How to create NEW animations for character?

Hi Guys,

I am still a new asset developer, normal make props and environmental assets but I want to create a character as well. I will have to create new animations but I cant seem to find the right tutorials. Everything is about applying already created animations in unity and I don't want to do it the wrong or legacy way of doing animation.

I would like to make sure the animations are compatible with mecanim. To be clear, I don't want reference to the mecanim animation tutorial that shows how to use existing animations. I want to for example create an animation for milking a cow, how does one go about it? Do I create the animations frame by frame in MAYA then import into unity. Or do I create them frame by frame in unity like how you would do it for opening a door or have a fan spinning?

Any links to tutorials and videos would be very welcome.