Coolors (Free)

• The ultimate slot machine simulator for colour palettes.
• Smash space bar to generate limitless colour schemes.
• Lock in the colours you like, or input your own to find suitable matching colours.
• Save and browse other people's schemes in their library.

Khroma (Free)

• Using the wonders of AI, Khroma uses your colour taste to generate endless colour combinations that are bound to please you.
• Preview the colour combinations in a variety of ways, such as gradients, images and type.
• Easily search by colour with powerful search bar.

Color Supply (Free)

• Play around with a colour wheel, refine your colours on the right and see a huge variety of potential applications.
• Unique to Colour Supply is having the chosen colours affect small vector illustrations, perfect for designers.
• Select between multiple colour picking methods such as Complementary, Analogous, Triad and more.

Color Hunt (Free)

• Created by Procreate guru, Gal Shir, Color Hunt is a minimalistic colour palette inspiration website, updated daily with a new colour scheme.
• If you want to use the eyedropper tool in After Effects to source these colours, check out this fantastic tip from Chris Zachary on how to make that happen.

Shutterstock have blessed us with oodles of colour combinations, sourced from their own stock image library. Whether you use the colour combinations exactly, or just browse for some inspiration, it's all free, so go wild!

Shutterstock: 101 Colour Combinations

Shutterstock: 25 Neon Combinations

Shutterstock: 25 Retro and Vintage Colour Combinations

Shutterstock: 20 Seasonal Colour Combinations

Shutterstock: 20 Pastel Colour Combinations

Colour Blender (Free)

• While the interface may scream 1999, this tool is incredibly handy and simple to generate shades of colours between two specified colours.
• Choose the number of colours you wish to have in the middle and the work is done for you.

Shadlowlord (Free)

• An easy and powerful sibling to the tool above.
• Input a colour and in return be offered over 50 shades of that colour as it fades to white and black.
• Perfect for when you have a brand colour and need a slight variant for your design.

Instant Eyedropper (Free, Windows)

• Installs a small eyedropper by your clock, click and drag (or click, depending on your preference) to a colour on your screen and the hex code is instantly on your clipboard.
• Quick and easy, what more could you want?
• Oh, a Mac version? That's fair. We haven't come across a free equivalent, but if you have, please let us know!

Microsoft PowerToys (Free, Windows)

• An alternative to Instant Eyedropper is the free tool kit made by Microsoft that includes a more powerful eyedropper, with history and shades.
• Includes a bunch of other handy tools, such as an always awake screen toggle and power renamer.

Christophe Brejon's Introduction to CG Cinematography

• This incredibly thorough writeup covers just about everything you'd need to know about colour, the science, theories, principles, techniques and so much more. Clocking in over 10 chapters, it's almost criminal you don't have to pay for it.
• If you ever need to understand what Gamma is, what is a linear workflow, or what ACES is all about, then this resource is for you.

Frame.io's Beginner's Guide to Colour Management with Adobe Creative Cloud Apps

• A great introduction on colour management, covering the basics such as colour space, colour modes, gamut and depth.
• Includes handy write ups on how to manage colour in Adobe apps such as After Effects, Premiere Pro, Photoshop and Illustrator.
• Frame.io also has a huge workflow book on video, available entirely for free.

FontSpark (Free)

• A really simple tool for helping you find nice looking fonts for your project. Sourced from both Google Fonts and Adobe Fonts, you know you can have access to them too.
• Can really make you consider fonts you wouldn't normally give a second chance.

A Non-Designer’s Guide to Pairing Fonts

• A nice overview for the best practices involved in pairing fonts. Super helpful for those who haven't spent a long time working with type before.

Google Fonts

• A huge collection of free fonts available for you to use on the web and in projects. Wields a powerful search function where you can search by type, width, thickness and more.

Adobe Fonts (Free with Adobe CC)

• Even more fonts you can take advantage of on the web and in your projects. Just sync them with your account and go go go!

Creative Market (Free)

• Every Tuesday-ish morning, Creative Market release 6 free goodies for you to snag. Typically this includes 2 free fonts.

Pexels Video (Free)

• Our favourite, easily. Nonsense free with solid previewing and easy downloading.
• Lots of high quality footage with clear copyright: The Pexels License means it's free to use for commercial and non-commercial and attribution is not required.

