series on learning 2D animation. My first two animation courses are:

  • Learn to Animate: Animation Principles

  • 2d Character Animation: Walk Cycles

If you are brand new to animation, and want to know how to set key frames, how to work with animation principles, check out the first 2 courses in the series. This course focuses solely on how to rig and animate a character for dialogue. At the end of the course, you’ll be able to animate a character to a short audio clip, and be bale to do smooth, acting poses.


  • To start out, you’ll learn things like the proper order of rigging and how to build a simple character in Adobe Animate.

  • From there, you’ll learn how to take your assets and build out multiple frame options, inside each one, so that you can have things like eye blinks and facial expressions.

  • You’ll then learn all about animation mouth charts, I’ll show you exactly how to make your own mouth charts and set them up inside your character, so that when it comes to animating, all you’ll have to do is use Adobe Animate’s powerful Frame Picker to speed through your dialogue scenes.

  • This saves you so much time, and allows you to focus on the fun part of animating, which is setting up the big acting poses.

  • Then you’ll learn the template used for making any key pose read like a fluid and natural movement. I’ll show you how to set your anticipation, over-shoot and settle and explain why you animate in these 3 steps.


As you progress step by step throughout the course, there is opportunity to complete assignments and to ensure that you are moving through the process and able to achieve the final project.

After you are finished, you’ll be a fully fledged animator, with a crucial dialogue project under your belt. With this, you’ll be able to finalize your animation reel and know that you’ve got a professional grade portfolio piece to show to an animation studio.W

When  you enrol in this course, you’ll be joining a growing group of artists and animators, that have come together and are sharing their skills, talent and ideas. You’ll be able to see their work in the project section, and you can also direct message me at any time to ask questions, or to get personalised feedback on your work. I love working with students and spend time each day discussing ongoing projects and work.

I can’t wait for you to join in and get started. Animation is an really exciting, creative and rewarding field to work in. Together, we’re goon to spend the next few hours with me, to improve your animation skills today and help you take your first steps towards an exciting career path in animation.




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Instructor Details

Siobhan Twomey

My background spans the disciplines of drawing, painting, filmmaking and animation. I studied Film in Dublin, and spent a semester on a scholarship at the Tisch School of the Arts, NYU in New York. I later studied drawing and animation. Since 2005, I have worked in studios in Vancouver and Dublin as a professional Background Designer and Environment Artist. I've also worked as a storyboard artist, concept artist, and I have directed a number of short animated films.

All in all, I've worked for over 15 years as an Artist, Illustrator and Animation Professional. I've provided artwork for studios whose clients include Disney UK, Sony Pictures Animation, HMH Publishing, to name a few.

I also have an ongoing painting and drawing practice, and I paint portraits on commission, and exhibit my work in galleries. My passion is to teach others the whole spectrum of art skills that I've learned and developed over the course of my career.

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Reviews

4.7

210 ratings on Udemy

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By Tareq Musallam on 10/2/2023

It's a good course to get back into animation and build a character, however I did watch other tutorials or better way to do auto lip sync, changing hand poses, and parenting rigging (for arms and legs).

By Kevin King on 2/6/2023

i love the way she looks through the screen right at me and seems very genuine, like she really wants me to learn this foreign language that you call Adobe Animate. I could listen to her soft voice all day. She should sell a program where she just reads bedtime stories in the evening for a good nights rest.

By Eduardo Briseno on 1/10/2023

so far, so good. The teacher is patient and thorough and I hope she keeps explaining each step of the process. *UPDATE From the halfway point* Wow I love this teacher. I'm very picky about the teachers I buy from due to my learning style and this teacher's style is perfect for me. She is very thorough, knowledgeable and presents the material in a direct, step by step manner that gives me the utmost confidence in my learning. I'm not sure if the teacher will touch on frame by frame animation later on in this tutorial but I would really appreciate an explainer video or a basic run down of FBF animation-maybe even a full course. I'm going to buy all of Siobhan's courses.

By Doug Mattocks on 11/22/2022

A perfect match - its not just the drawing and the animating - BUT more so how to organize layers - how to simply organize the entire project - this was the most important part of all three course I've now taken with this teacher and I'm very happy I took all three! Sincerely, Doug Mattocks

By Tristan Jones on 7/2/2022

It is awesome to have learned how to lip sync and make poses for dialogue in animation. The teaching style was easy for me to follow and the instructor does a great job explaining not only how to do the animating but also why certain issues may occur. I'm a beginner and I feel like this course was a great starting point!

By Scott Joyce on 6/10/2022

This is the fourth course I'm doing of Siobhan's and I've found her to be a great and helpful teacher who always get back to me if I have a question for get stuck. Her courses follow on nicely and lead into the next. I've done them in the following order: 1. Animation Principles, 2. Learn to Storyboard for film and animation, 3. 2D Character animation walk cycles. When looking for a tutor on Udemy I remember having a good feeling about Siobhan and that she looked like the person I wanted to learn from to do character animation and I was right! I've already signed up for one of her other courses and I know I'll continue doing more in the future.

By Jean Marc Stuppard on 5/6/2022

This is my third course from the Adobe Animate series taught by Siobhan Twomey and I have learned the proper way to animate from scratch with drawings while learning to apply the animation principles including the rigging, character animation, dialogue and acting processes. I appreciate her teaching style and look forward to taking her level 3 After effects compositing course when it becomes available.

By Chris Young on 4/15/2022

First, I don’t write reviews. I just hate it. But I’m enjoying this course so much, I made the time to write one. This is an amazing course! Siobhan does a great job sequencing the steps in an organized way that just makes the process so accessible. I never once felt overwhelmed. She takes something as complex as animation and makes it so simple. I highly recommend all of her classes! One of my favorite instructors for animation on Udemy.

By Rahul Sharma on 5/21/2021

Instructor is good , content is good, but little less only 2 hours 30 mins. i just want everything from single course. so i am expecting more beutiful content . i am recommending this course for those who don't know nothing about 2d animation or adobe animate. this course will help you definitely from scratch. thanks

By Paul Storm on 12/11/2020

This is a fantastic course and Siobhan is a brilliant tutor. I am learning lots of amazing techniques whilst studying, and they'll come in extremely handy for future projects - and hopefully find work as an animator one day too(?). Totally recommend for anyone interested in 2D Animation - also recommend taking her 2 previous courses if you're new to this subject.

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Overall Score : 94 / 100