Hey Reader!

First off, some animation news!

I've shared the Animation Obsessive substack before, but they did a feature on one of my favourite animations — Ernest & Celestine by La Parti Productions (Belgium), Les Armateurs (France), and Mélusine Productions (Luxembourg)! Give this Substack a follow if you haven't already!

​DC Comics won’t support generative AI: ‘not now, not ever’ I cannot get enough of seeing these large companies make bold commitments like this to support their long legacy of working with talented artists. This ties in nicely with Magic the Gathering's news, though their wording leaves some room for issues, in my opinion.

​‘Book of Life’ Director Jorge Gutiérrez Drops Out of Amazon’s AI Animation Push. In the same thread, I thought I'd share more positive news in the GenAI pushback. It's incredibly heartening to see fans so upset by studios' use of GenAI in their pipeline, and I encourage all of you reading this to boycott anything that is a product of GenAI. I'm sure I'm speaking to the converted here, but nonetheless!

Mahi is just gearing up to begin her first exclusive class with us, beginning in less than a week! It begins this Saturday! There's still time to enroll if you'd like to:

Since the last time I sent a newsletter, many more of our successful student interviews have been posted!

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Congrats to everyone who applied! It was a tremendously difficult year, but if you are one of many who will be re-applying, dive deep into these interviews and have a good look and listen to what they share about the process. There's some great tips throughout.

In exactly one month, we'll also be running our Summer program, called Frame-by-Frame — focusing entirely on all things 2D animation. We'll be starting with objects, then gradually moving on to characters. We'll go over all of the fundamental principles of animation, and we'll also watch some amazing inspiring behind-the-scenes of various animated productions throughout the program that are hard to find! Lectures and demonstrations EVERY week of the summer, as well as feedback. Can't wait! be ready!

You have just one month to enroll in our Frame-by-Frame Course!

I've been painting up a storm lately at my local art studio in Nova Scotia, and I've been recording some process videos of it. I learn so much about working with colours from my landscape oil paintings — I always come back into the next animation project refreshed and ready to paint backgrounds!

Here's a really early stage of a painting:

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...and here I am further along, almost at a point of completion:

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If you'd like to support my oil painting / free instructional videos, consider supporting me on Buy Me a Coffee!

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,