Pixabay (Free)

• You'll probably find a lot of similar content on Pixabay, but it's more of the free, good stuff here too.
• Use Pixabay and Pexels in tandem to find the best video for your situation.

Videoblocks (Paid)

• If you're finding the options above limited, Videoblocks by Storyblocks is the way to go.
• It's a subscription service, so go nuts if you're on the unlimited plan.

Pexels (Free)

• More quality content delivered for free by the Pexel team. Same copyright rules apply as their videos.

Pixabay (Free)

• Just like Pexels, there's always more!

Unsplash (Free)

• A wonderful resource that is just bursting with incredible images.
• Same copyright rules apply here too: Free forever, commercial or not, not attribution needed.

Artlist (Paid)

• Huge library of music with unlimited downloads for an annual subscription of $199USD (~$290AUD)
• Their search functionally leaves a little to be desired, we find that sorting by Newest allows for the best discovery.
• Offers instrumentals for most tracks, though this is dependent on artist.

Audio Network (Paid)

• Massive library with super robust search system.
• Doesn't offer a subscription service (at least not easily or cheaply) and instead charges per track.
• Compared to Artlist, this is quite an expensive option but still very reasonable (~$79AUD for a single track to use for a business online)
• Each track has many mixes and cut downs that really allow you to get exactly what you want from your music.

Musicbed (Paid)

• Using the best of both worlds, Musicbed offers both a subscription service and a one off track purchase.
• Their subscription runs a bit more expensive than Artlist, with their Business tier starting at $100USD a month (~$135AUD)

YouTube Audio Library (Free)

• YouTube offer their own library of music that you can use on their platform.
• Some require attribution which is highlighted by a small person icon.
• When using the music somewhere other than YouTube, they say: "YouTube cannot give you information about legal liability or other issues that can occur off the platform. You may wish to consult a qualified attorney if you have questions about your use of music."

Josh Woodward (Free)

• If you're seeking some more rock/acoustic, folk sounding music, Josh Woodward may just be what you're looking for.
• He has over a dozen albums, all available for free with each song being available with or without vocals.
• All his music is licensed as Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution, which allows you to use his music in your projects as long your credit him.

Soundsnap (Paid)

• Soundsnap has been around for a long, long time, and because of that, their library is huge and diverse.
• Unfortunately, their search function fails to really shine and makes the most of their wonderful collection difficult to discover.
• They offer a somewhat decently priced subscription service at $249USD (~$335AUD) for a year and unlimited downloads.

Motion Sound (Paid)

• This is a service pointed directly at the Motion Design community as they have packs perfect for the more corporate animations.
• They have sound effects for just about everything you'd need covering Digital, Life and the Essentials.
• Each of the packs cost around about $179USD (~$240AUD), but they also have a bundle of all three for $379USD (~$510AUD)
• They even off a FREE pack of sounds to sample and try out as well.

Motion Pulse by Video Copilot (Paid)

• For something a bit more gritty and impactful, you have the Motion Pulse sound effect pack made by Video Copilot available for $149USD (~$200AUD)
• It's robust, reliable and sounds great when you have multiple layers playing at once.
• Though, as with most things from Video Copilot, you may begin to hear the sound effects everywhere which can cheapen them a touch.

Daruma Audio (Free)

• Dmitry Novozhilov, the teacher behind the Sound Design for Animation course at Motion Design School, has released two free SFX packs.
• These utilise the Creative Commons Attribution license, so make sure you give credit!

FreeSound (Free)

• Oh, FreeSound. If you're starting out and don't have a budget for paid sound effects, FreeSound will be your best and safest bet.
• Again, always check the licensing and usage rights. Each track will have this listed on the track page for you to confirm.

Motion Tools 2.0 ($40 USD)

• If we were limited to just one script UI panel, this would be the one. It contains numerous, time saving shortcuts, such as easing, anchor points, sequencing layers, converting shape layers and so much more.

FX Console (Free)

• The biggest, smallest time saver you can have for After Effects, made by Video Copilot. Having this installed allows you to apply effects via a search box much like macOS's Spotlight Search.
• Once you have it, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it before, and make you seriously miss when it's not installed on other machines.
• Also conveniently has a screenshot button for quick image exports of your composition.

