The Animation Academy

07/22/2026

Joel Valdez was a student with us years ago and then became one of our instructors. He has since gone on to a successful career in many disciplines of art.

We've both been experimenting with AI for a while now and have been keeping abreast of its developments. One of the things that has particularly intrigued us is the possibility of using the technology to animate our own characters. Something I've termed as non-generative AI. In other words we use our own images and designs instead of generating them from an AI program and then animate them using AI as a motion medium.

That's exactly what Joel has done here with his project called "Joey".

Joel used AI to animate the first episode of his project. These are his characters. The background is designed from his concept sketch. He didn't need to have AI generate images of the characters and the environment. He just used AI to make his designs move.

This is copyright safe / copyrightable content. He's already finished episode 2 and is creating a series with the greatest of ease and efficiency.

This is a whole new direction. Joel is utilizing and guiding AI to produce his original character based video content. He is keeping pace with the studios who are all developing AI based production pipelines with this rapidly developing technology.

I will post the art he used to create the video in the comments.

A heartwarming animated short about the unbreakable bond between a ...

06/13/2026

Let's take another trip on the Academy's time machine and head back to August 2001. It was a wonderful period for our school and excellent art was being created.

In this issue of our printed schedule we see the work of many talented individuals who became superstars. We start with cover art from "The Red Star" which was a groundbreaking comic by Christian Gossett that featured 3D background designs along with coloring by the great Snakebite Cortez. This was a revolutionary thing that was being dome.

Snakebite was also our Photoshop instructor and created the layout design and the colorization of ArtShark for our schedules.

Featured art of our students and instructors includes the work of Aaron Horvath, Stephen Silver, John Nevarez, Chris Glenn, Brian Penaranda, Chris Gossett and of course Snakebite Cortez.

Our Instructor lineup was stellar. Philip J Felix, Snakebite, Thomas Perkins, Jose Lopez, Gregg Davidson, Kristen Sych, Lawrence Jackson, Chris Collins, Joshua Lam, and the animation wonderboy David Gemmill along with attorney Randall Kelley.

The Animation Academy was only a block away from Warner Bros and just around the bend from Disney. We were the heart of the animation community. We were leading the way and we still are.

More on that soon.

Thank you to all the fantastic people who were with us. You're the ones who made it great. :)

Keep Creating !!

05/30/2026

Heading back in time once again to May 2001 and we are having a grand experience at the Academy as can be seen with the excellent art we were creating. It had become routine at this point in our development.

Snakebite Cortez was designing our schedules and coloring ArtShark. They were becoming extremely popular. Our mailing list was growing as people wanted to see what was happening with us.

In this issue we featured art by Jose Lopez and Chris Ayers. We see the first designs from Alex Madrigal and Dennis Adams. Also the innovative work of Thomas Perkins. John Nevarez contributed to this issue. Christian Gossett was making progress with his groundbreaking comic "The Red Star" with digital coloring by Snakebite. Arnold Doong created a beautiful background design. Rounding things off was the fine art of the late great Philip J Felix.

We had an all star roster of instructors as well with Stephen Silver, Jose Lopez, Thomas Perkins, Philip J Felix, Snakebite Cortez, Tim Wollweber, Lawrence Jackson, David Gemmill, Joshua Lam, Chris Collins and Arnold Doong as well as a class in Business Law for Artists taught by attorney R J Kelly.

One of the things that distinguished the Academy is that many of our instructors started with us as students. They were well acquainted with how we did things and our processes which included a strong emphasis on fundamentals.

We kept churning out masterful artists as a result and everyone became successful.

One can make history if they Keep Creating. :)

05/09/2026

We're zipping back in time to March 2001 and The Animation Academy was really hitting stride as can be seen in the leap in the quality of the art in our schedule.

Once again Snakebite Cortez designed the layout and also colored ArtShark. He was our instructor in the early days of Photoshop and in addition his beautiful and innovative work was featured in this issue.

We also see great background designs from Arnold Doong and Phillip Dimitriadis.

Also of note is the very first appearance of art by Christian Gossett which was colored by Snakebite. This was the beginning of "The Red Star" which was a groundbreaking comic book in the early 2000's. The Red Star was the first comic publication to use 3D generated backgrounds. Snakebite Cortez did a magnificent job of digitally coloring the book. We'll see more examples of this featured in our schedules in days to come.

Our instructors included Stephen Silver and Jose Lopez teaching Character Design 1. Gregg Davidson was our Storyboard instructor. Joe Weatherly was teaching Animal Anatomy Design. Thomas Perkins was leading Character Design 2. The great Philip J. Felix was instructing Visual Development and the animation wonder boy David Gemmill was teaching Flash Animation for Teens.

