Hey mede nederlandse animator, Free software for analog 2D animation: Monkey Jam http://monkeyjam.org/ (Just take pictures of hand drawn images and load the image sequence in monkey jam to time your "line test") Free software for digital 2D animation: ? Free software for CG animation: Blender Free software for 3D sculpting: Sculptris Free game engines: Unreal, Unity 2D game software for beginners: Game maker (it's dutch and you can make 2D animations with it too) If you are a student (like me), you can download professional software for free or very cheap. (Autodesk maya, Adobe AE etc.) I hope this helps