u/Emotional_Alarm8279

So I would like to learn to do 3D animation, but I'm specifically interested in animating, not sculpting and modeling and stuff like that. I always wondered how I could practice just the animating part, are there websites where I can download models that are already made and rigged so that I can practice? I would love to do this on Maya but I would prefer to use Blender since it's free so please let me know if you can help me out!! ❤️❤️

I've been a traditional artist since I was a kid but now I'm finally learning digital art because I want to someday work in animation.

I tend to think about the future a bit too much and since I'm, for a lot of reasons, unable to attend university and get a degree, when I look at examples of CVs and portfolios I believe that in plenty of time I can improve enough to have good art in my portfolio, that's not scary to me, but if I had to write about my experiences i would literally have nothing to say.

So my question is, since everyone says you can be in the animation industry without a degree, can you literally get into it with ONLY good art or do you need some sort of other experience and if so what could i do? Also I'm italian so I'd be interested in stuff located in Europe :)

I just feel like I'm gonna get a bit stuck because I know internships are a thing for example but all of the ones I've looked at only accept people from universities (I guess that's the point of internships?)

Lastly, I know animation is broad so I'm mainly interested in environment/prop/character design and I also have a little experience with Blender because I absolutely love 3D animation, I just don't wanna spend a ton of money on Maya right now lol