Shadowing Practice: I Learned ANIMATION in 1 WEEK... 🎨👀 (ft. Skynix) - Learn English Speaking with Video

This video is brought to you by Skillshare.

If you couldn't tell from the theme of my drawings over the last couple months, I've been watching a lot of anime.

Okay, that did not sound as cool as it did in my head.

But in that time, I've come across some shows with some of the best, most beautiful, detailed and cool animation my eyes have ever seen.

And I've never been more inspired in my life.

So as an artist who's been drawing traditionally for over 7 years now, I thought to myself, how hard can animating be?

Spoiler alert, animating is extremely hard.

But I'm not one to back down from a challenge, so in this video, I'm gonna be attempting to produce a fully rendered

and epic animation in 7 days with literally zero experience.

I have never animated before.

What am I getting myself into?

But to do that, we're gonna need a plan, so without further ado, let's begin.

So I started by getting out my sketchbook

and making goals for what I wanted to achieve for each of the 7 days.

Now, because I've never animated before, it's very likely that this plan will end up changing as the days go on and as I learn more about animation.

But the one thing I do know is that for day one, we gotta figure out what we're gonna animate and how we're gonna do it.

So, I got out of my phone and asked everyone in my Discord server this exact question.

What should I animate and what are some good animating tips?

And after a couple seconds, I checked my phone and...

Oh, I forgot to press N.

But then everyone's responses started coming in.

And they were definitely something.

We got LeBron vs Goku.

Me doing a Holo Purple.

Me and a...

Who wrote this?

Greg?

But then, I came across this idea to animate evil shrimpy versus shrimpy.

So without wasting any time, I went to my computer, downloaded Clip Studio Paint.

Yo, why does this look like a virus?

Got out my old drawing tablet and hunted down the cables for it, and got ready to make my first animation on Clip Studio Paint.

But there was just one problem.

This program is nothing like anything I've used before.

So I got the program and it seems pretty simple to make art with it.

Weeeeee!

But the thing that's scaring me is this.

In animation, the timeline is where you actually make the animation.

And that's all I know.

Okay, so it looks like we have a bunch of buttons here.

We've got the play button.

We can create a folder, a cell.

Who is onion skin?

So without understanding a thing, I tried animating the first thing every animator animates.

Balls.

Wait, what?

So I then went to the second frame, added a ball, and did the same thing for the third frame.

Let's go.

Alright, let's see how it looks.

Let's go to the start.

And here we go. And play.

What?

Yeah, I ended up watching a couple tutorials.

A few moments later.

You gotta check this out.

Okay, so what I did wrong before is I didn't actually create a new frame.

See, if we go to frame 2 and press this button here, it creates a new frame.

Now, if we say hello to Mr. Onion Skin here.

Who was Onion Skin?

Boom!

We can see it!

Oh my god!

And now, if we draw in our second circle and go and press play, it will actually move!

Oh my god!

So now that I actually knew how to make things move, I made it my goal for day 1 to complete the full ball animation.

And after drawing 14 balls, my first ever animation was complete.

SCOOOOOOL!

And not gonna lie, I was so happy with how it came out and all the progress we made in day 1.

But little did I know that this challenge was about to get a lot harder.

Now for day 2, I really wanted to challenge myself, cause if I wanted to become a pro at animating by the end of the week, I'd have to animate stuff other than just balls.

Yeah bro, that's kinda weird.

Anyways, now that I understand the basics of how animating works, I should actually be able to use my skills as an artist to animate something cool.

So I opened up the Discord server again and tried finding an idea that was a little more complex, but guess who I stumbled across again.

Day 2's goal is gonna be to animate Greg dancing.

Now this is significantly harder than animating a ball bouncing, but I just reckon we give it a go.

So I started out by drawing the various dance moves that Greg would perform and make sure the timing felt right.

I made them do a jump, a little wave, and a cute little spin.

And so far, I was pretty happy with how these posters looked.

But now it's time to try and draw what animators call the in-betweens.

These are the frames that go in between the other frames.

I bet you didn't expect that.

And basically just make it look smoother and more complete.

And the best way to do that is with our good friend...

Who is onion skin?

Using onion skin while drawing an in-between allows us to see the frame that comes before it, and after.

So we're literally just filling the gaps.