Overlord ($45 USD)

• If you use Adobe Illustrator alongside After Effects, then you need Battle Axe's Overlord plugin. With it, you're able to send shapes and paths between the two programs instantly. It's such an incredible timesaver and will slot right into your workflow.

EaseCopy (Name Your Own Price)

• Another fantastic addon from Mike Overbeck is EaseCopy. You can now copy just the easing from a keyframe and paste it onto another keyframe without pasting the value, or the reverse if your heart desires.
• An incredible tool that saves you from diving into the graph editor more than you need to.

ButtCapper (Free)

• Quickly change the cap and joint types of your strokes with this plugin, because who wants to comb through the layer to find the right settings every time?

Quickloop (Name Your Own Price)

• Makes applying the looping expressions easy as hitting the right button. Worth it especially for the third button which also loops both IN and OUT.

GifGun ($29.99 USD)

• If you are ever required to export GIF versions of your animations, you need GifGun. It turns the laborious adventure into a simplistic stroll that pays for itself almost instantly.

Ray Dynamic Colour 2 ($29.99 USD)

• In short, this script allows you to assign colours by expressions, so when you change a colour in your master palette, that change ripples to that same colour throughout your entire project. Another gem from Sander van Dijk.
• This is so incredibly helpful when you're working with brands, or stylisted illustrations with a limited colour palette.

Arttu Rautio's After Effects Scripts (Free)

• Hosted on his GitHub is a collection of scripts that make some rather tedious processes far simpler. Do note that this collection is more focused at advanced users for more rare occasions.

Shadow Studio 2 ($49 USD)

• Hands down our most used plugin.
• Creates gorgeous drop and inner shadows which are hugely customisable.
• The default drop and inner shadows pale in comparison.
• Made by local Australia legends, Plugin Everything.
• We made a tutorial on how we use the plugin to add lighting to our character animations so check it out if you wish to see it in action!

Element 3D ($199.95 USD)

• Video Copilot brings 3D into After Effects in this insane plugin. Amazing for both Motion Design and VFX.

Red Giant Trapcode Products

• Red Giant's Trapcode Suite makes animating particles and much more inside of After Effects easy and flexible.
• Unfortunately, you can no longer buy a single product or even a suite outright anymore, complete subscription only. This runs for about $1000AUD a year which makes it a hard sell.
• Also look into Stardust, a worthy competitor by Superluminal.

Deep Glow ($49.99 USD)

• Achieve gorgeous glows instantly thanks to this stellar plugin from our Brisbane boys, Plugin Everything. The default Glow effect in After Effects will never again suffice.

Optical Flares ($124.95 USD)

• If the 2004 optical flare that After Effects offers isn't cutting it anymore, Video Copilot has your back. Incredibly robust, bursting with features.

Saber (Free)

• A hot, free plugin from Video Copilot that helps you create lightsaber effects and so, so much more.

Quick Chromatic Aberration 2.0 (Free)

• Plugin Everything deliver again with a free plugin that easily slaps a chromatic aberration effect on your project in one click.

Moho ($400 USD)

• While not an After Effects plugin, we do all our character animation inside of Moho.
• It's fast, flexible, and actually makes character animation fun because of it.
• Bone dynamics, actions and an insanely fluid and responsive interface means you can be in your element, absolutely worth the price.

DUIK Bassel (Free)

• The legend itself, DUIK is no doubt the most ambitious and comprehensive free plugin there is for After Effects. Covering far more than just character rigging, this plugin is a swiss army knife that doesn't stop.
• Get a cup of tea and browse the website on just what DUIK can offer you, you won't regret it. Rainbox has done an exceptional job at making one of the best plugins out there.

Joysticks 'n' Sliders ($39.95 USD)

• We consider this plugin by Mike Overbeck to be utter witchcraft. Even if this only did facial rigging, it'd be a must have, but since it can do so much more, we wouldn't be caught without it.

Rubberhose 2 ($45 USD)

• Adam, the man behind BattleAxe, has blessed us with this amazing shape based character rigging tool. It's quick and super easy to use.

Limber ($39.99 USD)

• Another brilliant option for character rigging, like Rubberhose, from the minds of Steve Kirby and Mike Overbeck. With frequent, awesome updates this one may just take the crown.

