New to CGCOOKIE

Hi there fellow CGC newb!  I had the same question myself (been working with blender for about 6 months prior to joining).

honestly, I’m finding a LOT of value in starting with the Basics and Core Fundamentals lessons.  While I felt like I had a decent amount of experience, there’s so MUCH that YouTube tutorials didn’t teach me or details I had missed in my self-driven learning path that starting from Basics and Core Fundamentals has been a great experience and I’ve learned a lot.  Plus, the videos and practice projects don’t take too long.  But that foundation will just make you a more confident and faster animator for sure. 🥳

I believe this general “where to start” community thread has the links to those lesson journeys:

https://cgcookie.com/community/19346-not-sure-where-to-start-learning-blender-begin-here

Welcome aboard and hoping you’ll start sharing your work in the gallery or in the Community page 🤗

Yes do at least up to rigging in the core courses first. Then either carry on with the rest of core or do one of the beginner project courses. Press Start seems to be the go to as it’s both free and puts into context all the modelling, texturing lighting and rendering lessons from Core. I’d then do the fundamental courses which repeat some of the core course content but go into more detail eg fundamentals of texturing has a lot more detail and info than core texturing.
[edit: There are Core courses and (the precursor to Core) Fundamentals courses. Core courses are shorter more condensed versions of the Fundamentals]

The fact is there’s no one place to start or best route. The only definite is you just need to sit down each day with Blender and do “something” just to get hours behind the wheel. What you want to be aiming for as soon as possible is to take what you’ve learned and make something (really simple) yourself without following a tutorial. Even something really simple eg a chess set will bring up problems that will confuse you and possibly leave you stuck on “how do I do this specific thing I want to do”   At that point then ask the question here and I guarantee someone will have an answer or suggestion on how to solve it even if that suggestion is “start again”,

First, something to learn in between to help break up the monotony:

1. You can use youtube to search and learn about writing screenplays. I have a quick sheet for elements and formatting a screenplay on my old website: https://blenderclassroom.com Just click download then click the screenplay button. There is also information for fountain markdown (https://fountain.io/) and the Tin2Tin screenplay addon for Blender. I'm not sure if it has been updated for 5.0. 

2. Continuing on the screenplay aspect, you need to learn camera directions: Fundamentals: Directing the camera in Blender is good for that and for learning how to use the camera in Blender. (https://cgcookie.com/courses/directing-the-camera-in-blender?playlist=bd0ubd ). I would also recommend going to preferences->Extension and install "Add Camera Rig". This makes it easier to animate the camera in my opinion. 

3. Acting for Animators is both informative and fun. (https://cgcookie.com/courses/acting-for-animators?playlist=bd0ubd ) Also look for acting tips on Youtube. 

Second, just as everyone else has said learn the basics. Then move on to Core. I'd recommend starting with this playlist: https://cgcookie.com/playlists/8094-your-first-week-with-blender-and-cg-cookie The only thing Is I would move the modeling the car video after the CORE: Mesh modeling, but this is structed in a way to keep people from losing steam and quitting.  The Press Start is a good course too, but I just feel that this playlist has less stress for a beginner. Here is the core playlist: https://cgcookie.com/playlists/5071-core-nine-course-fundamental-learning-path. I personally would recommend going in the playlist order. One of the signs of pros is that they do lighting before they do materials. This is because the lighting effects how the material looks and feel. You only need to go up to animation. 

Third, since you want to do everything, you may want to go more in-depth on some areas. Here's a rigging playlist: https://cgcookie.com/playlists/9003-rigging-master-curriculum. If you know how to draw or you just want to add 2D element your animations here's the grease pencil playlist: https://cgcookie.com/playlists/6047-track-illustration-with-grease-pencil. Note: there have been a few changes to grease pencil. If you want to go hardcore into character creation, then here's a playlist: https://cgcookie.com/playlists/5911-track-character-creation-with-blender. Note: This one is long. The PotHead course alone is around 17 hours if I remember correctly, but it teaches a lot. From what I've seen and heard. I got distracted and haven't gone back to finish it.

Fourth, Once you get ready to start learning about post-production just post a comment here. I can help you with video editing and CORE: Compositing are a good start.