Merry Christmas 2019

Greetings to our current and former students and to everyone associated with The Animation Academy in Burbank over these many years! Wishing you and yours a Happy and Creative Christmas and a joyous Holiday Season! 

Tyler Mahn's "Pumpkin Man" - Digital Time Lapse Painting

This is a recent work created by Tyler Mahn for the Visual Development 2 class he's attending at the Academy. He saved the experience as a time lapse video and posted it to his YouTube channel "Mahnster Art". Take a look and see how he progresses from his initial gray scale version of the composition  to final color...

Shine On ArtShark

Our mascot character ArtShark has been representing the Academy since 1998. He has an interesting history and is always fun to draw and illustrate. Here's his latest manifestation. To see the creative progress behind the image follow this link.

David Gemmill Directs the New Looney Tunes

He was a local high school student when he enrolled at the Academy in our early years. Today he is a director at Warner Bros Animation in Burbank heading up the revival of the New Looney Tunes animated series. 

I'm happy and proud to share the news of David Gemmill's great accomplishments as he emerges as one of the leading talents in the industry. Not only has he established himself as a creative force he is also a mover and shaker in efforts to fight for the concerns of studio artists through his activities with the animation union.

Take a look at this video released yesterday by Warner Bros Animation. It's a teaser trailer for the new series entitled "Dynamite Dance" featuring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. Written, storyboarded and directed by David Gemmill.

Congratulations David!

Chris Collins Character Designs

I first met Chris Collins in a class I was teaching even before I started the Academy in 1998. Chris is a unique artist. A very talented designer with a distinct design sense. Yet he works in animation at a local studio in Burbank as a Line Producer (which is similar to a Production Manager) and he's a good one at that.

Chris used to be a student here in our early days. Now he attends class twice a week as an assistant instructor giving demonstrations in both Character Design and Visual Development. Here's a series of quick sketch material he came up with recently. His medium was Procreate software on an iPad Pro.

Luke Kim's Art

Luke Kim has been a dedicated ongoing student at the Academy and always comes up with unique and interesting concepts and designs. Over time he's developed his own style and is distinguishing himself by virtue of the unusual art he creates. Here's a sampling of some of his impressive work...

Hannah Smith's "Seasons" film is complete

For several months Academy student Hannah Smith would set up in class to work on her film. Hannah is an excellent character animator and she'd use ToonBoom to create her scenes and sequences.

Yesterday she publicly released her completed film "Seasons" after premiering it on Patreon for her supporters. Seasons showcases the friendship between two characters. One is a bird and the other a plant dog whose time is limited. It's a touching story. 

Here it is below for all to enjoy... 

The Art of Renee Vance

Of the many outstanding students we've had at the Academy one of our most recent is Renee Vance. She enrolled with us through our online program and took classes from her home in Pennsylvania. The following samples are assignments she came up with while taking Visual Development.

In addition to being a remarkable artist her creative productivity is astounding. Renee would come up with fantastic art that went beyond what the assignment called for in terms of quantity while maintaining an excellent standard of quality.

Renee is currently developing a fun and exciting project for a client in Los Angeles. Everyone that works with her is amazed at her creativity and the volume of content she's able to come up with.

Renee recently launched a YouTube channel which features some of her process videos. She's also on Patreon if you'd like to subscribe and have access to her upcoming content.

A visit from Don Sheean

Normally one wouldn't attach a talented artist with the demanding profession of a cross country truck driver. That said I challenge anyone to find a cross country truck driver who is as talented an artist as Don Sheean.

Don's history with us goes way back to the earliest days of the Academy when he was first taking classes. Nowadays we enjoy the pleasure of his company when he's in town and available. We had that opportunity last week when Don was in class and came up with the beautiful mermaid sketch below.

You can see more of Don's great work at his ArtStation site. Much of what he exhibits are compositions he came up with in class. As an added  bonus I've dug up some of Don's work that was posted here on the Academy's blog in the past to revisit and appreciate...

Emily Choi - A Rising Star

Another of our recent students who's making a mark is Emily Choi. She started with us last August and has been steadily growing in her skills which were impressive to begin with. Here's a few samples of what she's done from Character Design 1 and into Visual Development.

Rotations are a basic professional requirement when it comes to Character Design. They're the bridge between concept and the production pipeline. Emily did a fine job on her first attempts at this challenging assignment.

Next up is her facial expression assignment. Now that she's established the look of her character it's time to explore how that character behaves...

Getting your character moving about is another important priority in the emergence of the design. Here are a few samples of her action / attitude posing...

This is where Emily makes the transition from concentrating on the form of her designs to rendering. These are samples of her first attempts at tonal illustration using gray scale markers...

Experience with traditional mediums helps in successfully migrating towards the digital side of things. In this example Emily begins with a gray scale tonal rendering then uses that as a foundation for color. She went over her marker rendering with color pencils for a very interesting look through an unusual technique...

This is where she transitions to digital illustration. Her first assignment in Photoshop...

   

Among her most recent assignments is this color illustration she created for a new project she's developing. Emily did this full color digital illustration based upon the approach she worked with traditionally going from gray scale to color...

The Progress of Alexander Ponce

Late last summer in August 2018 a new student enrolled with us in Character Design 1. Alex had talent but as with many of our incoming artists he was raw in certain areas. Drawing from one's imagination can be a challenge and he applied himself diligently. The results of his efforts can be seen below as we follow his progress in reverse from his latest work to his earliest.

This is what distinguishes The Animation Academy in Burbank. Our students make remarkable leaps in their skill levels as can be seen in the impressive samples of Alex Ponce.