Chunk's Favourite After Effects Expressions

• We've compiled our own list of our favourite expressions that save us a bunch of time. Go check it out!

Chris Zachary's Expression Library

• An extensive, searchable library of incredible expressions. Absolutely worth a bookmark.

School of Motion: Expressions 101

• If you're new to expressions or need a little refresh, let School of Motion help you out.
• School of Motion also have their 5 favourite functions in After Effects on this page with a video featuring them in action.

Animoplex's World of Expressions Course (Free)

• Incredibly thorough, covering the basics all the way up to some amazingly advance techniques.
• Totally free to watch and learn, but pay $10USD and you get access to the project files, offline videos and documentation.

Ben Marriott's Top 10 Expressions

• Ben has put together his top 10 expressions in one video, full of great insights and examples. He's even linked you to a Google Doc for easy copy and pasting.

School of Motion (Paid)

• Undoubtedly the current king when it comes to online courses for Motion Design.
• They offer a huge variety of courses that focus on all aspects of Motion Design for all skill levels.
• Whilst majority are paid courses, they do offer a fantastic free course called The Path to Mograph.
• If you're interested in the life of freelancing, we also highly recommend their book called The Freelance Manifesto.
• School of Motion also have over a hundred podcasts with legends of Motion Design all over the world.
• But it doesn't stop there, they have a rich blog full of interviews, articles and tutorials, as well as a newsletter covering the week's highlights.

Motion Design School (Paid)

• Offering many courses for both 2D and 3D minded individuals.
• They also have a collection of Masterclasses which are shorter, more focused sessions for a reduced cost.

Lynda/LinkedIn Learning (Free)

• Now, to start with, we mentioned the word free when Lynda is clearly a paid service. If you're a student, or you have a library card for your local library, there is a huge chance that either your university or library offer Lynda for free and all you need to do is sign in through their portal.
• While Lynda is really good at covering all the fundamentals for a huge range of programs, we find the way they deliver their content to be quite dry, at least compared to the two websites above.
• If you're completely new to a program, Lynda is a great place to start. Beyond the basics however, we recommend looking elsewhere for further learning as you'll find far more engaging content.

Video Copilot (Free)

• "Hey, what's up, Andrew Kramer here..." are all the words you need to hear at the start of a video to know you're about to learn something new inside of After Effects.
• Video Copilot has been around for so many years, their catalog of tutorials is just insane and it's only been getting better.
• While Video Copilot focuses more on the VFX side of After Effects, they do also offer a playlist for their Motion Design tutorials as well.
• Truly a magnificent resource for those of all skill levels.

YouTube Channels (Free)

YouTube, of course, cannot be ignored. In fact, we have our own YouTube channel!

Home to many incredible teachers offering their skills for free. We've compiled our favourites below:

• Ben Marriott, local Australian legend, After Effects wizard and texture king. He delivers some of the finest tutorials on YouTube.
• ECAbrams has been uploading quality After Effects tutorials to his channel for over half a dozen years now and his recent podcast, Motion Design Hotline, is wonderful.
• Jake In Motion has a small but fantastic collection of tutorials on his channel. His DUIK introductions videos are stellar.
• Gareso has recently started posting superb tutorials and workflows to his channel which showcase his brilliant use of cel animation.
• Animoplex has a huge and thorough course on expressions in After Effects. It's crazy that it's available for free.
• John Eriksson has a wonderful collection of quick tips for After Effects on his Vimeo page.

Here are some of our favourite, more VFX focused channels:

• Workbench host more advanced tutorials, focusing heavily on procedural effects. Incredibly rich with insights and complex techniques.
• Red Giant features numerous, lengthy tutorials which really showcase the potential of their products. It's a must for those that use their plugins.
• Hugo's Desk is an absolute gold mine of knowledge when it comes to compositing inside of Nuke. His eye for detail and the wealth of insight he shares make every video he releases a treasure chest of goodies.

We're always on the hunt for other stellar teachers on YouTube. If you've got any favourites that we haven't mentioned, please let us know!

