Toon Boom Harmony
An industry standard for 2D TV animation. Used at Brown Bag Films, Blue Zoo, and Disney TV shows. Steep learning curve but if you want to work in TV series, this is a great one to learn and the main software I've used throughout my career from TV to commercials (so i may be a bit biased!).
Pricing
- Harmony Essentials - entry tier £201/year
- Harmony Advanced - mid tier with most rigging features no node view £469/Year
- Harmony Premium - All rigging features and node view (the preferred version) £900/year
21-day free trial available. Heavily discounted student licences via Toon Boom's site. £141/year for premium
Where to learn
- Adam's Animation Academy - tutorials and free Toon Boom rigs.
- Toon Boom's official Learn portal - free and surprisingly good
- Oli Putland on YouTube - brilliant rigging tutorials, also has a Harmony book on Patreon
- Stylus Rumble - intermediate Harmony tutorials and 2DFX
- Drawn Sean - beginner friendly - rigging a character from start to finish
Paid Courses
- Adam's Animation Academy - excellent and well-reviewed paid course.
- Toon boom official - instructor-led training
- Sun and Moon - learn in a studio enviroment.
Free rigs to practice with
Adam's Animation Academy - Free Toon Boom rigs
Scripting in Toon Boom
- Spreadsheet of widely used script addons.
- Wordpress with TB scripts
- Raindrop moment - custom scripts
- Github -TB scripts library
Moho
Used on Puffin Rock and Scavengers Reign, Cheaper than Harmony, friendlier rigging system.
Gaining a lot more traction in 2026 for its easier rigging and ability to animate textured content, this is a great one to learn. There are also often sales so keep an eye out!
Pricing
- Moho Debut - £50 one of payment
- Moho Pro - £300 one of payment
Where to learn
- Dani Abrham Aka MohoGal - Indepth tutorials looking at rigging and animation in Moho
- McCoy Buck - Full tutorial rigging and animating a character from start to finish
- Grace Zhang - Awesome experiments with Moho with some paid tutorial content
Paid Courses
- Motion Design School - Rigging and Animation with Moho
- Adam's Animation Academy - with Dani Abrham's
Cel Action 2D
UK-heavy software, used on Peppa Pig, Bing, Bluey and a lot of preschool shows. If you want to work at studios doing UK preschool TV its worth knowing. Less material online than Harmony but the official tutorials are good enough! I would say this is a software you could learn within the studio system, the cost for a yearly licence is quite high and no trial version available so it might be worth learning another rigged based software as the skills will be transferrable. (image: Beth Harvey YouTube channel)
Pricing
- £660 GBP/ Year
Where to learn/paid course
- Beth Harvey - Cel action animation tutorials with a new growing channel and a paid course which has a access to licences so if you need to learn the software for a job this is a great choice.
Adobe Animate
Giving this a mention as there are a lot of TV studios still using Adobe Animate like on the the show 'The Amazing World of Gumball'. Previously called flash and a part of the Adobe suite. A great option if its something you already pay for. There are decades of tutorials for this software, the software has been phased out by Adobe, and there has been less support for Adobe across the industry for their 'locked in' subscriptions. Rigging in Adobe Animate uses a lot of nested elements and pivoting rotation, with plenty of drawing swaps and would be less complex than some of the other software on this list. (Image: Tiptup youtube channel)
Pricing
- Included in the Adobe Subscription price which can vary but is pricey as it locks you into a one-year subscription for the better price. £35 - £70/ month
Where to learn
- Alex Grigg - Great all-around tutorial for the software.
- Tiptup - Intro to the software
(resource above: billympetha.co.uk)
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