And because I have a pretty good understanding of anatomy and digital art, this step wasn't actually too hard.

I then made a new animation folder and named it Linework

and started adding the crispy black lines on top of our sketch frames.

Now, although I usually use various line weights in my artworks like this, I used a fine liner

that stayed the same width the whole time for the frames as I thought this would give it a cleaner

and more consistent look.

And, to my surprise, it actually worked.

Now all that's left is to create our third and final animation folder to add to colouring.

Now, check this out.

Now normally when colouring, you have to manually color the entire thing like this.

But a tutorial by Manu Mercurial showed me

that all you have to do is set the paint bucket to this setting

and it will use the line work to know exactly where to fill even if we're on a different layer.

Thank goodness I found this out.

100

But this process is by far the most satisfying and easiest step and it really brings the animation all together.

101

But with With that, I presented you my first ever colored animation, Greg.

102

And I was so happy with Greg's animation that for day 3, I wanted to step it up a lot more.

103

Because I want to be able to animate like this, I still have a lot of stuff I need to learn.

104

Sorry Greg.

105

So the goal for day 3 is to learn how to add shading, lighting, backgrounds, and the hardest part of all, animating an actual human.

106

So I decided that I'd try and animate Shrimpy looking up, but really go all out on the colouring, quality, rendering and effects.

107

I started out by trying to draw the key poses of Shrimpy looking up, really focusing on the anatomy, but quickly realised that this was a lot harder than drawing Greg.

108

But no need to worry, cause I just used the exact same approaches I did with Greg, drawing the main poses first.

109

And even with just 4 frames, it already looked like this.

110

But something still looked a little bit off.

111

So I decided to record myself doing the movement a couple times to see how it looked, and although I felt goofy as hell, I understand it now.

112

So after fixing up the keyframes and feeling super confident, I went straight from the messy sketch to the line work, turning each scribbly pose into a refined shrimpy drawing.

113

But now it's time to take our animation to a whole new level, with shading.

114

While watching those tutorials in day one, I noticed animators do this thing where they draw a shadow line.

115

Now this wasn't just to look cool, even though it does look super cool, but to make the paint bucket process much easier, I decided to go with three colours on each frame.

116

A base color, a highlight, and a shadow color, and this was looking insane.

117

Now all that was left to do was to bring our animation into After Effects and add some finishing touches.

118

I added a subtle camera movement, a random background, and a light gradient overlay.

119

And with that, I proudly present to you my third ever animation, Shrimpy Looking Up.

120

Now I was so insanely happy with how this animation came out

121

that I didn't realize that it took me 5 hours to animate a 2 second animation.

122

Like that's actually cooked, how do animators do it?

123

So it was time to make some adjustments to our 7 day plan.

124

Day 5 would now also be for the final animation

125

and today will be about getting feedback and tips from a professional animator and fellow YouTuber, the one and only Skynix.

126

Yo!

127

Hello!

128

What's up Skynix?

129

Not too much.

130

What's up with you?

131

I spent five hours on a two second animation.

132

Damn, no. That's so real.

133

Oh my god.

134

Is that normal?

135

That is completely normal, man.

136

Animation takes time.

137

Bro, I'm cooked.

138

I'm cooked.

139

I've been animating for three days in this challenge

140

and I showed you the Greg animation But now I made one that's a lot better quality a lot better than Greg.

141

Oh my god I'm gonna have to see it to believe it's run be It's not this blank screen what I'm ready.

142

I'm so ready.

143

Oh My god, yeah, I'm genuinely blown away.

144

You've only been animating for three days Let's go and look compositing as well.

145

It looks beautiful.

146

Let's go.

147

Thank you, bro Okay, so I plan for the last three days of the challenge to do a full fight scene.

148

So if you have any tips on anything.

149

Holy sh.

150

Tips for a fight scene.

151

Okay, my one tip is good luck.

152

What?

153

No, okay, you're gonna need a lot of reference.

154

That's the biggest thing I can give you.

155

Especially from like actual 2D animation reference.

156

When you're animated, going by really quickly, Like if someone's throwing a punch

157

or running across the screen It's actually a lot easier to get away with like bad drawing

158

so make sure make sure everything goes by quickly Remember your your 12 principles of animation.

159

Have you learned about those yet?