Division05 (Free & Paid)

• Quality over quantity here, Divison05 has incredibly rich videos covering the broader aspects of Motion Design including storyboarding, style and composition.
• Their paid, 7 hour long course, Visual Design Lab, looks like a behemoth of a resource: "Right now, your taste exceeds your core skills, and learning more software tricks ain’t gonna get you there. This will."

Skillshare (Paid, Free Trial)

• Skillshare features many shorter classes for Motion Design (and a butt load of other mediums, programs and techniques).
• Jake In Motion, mentioned above, is a rockstar on the website for his amazing Beginner's Guide to After Effects, and Animating with Ease in After Effects classes.
• You've got other stars on there too, such as Fraser Davidson from the studio Cub Studio teaching Character Animation.
• Best of all, you can get a 2 MONTH FREE TRIAL where you can access every single class, so go wild.

MoGraph Mentor (Free & Paid)

• With some super appealing FREE courses available, such as Motion Design 101 and Photoshop & Illustrator 101, MoGraph Mentor is certainly work a look.
• Also sporting some seriously tempting courses that cover the foundations, 2D animation and 3D too that are all quite reasonably priced.
• We've got our keen eye on the Ultimate Guide To Stylized 3d Modeling course currently, looks right up our alley.

Lesterbanks (Free)

• This page is so much more than just After Effects, covering other giants such as Cinema 4D, Houdini, Nuke and Maya.
• Lester compiles the best tutorials around the web for each program and links them on his blog, so it's certainly worth a peek every now and then to see what you might have missed.

Behance

• Behance is our go to for gorgeous inspiration, and it's got so much more than just motion design.
• We love how so many projects do breakdowns, showcasing their storyboards, style frames and work in progresses.
• The more your "appreciate" posts, the more curated your For You section becomes until it's oozing work that is drop dead gorgeous.

Dribbble

• We don't use Dribbble as much, though when we do pop over to have a look it's always bursting with lovely work.
• We really enjoy how they also include little colour swatches with each post.
• You won't see many breakdowns here, if at all, as the website seems to focus on more single frame or short gifs.

Motionographer

• If you're looking for some of the finest Motion Design around, Motionographer is your go to destination.
• Beyond just jaw-dropping work, they also feature many fantastic articles and interviews to gather more insight.

Twitter

• There's some really incredible people on Twitter that are sharing tips and tricks, thoughts on the industry, their work in progress or finished work and also a handful of cat videos.
• The link above is to Chunk's following list which could prove to be a fantastic starting point (sorry, you have to be signed in to see it). Since very little people actually use hashtags when posting their work, curating a personalised following list will be your safest bet.

Instagram

• With more content than you could possibly keep up with, Instagram has more than enough on offer.
• The link above takes you to Chunk's Instagram page, from there you can browse our following list which can give you a head start on some fantastic people and studios to follow.
• Follow hashtags too, that way to you can discover new people to follow and curate a wonderful feed of the best on Instagram.

Pinterest

• Pinterest used to be one of our favourite websites to get inspiration but over the past couple of years we've found their algorithm and quality of work there to be lacking.
• While it still does have its gems, it just takes a bit longer to find them.

Holdframe

• Holdframe is a miraculous resource where full projects are posted for you to dig in and reverse engineer, for a small price.
• They also include videos with the artist that sheds more light on the best bits of their piece.
• They also offer a bunch of freebies on their site so snap all those up and start digging!

Motion Table

• The Periodic Table of Motion Design Elements!
• Beyond just enjoying each of the little animations, it can prove useful for when you're requiring some inspiration for a transition or reveal.

Milanote (Free & Paid)

• The ultimate organisation tool for us, for managing projects, clients and our lives. You can have boards dedicated to mood boards for clients, dedicated to keeping track of projects, dedicated to inspiration, just about anything you can want.
• Sharing boards means we can collaborate in real time and be across all clients and projects.
• We use this every single day at Chunk, we'd be lost without it.

Rounded (Paid)

• In mid-2020, we migrated over to Australian owned and run Rounded.
• We love the fact the it's built around Australian businesses, tax and accounting systems and it has made keeping track of our Activity Statements easy as pie.

Frame.io (Paid)

• For clients reviewing video, it can get painful when every single change ends up across multiple emails and replies. Thankfully Frame.io makes it dead simple to keep it all organised and easy to review.
• There are alternatives such as Wipster, but we find Frame.io the most robust and friendly to use.

