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Issue #90 | March 15th, 2026

Hey [FIRST NAME GOES HERE] 👋

The sun is back.☀️

I always say weather doesn't affect my mood. But honestly? After the insane floods we had in France, after months of grey and rain and just… heaviness — having sunny days again feels like coming back to life.

And it's not just the weather.

Everything feels like it's clicking right now.

I've been heads down for a while. If you noticed I went quiet — on LinkedIn, on socials, just… everywhere — that was on purpose. I needed to shut up and listen. To myself, mostly. Because when you're always talking, always posting, always "building in public"… sometimes you lose the plot. You forget what you're actually trying to build.

So I disappeared for a bit. Reflected. Focused.

And now I'm back — and I've never had this much clarity about what Animator Now! is becoming.

I was stuck on this question for a while — if I'm focusing so much on Freelancing for Animators, then what is Animator Now! exactly? What's the bigger picture? And I couldn't quite articulate it.

Until recently, when it all just… clicked into place.

I can't reveal everything yet. But a brand new website is coming. The whole ecosystem — Animator Now!, Freelancing for Animators, the community, the course — it's all being rebuilt from the ground up. New positioning. New clarity. New energy.

2025 was laying the foundation. 2026 is when it all comes together.

And look — I'm not going to pretend it's all zen and focused energy over here 😅

My toddler has basically decided that his bed is optional and ours is mandatory. And I'll be honest — I don't have the energy right now to spend three hours every night putting him back in his room. So yeah, he's sleeping with us. Not ideal. Not what the parenting books say. But you know what? You can't fight every battle at the same time. You pick the ones that matter most right now — and you let the rest go.

That's true for parenting. That's true for building a business.

I've also started writing on LinkedIn again, and it feels great. Reconnecting with people from the industry, sharing ideas, getting back into the conversation. There's something powerful about stepping away and then coming back with something real to say — instead of just posting to post.

So yeah. I'm pumped. I'm tired. I'm excited. I'm running on fewer hours of sleep than I'd like and more clarity than I've ever had.
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And I'm loving every minute of it! 😊

Now, let's get into this week's issue. 🔥

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The Spotlight

On a planet far away, a creature gets banished by the chief of its tribe. Exiled, disgraced, it wanders into unknown territory — and discovers something the aliens left behind. Something that introduces a concept its species has never known: vengeance.

That's the setup. I'm not going to spoil the rest. Just go watch the Youtube trailer below and the Vimeo full film here: Watch on Vimeo​

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But let me tell you what really got me about this film.

Every week I pick a short to spotlight, and the truth is — I follow my gut. It's almost always visual. I see a thumbnail, and something grabs me. A color. A composition. A feeling. And this one stopped me cold.

The entire film is orange. Not "has some orange tones" — I mean the whole palette is built from shades of orange. Every frame. Every character. Every environment. Frederic Siegel designed the whole thing using silhouettes and contrast within a single hue to create depth, space, and storytelling. It sounds like it shouldn't work. It works beautifully.

I come from a double culture — film and animation on one side, design and art direction and branding on the other. And Honour is the kind of film that speaks to both. It's graphic. It's bold. It has a visual statement that most filmmakers wouldn't dare to commit to. And the commitment is what makes it stunning.

The 2D animation is insanely dynamic. They could have gone simple — with that kind of monochromatic palette, you could get away with limited motion. But no. They went full cinematic. Camera moves, lens effects, complex choreography. You can feel the mastery behind every shot. These are animators who know exactly what they're doing and chose to push harder than they had to.

And the sound design — by Skillbard out of London — is just chef's kiss. Every single thing that happens on screen has its own sound signature. The foley work is meticulous. The music builds this otherworldly atmosphere that pulls you completely into this alien world. It's top notch across the board.

The whole film was written, directed, and animated by Frederic Siegel, a Swiss animation director and member of the creative collective Team Tumult. He made it in TV Paint — which makes the fluidity of the animation even more impressive. The man basically did everything himself.

Go watch it. It's on Vimeo (Vimeo Staff Pick Premiere).

