Hey Reader,

Here's some news from the world of animation!

​ New Moho animation software update makes a huge step towards using your animations to import directly into game engines! Here's a longer tutorial on how it works: LINK​

​ A beautiful new Canadian stop-motion animation in partnership with the NFB — read more about it here.

It's been a while since our last newsletter, which is usually the telling sign that we are in the thick of our main yearly program, the Complete Animation Portfolio Bundle. Our students have been enjoying a lot of diverse programming under the large umbrella of animation, with some additional bonus sessions that I've been really excited about. Some of the highlights have been:

• Occasional lectures on what it's like to attend animation schools around the world — to this point we've had a student from the Animation Workshop (TAW) in Denmark share their experiences, as well as a student from Gobelins. In a couple of weeks we'll have a student share their experiences from Emily Carr's Animation program in BC, Canada. The last school show-and-tell will be for Sheridan College in December.
• Weekly Group Feedback Sessions with our numerous instructors to help them progress through their portfolio work
• Weekly Figure Drawing Sessions (virtually) to help our students develop a figure drawing practice even without access to a local class
• Drawing Club Workshops every week to help challenge our students' drawing abilities through a wide variety of different approaches and subject matter choice.

That's just a short preview! We'll even be hosting our first online film screening for the wonderful documentary called the Persistence of Vision, which highlights Richard Williams' unfinished film, the Thief and the Cobbler. This is the first of many films we hope to introduce our students to.

Our news!

New Program Next Year to Help Students Train Earlier

One of the requests we get frequently from parents is that they'd like their teens to get started with rigorous artistic training to better prepare them for their final year of high-school when they're actually working on their application portfolios. While our Complete Animation Portfolio Bundle is the program we recommend for anyone in their final year of high-school, or for anyone who is going to be applying to animation schools this year, many want to get started earlier, perhaps even as early as Grade 9, or "freshman" year in the American school system.

We're redoing our Animation Foundations Bundle beginning next year, which will more closely resemble the structure of our Complete Animation Portfolio Bundle — read: more live sessions! We are shifting our focus from video lectures and then accompanying feedback sessions, though this will still be a component of the sessions. Instead, we'll continue to bring in our wonderful instructors from a variety of animation schools (and graduates of) to teach live classes with far more person-to-person interaction.

We also want to focus a lot more on student-to-student collaboration and overall comradery. While high-schools don't always offer the best experiences for group work, it is such an important skill to foster for College / University as well as future work as animators. In all of Garth's current freelance animation work, he often pulls in others to help in small or large ways, depending on the project. It also makes life as a freelancer a lot less lonely!

The early enrollment for Semester 1 (late Sept - mid - Jan) or for Semester 2 (Feb - late May) is now OPEN

Wait List Available for Complete Animation Portfolio Bundle 2026-2027

We're currently about half-way through our Complete Animation Portfolio Bundle as we near towards the end of November, and we're still getting many emails from students wishing they'd joined back in September! For anyone that hopes to join us next year, please join our waitlist below to ensure that you get first choice! Like this year, we'll only be giving away a certain number of seats, and this was the first year that we have sold out!

I've shared this snippet before, but I want to share it again for any of our currently enrolled students:

How to get the most out of your sessions with us

Since we've had a large influx of students enroll with us for this portfolio season, I wanted to share some strategies that have worked for some of our past students who've been accepted into the top animation programs:

Book multiple sessions in advance.

It is much easier to give yourself a hard deadline if you book multiple weeks of your one-on-one sessions with us in advance. Don't worry if you need to reschedule them, you can also do so directly from the calendar event in your chosen calendar (Google Calendar or iCal).

Since we're in the portfolio season now, I'm also going to ask all students to book by Sunday at noon if they'd like to have a session in the week to come. This allows me to plan my week more effectively (but this will only apply to myself, Garth, not our other instructors).

Combine your artworks into one or few files

This makes each of our sessions together more effective because then I won't have to spend the first 5-10 minutes of each of our sessions together simply arranging your files. This is described in our Homework Submissions guidelines. Also, please don't submit HEIC files — JPEGs or PNGs are it.

Make notes during the call

While I remember to record 95% of all Zoom calls, occasionally I do not hit record. Either way, it is more effective for your learning to write down notes of changes to make to your artwork or your approach towards your artwork as it comes up in the call, rather than relying on the video-recorded zoom call afterwards. The knowledge will be far more present if you're making your own notes while on the call. It can also help to write up your own summaries after the call to help you internalize the information shared.

Bring more artwork than was asked for

This is another thing that I say year after year — these animation programs have gotten so competitive that you really need to go above and beyond to get accepted. I've even created an additional list of artwork that you can bring to feedback sessions to help "beef up" your homework. Remember that, even if you're enrolled in a specific course, you can always bring any other work on top of what is required for the course. This is why we have 1 hour feedback sessions (for the 30 min review sessions for individual courses, I can only review the required work for those courses), it allows you bring anything else that you're working on for us to provide our feedback on.

Have specifics questions in mind with your homework

Whenever I'm working on artwork for a client or for myself, I find I always generate lots of internal thoughts along the way. Maybe it's just me, but I find my mind is quite busy while drawing or painting. If this is you too, write down any questions you have about the process while you're making your artwork and feel free to ask during our call. Our sessions together are for you! Remember this — you can talk about anything you'd like that you're experiencing along the portfolio-making journey. Examples: "Does this perspective make sense to convey this scene?", "Does my character look like an anti-hero?", "Is this character original enough to stand out?", "How can I make my storyboard more clear?". All great questions!

Some Gifts for You

• Not sure what program or what tech to use to draw? Well, we've been hard at work updating and perfecting our website's tools page to include the most useful, well priced software and hardware we can find.
• Also, here is an extensive guide to give you everything you need to know about the Sheridan portfolio! Sheridan Animation Portfolio Guide - The Animation Tutor + BrokenDraw.pdf​

That's all for now folks!

As always, if you have anything you'd like to ask about in this newsletter, don't hesitate to reply — take care everyone!

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Cheers,