Siteground (Paid)

• If you're looking for website hosting, Siteground should be on your radar. By far the best customer service we've received and the smoothest hosting we've experienced.

G Suite (Paid)

• Once your website is live, G Suite allows you to continue using Google's services and create emails with your new domain name, eg. hello@chunkmotion.design
• Super cheap and comes with 30GB of Google Drive too.

Slack (Free)

• Slack is a messaging service used in workplaces across a large number of industries. Functions a lot like Discord for those that use that program.
• Many communities also use it, which are listed down in the Communities section of this page, including the popular TheNode community.

Smoosh Workstations

• If you're not after building a computer yourself, live in Australia and also want something specifically made for creatives (rather than all those pre-built gaming focused PCs), you need to check out Smoosh Workstations.
• They have tailored builds for different use cases, as well offering custom builds.

PC Part Picker

• Your go to place for piecing together your own build to make sure everything is compatible.
• Do take note that majority of the builds on the website are made with gaming in mind, not After Effects or similar.

School of Motion's Breakdown

• This is the ultimate article for understanding everything that goes into a PC, as well as outlining builds of different budgets, different programs and includes a Free Computer Guide as well.
• The video included is also a great watch.

LinusTechTips

• Whether I linked him or not, you would have stumbled across this man at some point during your research and for good reason: He's very, very good. His YouTube channel is packed with quality and educational content.
• I linked above an old, but still relevant, video of his explaining how to build a PC. This is a fantastic stepping stone to understanding the process.

/r/BuildAPC

• A handy sub-reddit to ask questions or search for people that have already asked similar questions.
• Searching After Effects within the subreddit for instance can yield recent builds and conversations relating to our beloved program.

It's not what you've got, it's how you use it. Regardless, this is what we've got:

Riley's Build:

• CPU: Intel i7 10700K, 8 core @ 4.7GHz
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 3080Ti
• RAM: 32GB DDR4 3200MHz
• Motherboard: Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Elite AC
• PSU: Corsair RM750x Gold
• M.2 SSD: Western Digital Black 500GB
• SSD: Samsung EVO 850 250GB, Samsung EVO 840 120GB
• HDD: Western Digital Green 2TB, Western Digital Blue 3TB
• Case: Fractal Design Meshify C White
• Monitors: 2x Dell 24 inch P2418D

Lydia's Build:

• CPU: Intel i7 10700K, 8 core @ 4.7GHz
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 3080TI
• RAM: 32GB DDR4 3200MHz
• Motherboard: Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Elite AC
• PSU: Corsair RM850 Gold
• M.2 SSD: Western Digital Black 500GB
• SSD: Samsung EVO 850 250GB
• HDD: Western Digital Green 2TB
• Case: Fractal Design Meshify C White
• Monitors: Dell 24 inch P2418D, Dell 24 inch P2421D

TheNode

• The biggest Motion Design event for the year for us Australians. James and Kim Cowen, also known as YesCaptain, each year put together a star studded line up where anyone and everyone get together to learn, be inspired and to catch up with one another.

DLF Monthly Meetups

• The link above is for the Melbourne Digital Labourers Federation where a bunch of creatives across multiple mediums and techniques get together to drink and chat about their past month.
• DLF also occasionally holds events where industry professionals deliver a talk, sharing their insights and tips.

LoopdeLoop

• An international animation festival held every two months or so for short, looping animations relating to the current theme.
• These are then all screened across the world, including Melbourne. Fantastic opportunity to find some like minded people and watch hilarious and superb animations.

Melbourne Motion

• For us Melbourne folks that love Motion Design and don't mind catching up for a beer and a talk.

TheNode Slack Channel

• The most popular Slack channel for those who do Motion Design in Australia and New Zealand.
• Keep an eye out for us every now and then!

Motion Hatch

• What started in the UK has spread across the globe incredibly fast, all thanks to Hayley Akins. The Facebook group is buzzing with activity every single day with questions, tips and inspiration.
• She's hosted over 90 rich podcasts which focus more on the business aspect of Motion Design.

Panimation

• A wonderful community for women, trans and non-binary individuals that work in Animation and Motion Design.
• Their website has a huge directory and the Facebook group is amazingly supportive.