160

Have you gone to those and you're studying?

161

Oh, what are those?

162

Oh my goodness, Shrimpy.

163

Tess, tess, tess, someone hasn't been studying I see.

164

Uh oh.

165

Skynext then taught me the 12 principles of animation and a bunch more useful tips.

166

So thank you so much to Skynyx and make sure to go subscribe to his channel.

167

His videos are fire!

168

But thanks to Skynyx, I was now more confident and excited than ever to make the final animation.

169

So I spent the rest of the day 4 writing down Skynyx's tips, but most importantly, storyboarding what each scene from the final animation would be.

170

I planned out each one of the scenes and added little notes for the movements, dialogues and actions the characters would make.

171

And with that, it was finally time.

172

Everything we've done in this video has led up to this moment, the final animation.

173

All the tutorials, practice animations, failures and frames to prepare for this final task, but as I went to add the very first frame, my pen broke.

174

What?

175

What?

176

What?

177

What?

178

Not now!

179

What am I gonna do?

180

I can't draw without a pen and I only have three ne- What the f- Oh!

181

Oh!

182

Because you guys showed so much love to the digital art video, XP-Pen agreed to send me another insane drawing tablet.

183

Also cause I gave the other one away.

184

Congrats, Kintento!

185

So thank you all so much and thank you to XP-Pen.

186

So I took everything out of the box, connected the tablet, put on my artist glove, and now...

187

Let's do this.

188

Scene 1 opens with Evil Shrimpy looking down on his hands, he's heavily breathing as his hands shake and jitter.

189

Scene 2 will be a close-up shot of Evil Shrimpy's hands, revealing the glowing red lines that now shine through the cracks of his skin.

190

Confused and enraged, Scene 3 shows Evil Shrimpy looking up from his hands as he says, What have you done to me?

191

Scene 4 and 5 show Shrimpy standing up as he responds to his friend and says, I was just trying to save you, it was the only way- No!

192

Evil Shrimpy interrupts as Scene 6 depicts him accusing Shrimpy of viewing him as weak.

193

Shrimpy denies this and promises he won't leave him in scene 6, followed by a dramatic wide shot of the two friends as they stand off.

194

Scene 8 shows Evil Shrimpy thinking for a moment before saying the words, Then you will die.

195

Then finally, the last three scenes show Evil Shrimpy leaping from the ground as he charges up his fiery red laser eyes

196

and attacks Shrimpy.

197

Now with all the keyframing and sketching done, Day 6 will be all about adding your line work and shadow lines to our animation.

198

But because of all of the knowledge I had gained through the first 5 days of this challenge, this was actually a pretty smooth and satisfying process.

199

But, if you're also someone that wants to get into animation, you're in luck, cause this video is brought to you by Skillshare.

200

So while I power through the line work, let me tell you about this amazing site.

201

Now I'm sure you all know about Skillshare.

202

It's the largest online learning community for creators with thousands of classes, led by industry experts across film, illustration, design, freelance, and of course, animation.

203

So instead of skipping a bunch of steps and continuously getting stuck and failing,

204

like I did, with Skillshare you can actually learn the fundamentals of animation from professional animators like Sivoune Toomey and Vera Rahag.

205

And the coolest part is that me

206

and Skillshare have teamed up to give you guys a whole free month of the platform, giving you access to step-by-step tutorials on literally anything you want to learn about art, completely for free.

207

So if you're one of the first 500 people to hit the link in the video description, that will let you claim your one month free trial of Skillshare.

208

But with that...

209

It's now day 7.

210

With all the keyframing, linework and shadow lines now done, all that was left was to fill in the colours and add the final effects.

211

Frame by frame, I coloured in Evil Shrimpy and Shrimpy, and finally, the animation was all coming together.

212

This has by far been the most insane and time-consuming challenge I've ever done.

213

So if you enjoyed and want to help support me, I just opened my official store with keychains, stickers and canvases of your favourite artwork.

214

But with that, I finally present to you...

215

Evil Shrimpy vs Shrimpy What have you done to me?

216

I was just trying to save you It was the only way- NO!

217

You thought I was weak!

218

You led me to die just because I didn't have powers like you!

219

I won't leave you this time Then you'll die!