🎬 Credits
Director: Frederic Siegel
​Production: Frederic Siegel — Team Tumult​
Written, Directed & Animated by: Frederic Siegel
​Music & Sound Design: Skillbard​
Country: Switzerland (2018)

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The Job Fair

• ​3D Animator (All Levels: Junior, Mid, Senior) - Amuse Animation · Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain (On-site)​
  ​Amuse Animation — the studio behind Messi and the Giants and a growing library of 33 original IPs — is hiring 3D Animators at every level. This is a project-based contract (estimated 12 months, with possibility of renewal). You'll create realistic, expressive character animation and collaborate closely with production leads. Hours are Monday–Thursday 8:00–16:00, Friday 8:00–14:00. Solid knowledge of posing, weight, and timing required. Bonus: you'd be working from the Canary Islands.
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• ​Lead 2D Toon Boom Animator - Halflife · Albuquerque, NM, USA
  Halflife* is a full-service production and post-production company based in Albuquerque's Nob Hill neighborhood. They're looking for a Lead 2D Animator with strong Toon Boom Harmony skills to drive animation on their projects. A great fit for experienced 2D animators who want a lead role at a boutique studio.
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• ​3D Animator - Atlantis Animation · Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain (On-site)
  Atlantis Animation is a premium CG studio known for work on Miraculous Ladybug Season 5 and the Messi and the Giants trailer for Sony. They're hiring a 3D Animator to join their international team in Tenerife. The studio works across animated series, feature films, commercials, and music videos. Another Canary Islands opportunity — serious animation work in a seriously beautiful location.

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The Random Stuff

🔥 Alex Hormozi — The Entrepreneur Mashup You Need to Hear

Beyond animation, there's a conversation I love having — and that's about building something from the ground up. Being an entrepreneur. Trying to create something meaningful without relying on anybody. We live in an era where the tools are insanely accessible — AI, the internet, affordable software — but the truth is, you still need a crazy mindset to actually build. Tools alone don't build businesses. Mindset does.
And Alex Hormozi has always been that voice for me. I just stumbled on this incredible YouTube video — it's basically a mashup of some of his best podcast interventions, and every single thing he says is so aligned with what I feel building Animator Now! every day. The grind, the doubt, the persistence, the refusing to quit. If you're building anything right now — watch this.

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Seriously, if you're in any kind of building mode right now, whether it's a freelance career, a side business, or a full-on company — this one will hit you differently. Hormozi doesn't sugarcoat anything. He just tells you to keep going, keep working, and stop looking for shortcuts. That's it. That's the whole recipe.

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🏰 Disneyland Handcrafted - The Full Documentary

So my toddler did his thing again — took over our bed, and I ended up on the couch unable to fall back asleep. Instead of doom-scrolling, I turned on the TV and discovered Disneyland Handcrafted, directed by Leslie Iwerks. And I was absolutely glued.

If you're an animator, you already have a special bond with everything Disney. But Disneyland itself? It hits completely different for me. There's something about that place that just makes me feel good — it's hard to explain.

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This documentary takes you from the very first idea of building Disneyland in Anaheim all the way to opening day on July 17, 1955. All the construction, all the financial struggle, all the risk — Walt literally betting his entire company on this crazy dream. And the footage is stunning. All restored from original 16mm film reels that had been sitting in the Walt Disney Archives for 70 years, beautifully recolored, with Skywalker Sound doing the foley work. It looks like someone time-traveled a film crew back to 1955.

Leslie Iwerks is the granddaughter of Ub Iwerks — Walt Disney's original partner and the man who actually drew Mickey Mouse. I had the chance to meet Leslie years ago at the FMX conference in Stuttgart. She was incredibly nice. She also directed The Pixar Story, which was a massive inspiration for me to keep pushing my craft. Disneyland Handcrafted is that same energy — watching people build something impossible from nothing, against all odds. Go watch it. It's free on YouTube. You won't regret it.

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🛠️ Photoshop Beta Just Dropped Something Insane — "Rotate Object"

If you're on Adobe Creative Cloud, you probably know you can run every app in beta. That's what I do. And Photoshop Beta just dropped a feature called Rotate Object that literally made me think it was fake when I first saw it on LinkedIn.

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Here's what it does — you take any flat 2D image, and Photoshop generates a 3D mesh from it. You can then rotate the object — spin it, tilt it, dolly around it — and it reconstructs everything you can't see. A flat photo becomes a rotatable 3D object. I updated my Photoshop Beta, tried it, and it was real. Not fake. Not a concept video. An actual working tool right now in the beta (version 27.5.0, dropped March 12). It uses 20 generative credits per use, with the first 3 tries free. Go update your Photoshop Beta and try it yourself. It's astonishing.

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Philippe Duvin​
Founder, Animator NOW

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