Latest "Before & After" - Character Design 1

Something I enjoy doing in terms of showcasing the kind of improvement our students make in relatively short periods of time is featuring their Before and After work. These following are samples of what some of our most recent students have come up with in Character Design 1 which is the entry class to or program. In the first session before any direction was given students were instructed to draw a teddy bear. The idea being that we would use their drawing as a gauge to determine the amount of improvement in their skills as the class progressed.

Here are some of the Before and After sketches students created over a period of about a month to five weeks into the class.

Edie Murphy

Carl Gilliam Jr

Hannah Smith

Kevin Hughes

Students share their thoughts

Some of our students and instructors articulate their experiences with the Academy in a recent video we've uploaded. You can find more of our videos here.

Art of the Week - March 12 2016

Latest sampling of recent work from our students and instructors...


Maia Gross

Joshua Pina

Hannah Williamson

Jamie Graham

Sara Yegan

Marcello Frisina

Lola Chee

Animated Facial Expressions - Ed Irizarry

Former student turned instructor Ed Irizarry stopped by for a visit this week. A very talented artist with many years of experience at Disney and Fox in their consumer products division. Here's a class demonstration he created when he was with us as an instructor. He animated the individual poses from the facial expression assignment in Character Design 1 to create this educational example of how to develop behavioral aspects of the subject...

We're 18 Years Old Today !!

This is the 18th anniversary of The Animation Academy! We conducted our first class in the back room of a local restaurant in Burbank California on January 19 1998...

Joel Valdez - "Frankenstein" StorySketch

Recently I assigned an exercise in StorySketch to Joel Valdez so he could practice some of his visual storytelling skills. The challenge consisted of retelling the scene from "Frankenstein" where the monster comes to life. This was something quick intended to keep his chops up over the Christmas break and also to be used as reference for our incoming students in StorySketch. Joel did a great job. Here's the results of his efforts. Click on the images for a better view...

Academy All Stars 2015

Happy 2016 to you !!

Here's some work from the Academy towards the end of last year from artists who made an impact.

Amanda Gonzales

Joshua Pina

Maia Gross

Jamie Graham

Chanaelle Chahayed

Autumn Galvin

Rajaa Alqadeeb

Lola Chee

Happy 2016 !!

This year will mark the 10th anniversary of the Academy's blog. This month will mark the 18th anniversary of the school. Here's a look at how the old year ended as we viewed the sunset in Burbank California for the last time in 2015. From all of us at The Animation Academy we wish you a Joyful and Creative 2016 !!