📺 Same Channel

Learning DIGITAL ART in 1 WEEK... 🎨👀 (ft. Orb)

TeensDaily ConversationHigh School Students

My BIGGEST Sketchbook TOUR Ever… 👀🎨 (+Q&A)

Business EnglishTeensDaily Conversation

✨ Recommend Video

84 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “I Learned ANIMATION in 1 WEEK... 🎨👀”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: animation, shrimpy, frame, scene, drawing. This video has 219 sentences and 2621 words to shadow. The speech runs for 13:21. The speaker talks fast, about 196 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
animation noun	/ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/	The act of animating, or giving life or spirit.
animate adjective	/ˈæn.ə.mət/	That lives.
shrimpy adjective	/ˈʃɹɪmpi/	Resembling or characteristic of shrimp; shrimplike.
animator noun	/ˈænɪˌmeɪtə(ɹ)/	One who creates an animation or cartoon; a cartoonist.
tutorial noun	/ˌtjuːˈtɔːɹɪəl/	A self-paced learning exercise; a lesson prepared so that a student can learn at their own speed or convenience.
onion noun	/ˈʌn.jən/	A monocotyledonous plant (Allium cepa), allied to garlic, used as vegetable and spice.
keyframe noun	/ˈkiˌfɹeɪm/	A single frame in an animation sequence drawn by an artist, between which others are tweened.
coloring noun		An act or process which applies color.
folder noun	/ˈfoʊldɚ/	An organizer that papers are kept in, usually with an index tab, to be stored as a single unit in a filing cabinet.
sketch noun	/ˈskɛt͡ʃ/	A rapidly executed freehand drawing that is not intended as a finished work, often consisting of a multitude of overlapping lines.
tablet noun	/ˈtæblət/	A slab of clay, stone or wood used for inscription.
pose verb	/poʊz/	To place in an attitude or fixed position, for the sake of effect.
linework noun		The technique of drawing lines.
render verb	/ˈɹɛn.dɚ/	To cause to become.
anatomy noun	/əˈnætəmi/	The science that deals with the form and structure of organic bodies; anatomical structure or organization.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
look up verb	/ˌlʊk ˈʌp/	To have better prospects.
come across verb		To change sides; to cross over to work for the opposition.
come out verb	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	To be discovered; to be revealed.
end up verb		To bring to a conclusion.
get out verb		To leave or escape.
start out verb		To emerge suddenly; to jump out.
blow away verb		To cause to go away by blowing, or by wind.
close up verb	/kləʊzˈʌp/	To close (remove a gap) completely or fully.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

What am I getting myself into?
What's up with you?
Have you learned about those yet?
Have you gone to those and you're studying?
What am I gonna do?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on	I've been watching · I've been animating · You've only been animating
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	I've come · I've never been · have never animated
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	is brought · is set · was left

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 56 contractions and reduced forms, such as gonna, I'm, I've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: animation /ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/, shrimpy /ˈʃɹɪmpi/, shade /ʃeɪd/, illustration /ˌɪləsˈtɹeɪ̯ʃən/, traditionally /tɹəˈdɪʃ.ə.nə.li/
Long words — get the stress right: animation /ˌæn.ɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/, animator /ˈænɪˌmeɪtə(ɹ)/, anatomy /əˈnætəmi/, manually /ˈmænj(u)əliː/, illustration /ˌɪləsˈtɹeɪ̯ʃən/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like animation, animate, shrimpy.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: I Learned ANIMATION in 1 WEEK... 🎨👀 (ft. Skynix) - Learn English Speaking with Video

Learning DIGITAL ART in 1 WEEK... 🎨👀 (ft. Orb)

My BIGGEST Sketchbook TOUR Ever… 👀🎨 (+Q&A)

My ONE comment changed EVERYTHING!...

" How Do You Animate Her? " (ft. Rebecca Parham)

I Turned a Table into a Living Forest

I Secretly Became The Voice Of Faceless YouTube Channels

I Finally Answered Your Questions

Storyboard vs Animation: me complaining for 15 mins (shot 24)

Anime Motivational Speech for When You’re Done Losing

Smart Sales 😏 (Animation Meme) Anim: @ishmations #shorts

Times I Plagiarized

I'll Never Forgive Star Rail

How I learned calisthenics and got shredded from home

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?