Hannah Smith's Latest Showreel 2017

The talented Hannah Smith - student and assistant Character Design instructor at the Academy - has updated her latest animation showreel highlighting a big leap forward with her skill level. Hannah is proficient in ToonBoom which is an industry standard software for creating traditional hand drawn animation. Take a look at her wonderful work and visit her YouTube channel for more.

Hannah Smith Demo Reel 2016

Among our up and coming talent at The Animation Academy is Hannah Smith. She's been a stellar student in the time she's been with us and functions as a teacher's assistant in our Character Design 1 class. Hannah is a self starter and has become proficient in ToonBoom Harmony which is an industry standard software for creating traditional animation. Hannah has also been developing her YouTube channel and as of this writing she has more than 4,700 subscribers. She's developing her client base and has been accepting commissions.  A great beginning to her career! You can follow Hannah on YouTube through The Blue Wolf Studios channel. The video below showcases her animation demo reel for 2016.

Academy participates at Cartoon Network Art Auction

Catching up after a very busy summer here at The Animation Academy in Burbank California. A special event was held at Cartoon Network on June 2 2017. An art auction fundraiser on behalf of the Burbank Family Services Agency turned out to be a great success. Three artists from the Academy participated by creating original works and submitting them for auction. They were accepted and all 3 sold. Pictured are Maia Gross and Autumn Galvin. Both are dedicated students who've become instructors. Missing from the photo is Academy student Jessie Finch. Congrats everyone for contributing to this exciting and worthwhile event!

Art of the Week - July 15 2017

Class work of interest from several of our talented students these past few days along with instructor demos.

Autumn Galvin

Nazil Collins

Maia Gross

Adrienne Lim

Alanna Skye Livingston

Daniel Poghosyan

Andres Lerma

Latest Student Work

Updating some of the recent creative efforts from our talented students.


Autumn Galvin

Maia Gross

Adrienne Lim

Anna Karakalou

Kya Cabunoc

Hannah Smith

Nazil Collins

Kevin Highes

Visitors from Canada

This past weekend we hosted a group of talented students and their art instructors from Red Deer in Alberta Canada for a workshop in Character Design. Professional animators Chance Raspberry, Alan Simmons and David Gemmill joined in on the seminar. Everyone had a great time.

Art of the Week - May 13 2017

Recent art from various classes ...


Daniel Poghosyan

Luke Kim

Adrienne Lim

Maia Gross

Nazil Collins

Hannah Smith

Anna Karakalou

Kaycie Day

Recent Student Work

Some assignment based artwork our students have created as of late...


Hannah Smith

Luke Kim

Brittany Stewart

Kevin Hughes

Robert Misirian

Sophia Sands

Autumn Galvin

Adrienne Lim

David Gemmill - Another Success Story

He was a local teenager when he first enrolled at the Academy. Today as an adult David Gemmill is one of the most sought after storyboard artists in animation. A veteran of Nickelodeon, Disney, Cartoon Network and currently employed at Warner Bros he's established himself as a leader in the industry. The quirky and offbeat animated shorts David creates on his own are a hit on YouTube. Here's something from his channel entitled "General Helmet"...

A Look Back at Aaron Horvath

Another of our many talented students who did very well in the animation business is Aaron Horvath. He is currently the producer of the popular series "Teen Titans Go!" at Wanner Bros TV Animation for Cartoon Network. Aaron diligently applied himself to excellence in his art and went on to lofty heights. Below are some samples of his work while he was a student with us way back in 2002. You can see more of Aaron's student work at this link. 

Check out the video below to see a quick sketch demo of Robin that Aaron created recently.

A Look Back at Taso Gionis

Among the pantheon of great artists who were once students at the Academy is Taso Gionis. He was barely out of high school when he first came to us in the early days of the school. He has since gone on to tremendous artistic accomplishment in the entertainment industry as a character designer and modeler currently employed at Blizzard Entertainment in that capacity.. This is a concept he illustrated in our visual development class around the year 2000.

Taso was a student in our very first year coming up with excellent tonal / light studies for concepts he was developing. 

Taso went on to create incredible characters at the highest level of the motion picture industry. The video below is his demo reel. This is what talent, hard work, dedication and a solid foundation in fundamentals can do for you when you stick with it and keep growing and creating. You can see more of Taso's amazing work on his YouTube channel and on DeviantArt with more of his student work here.

Character Rotations

One of the most important skills associated with professional character design is the ability to rotate one's concepts. It's an essential aspect of the production process in animation. Rotations bridge the connection between concept design and production. A good character designer should be able to accurately turn their images. Below are a few recent examples of what some of our students have created in the Character Design 1 class at the Academy.

Adrienne Lim

Anna Karakalou

Blu

Edward Qiu

Kaycie Day

Matt Fisher

Vanessa Gallo