Richard Gaines turns it on

Recently relocating to Burbank from his home in Florida to further pursue a career in animation, Richard Gaines enrolled at the Academy and has gotten off to a good start.

He's a strong talent who's disciplining his approach to character design and basic drawing. Richard was quick to grasp upon the fundamental principles we impress, and as such was able to complete his first five pose character rotation in grand style.

Click on the image for a better view.

Expect to see exciting things from this arist in days ahead.

Online System Test Successful

Yesterday evening, March 17, 2011, we initiated the first session of Beta Class One to test the capabilities of the online learning management system we've been developing at the Academy. 

I'm happy to report that it was a very successful trial run. We pushed the software to its limits and everything functioned extremely well. 

The class we're running with is Intro to Digital Painting with our Photoshop instructor Glen Moyes. Glen and his team are the ones who are developing the system. The class consists of several of our instructors and a few of our advanced students. We're currently training our instructors on the system through the first Beta Class.

We're all very excited about what this means for the future of our program. The learning management system we're developing has features that will enable us to interact with our online students in unique and effective ways. I don't think there's anything else quite like it.

We're getting closer to our goal of offering a comprehensive online educational experience for prospective Academy students. I'm confident that we'll soon be at the point where we can bring in those students and establish an online community for the Academy through the classes we'll be fielding.

No matter where you are, if you're interested in The Animation Academy, you'll soon have the opportunity to be a part of it all.

Charles Zembillas
The Animation Academy
Burbank, CA
USA

Andre Medina at Disney Features

Happy to report that former Academy student Andre Medina has been accepted in a six month training program at Disney Feature Animation in Burbank. He was previously at Disney Features in an internship capacity. Now he's being invited to officially train with the studio.

Andre was a student of ours in Character Design and Visual Development. An exceptional student and outstanding artist, he followed his studies at Cal Arts.

Andre is on our roster of instructors for our upcoming Online Program.

To experience his work, please follow the link below:

http://andremedina.blogspot.com/

Congratulations, Andre! We're very excited for you. Looking forward to great things.