Phil Dimitriadis, Tim Wollweber, Kristen Sych, Chris Collins and Joshua Lam rounded our instructor lineup.

Everyone at the Academy became successful. It happened because we understood that to achieve your goals one must Keep Creating. :)

05/02/2026

Put on your time travel wings and fly back to January 2001.The Academy was 3 years old and already affecting the industry in many ways.

Our schedule featured the process art of our Photoshop instructor Snakebite Cortez on the cover along with his colorization of ArtShark and his design layout.

Other students include Jose Lopez, David Gerry, a wonderful character rotation by James Krenzke and a fine running cycle by NaRee Jung. Instructor art includes Phillip Dimitriadis and the great Philip J Felix.

The quality of some of the images didn't translate well via the digital scan but you can still see how the skill levels of our students were advancing.

Our instructor roster included Stephen Silver, Thomas Perkins, Jose Lopez, David Gemmill, Arash Tirgari, and others who made their artistic mark in the animation business.

A community of great talent that was setting the animation world on its ear because they lived our motto of Keep Creating. :)

04/25/2026

Here we are taking another trip back in time to the Academy's schedule from October 2000.

In this issue we highlight the art of John Nevarez and Jose Lopez. Both intimately involved with our school for years. John wound up with Pixar and Jose with several studios during his career including Disney TV where he became on Emmy Award winning artist.

Sean Jimenez was a student and became an instructor with us. He went on to become the Background Design Supervisor on the popular TV series Gravity Falls. Thomas Perkins and Jose Lopez were instructors in Character Design 2.

Also with us as an instructor was the animation wonder boy David Gemmill who became a Director at Warner Bros TV. Several other notable names include Tim Wollweber, Phillip Dimitriadis, and the great Philip J Felix among others.

Snakebite Cortez created the layout and also colorized ArtShark as well as teaching our Photoshop class.. It would not have been possible to operate without his invaluable assistance in these areas.

So many super talented people who would go on to change the landscape of the industry. :)

04/11/2026

The Animation Academy time machine takes us back to August 2000 for our late summer schedule and look at how everyone has grown.

On the cover we see a fantastic concept illustration by the inimitable Thomas Perkins. Inside there's compositional layouts from our instructor Phillip Dimitriadis, the future Emmy Award winner Jose Lopez, and the great Aaron Horvath who will one day become the co-director of the world's current #1 movie. A star marks his work. There's also Ed Irizarry's excellent art on the back cover.

Instructor wise we see Stephan Silver co-teaching Character Design 1 with me. Yes folks ... Stephen Silver got his teaching start at the Academy.

Snakebite Cortez who created the layout for our schedule and also colored ArtShark is our Photoshop instructor in our Mount Olympus computer lab.

We see Thomas Perkins and Jose Lopez teaming up to teach Character Design II.

David Gemmill who would go on to be a great director and storyboard artist at Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Warner Bros TV is teaching Flash Animation for Teens on Saturdays even though he was a teenager himself. A natural born animator.

So many talented individuals and wonderful artists were with us. We couldn't help but have an impact on the industry. It was inevitable.

It's still going on my friends. Your influence continues to resound and will echo for many years to come.

That's because we ... Keep Creating !! :)

04/06/2026

In the news today ... "The Super Mario Galaxy Movie" co-directed by the Academy's very own Aaron Horvath is #1 in the world with a $372.5 million global box office 5 day opening weekend. 🙂 Here he is on April 3 2007 when we were honoring him at an Academy sponsored event.

03/28/2026

Here we are in our Academy time machine going back to the May 2000 semester. We can see that the program has grown. We are now offering both Photoshop and Flash Animation classes as we now have a computer lab. Remember Mount Olympus? :) Snakebite Cortez (who has been doing the layout design and coloring ArtShark for our schedules) is now our Photoshop instructor.

At this time I was co-teaching Character Design 1 with Stephen Silver. Thomas Perkins and future Emmy Award winning Jose Lopez are teaching Character Design 2. Also we see Jose teaching CD1 on Saturdays.

We see the art of Thomas Perkins, Jose Lopez whose design is highlighted by a star, the Great Philip J. Felix, and also Aaron Horvath who is the director of the upcoming Super Mario Bros 2 movie this Wednesday April 1 2026.

Others include Taso Gionis, Thomas Perkins, more from Jose Lopez, and Phillip Dimitriades. Today all artists of renown.

If you are reading this and were with us then or any other time rest assured we all made a big impact on animation that exists to this day. I thank you for that.

03/17/2026

Enjoy your Saint Patrick's Day :)