Hey Reader!

First off, some animation news!

​Canada's The Girl Who Cried Pearls wins an Oscar for Best Animated Short, and you can stream it for free on the National Film Board Website​ It's nice to see stop-motion animation getting some love!

​Bong Joon Ho Introduces ‘Ally,’ His Debut Animated Feature. He was the director who made Okja, and it looks like this will be another wonderful animal-friendly narrative.

Big news, which I'm hoping continues a significant crackdown on generative AI (images, video, or music), is that the US Supreme Court ruled that you can't copyright anything generated by AI. This video goes through how it works. Nice to see some positive development here!

We are just entering our third week of our Figure Drawing & Character Posing class!

Tonight we'll be discussing all views of muscle anatomy, and how to stylize it in a believable way.

Our Complete Animation Portfolio Bundle for 2026-2027 application years is now open for enrollment! This past year was our biggest change yet, bringing in many more instructors to teach on a wider array of different topics — from character design down to the nitty gritty of the personal work sections of animation portfolios.

For this next year, we've taken feedback from our students, and zeroing in on creating a more comprehensive schedule and homework plan for our students. There will now be monthly "summary" sessions that will help to keep everyone on track to ensure steady progression through the various portfolio artworks. You'll also receive regular encouragement and strategies to break down larger projects into bite-sized pieces, an element I'm a big fan of! There are also now 4 versions of the Bundle instead of 3. Have a look below!

We also have a new Bundle of courses called the Foundations Bundle that is suited to students that are still 2-3 years away from making their portfolios, to help prepare them for the big year when they'll be applying. It's called the Animation Foundations Bundle, and begins next September.

The first of our student interviews for this recent 2026 application year was posted yesterday! Have a look at Suhan's wonderful portfolio:

​

A preview of some of Suhan's portfolio artwork!

You can follow Suhan on Instagram here. He's also been shortlisted for an interview at Gobelins! Hard work pays off folks!

I also made a brand-new animated intro for these videos — it was time to have a frame-by-frame animation for Youtube. All done in Procreate Dreams! The cheapest animation app out there. Composited in After Effects, which I can't seem to do without for any projects! Speaking of software, you have an opportunity to learn about a bunch of filmmaking software coming up from Juan...

Our other upcoming Spring courses are still available for enrollment!

Garth's comment: Juan has studied filmmaking in Cuba, and is now studying Animation at Sheridan College, and has an amazing love for filmmaking. When I first tutored Juan a couple of years ago when he was building his portfolio, we would often spend a good percentage of our sessions just nerding out about filmmaking. Now we have found the proper outlet for this buzzing energy!

Here's his description:

This course will take you through a variety of different creative processes surrounding the creation of a (very) short film, so that you can become better acclimatized to many parts of the animation pipeline — not just isolating one skill alone. Our goal with this class is to teach you to become your own filmmaker, that is comfortable exploring each part of the process from storyboarding, to editing, to making a rough sound effects track, to adding finishing compositing touches in After Effects or Da Vinci.

Short Summary of Course:

By the end of the class, students will have a short film to express their creative vision (which also makes an incredible personal piece for a portfolio).
​
​Format: Mixture of video lecture + demonstrations with 4 LIVE 2-Hour sessions throughout the duration of the course (every other week). Live sessions will be in the evening in the western hemisphere — 6pm EDT.

Start Date: Day of week TBD, beginning week of April 13th (completed by ~first week of June)

8-Week Group Course Cost: $500 CAD | ~$360 USD | ~€310 | £266

Garth's comment: This is the much anticipated course by Mahi that I've told many of our current students about! Mahi is an incredible background painter that I've hired for freelance projects in the past, and I highly recommend her as an instructor.

Here's her description:

We’ll start by discussing creating concept images based on stories, this will be expressed through various worldbuilding exercises, and then we'll go over basic shape and design fundamentals. From there, we’ll move into designing props and a location for your world, and then finish by refining a story moment with a focus on the environment.

Short Summary of Course:

By the end of the class, students will have some design variations, prop designs, isometric explorations of their world, and a final story-focused environment piece.
​
​Format: Mixture of video lecture + demonstrations with 4 LIVE 2-Hour sessions throughout the duration of the course (every other week). Live sessions will be in the evening in the western hemisphere — 6pm EDT.

Start Date: Day of week TBD, beginning first week of May (completed by end of June)

8-Week Group Course Cost: $500 CAD | ~$360 USD | ~€310 | £266

Our first extended summer class has been posted — I'm very excited to announce our full July - end of August 2D animation class called...🥁🥁 🥁🥁

• Tons of lectures and demonstrations on all things 2D animation (1 x 2.5 hour class per week)
• Feedback every week (1 x 2 hour feedback session, maybe longer depending on # of enrollments)
• Variety of software options for students to use
• Starting with simple exercises, and moving all the way to character animation in early August!
• Analysis of existing examples of incredible animators work to deconstruct how they did it
• ...maybe the odd movie night too! 🥁🥁

One last resource — I hosted a free artwork review for students who had been rejected from Sheridan about a month ago, to try and understand the score they received. You can see the full-session here:

​

Thanks for reading everyone! Big newsletter this month.

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

____________________________________________

Cheers,