𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗻𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘆 is a weekly newsletter for animators. Every Sunday, I share short film reviews, animation tips and personal notes from life as an animator and creator. Inside, you’ll find curated shorts, animation tips, reflections on craft and career, and ideas to keep your animation and creativity alive.
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Building a community for animators (and it’s working)
Published 5 days ago • 6 min read
Issue #74 | November 16th, 2025
Smear frame from the Simpsons
Hey Reader 👋 This week was tough.
The kind of tough where you wake up and wonder if you ever actually slept.
Our 17-month-old is in a no-sleep era, and let me tell you—nothing tests your endurance like parenting on a sleep deficit while trying to keep up with client deadlines, building a community, and growing a business with half of a functioning brain 🧠🔥.
Still… I made it through.
And not just barely.
We hosted our second live workshop inside the Animator Now community—a two-hour live session focused on lip-syncing.
I animated a full shot, broke down my three-step lipsync method I’ve been using for 15 years, and showed how to get quick, solid results. Whether you’re working on fast-paced TV series or aiming for feature-quality animation, I can tell you that this system delivers.
Next week? We’ll dive into Animating Eyes: blinks, eye darts, and acting through the eyes.
Subtle stuff. But it’s exactly what brings characters to life.
And again, it’s all live. Real-time questions, real-time answers, and me animating in front of you. I also started working on a brand-new course: Freelancing for Animators.
It came out of a one-on-one call with one of our members—she had to turn down a massive contract because she didn’t feel ready to handle such a big production. So I'm building the course she wish she had when she turned down this offer.
Six lessons. How to price, how to write a quote, how to negotiate, how to onboard clients, and how to run the entire process with clarity and confidence.
The more I pour into this community, the more I realize… it’s not just a platform.
It’s a place to grow.
A place where animators feel less alone in a sometimes disconnected industry. A place where people can come together, learn together, and thrive together.
So, if you’re not part of our Animator Now Community yet, I’ll have a pre-Black Friday offer very soon that might interests you.
Use the code NOWBLACK to get 50% off the Starter Tier.
And if you’ve got any questions, just hit reply. I read every message. 😊 Oh also, if you’ve got 30 seconds left to spare…
I put together a super quick form that would really help me shape Animator NOW into the best version it can be. Your input means a lot, and it’ll directly guide what I build next inside the community.
When I first hit play, I could’ve sworn it was stop-motion.
That handcrafted look—like fabric sets and wireframe creatures—felt straight out of a Laika film. But just seconds in, it became clear. This wasn’t stop-motion. It was full-blown CG, dressed up in a tactile illusion. Au Huitième Jour (On the Eighth Day) is a 3D animated short that mimics handcrafted textures to deliver a haunting ecological parable about the fragility of life on Earth. It avoids the clichés that usually come with that territory, opting instead for something quieter, more poetic, more powerful.
It’s the story of a living world being undone by human action—but told with a visual elegance that feels like a eulogy and a warning all at once. The colors, the tactile details, the seamless motion—all of it evokes a sense of awe and sadness.
The film was made at PIKTURA_SCHOOL, a rising French animation school that’s quietly making a name for itself by consistently producing incredible student work. As S/W Curator Jason Sondhi put it: “Other French animation schools may have a longer history, more notable alumni, and more hype… yet, for my money, no institution at this moment beats Piktura at consistently producing truly great student shorts.”
It’s hard not to agree after watching this.
The color palette and fabric style also reminded me of The Boy and the World, that incredible Brazilian feature film. Same kind of handcrafted magic, same explosion of color. If you’ve never seen Boy and the World, you owe it to yourself.
From now on, I’ll include full credits for each short film I spotlight—because the artists behind these worlds deserve the spotlight just as much as their work 😊 Directed by:Agathe Sénéchal, Alicia Massez, Elise Debruyne, Flavie Carin, Théo Duhautois Producer: Carlos De Carvalho Original Music:Thomas Peyrounette (with Adèle Chavy on violin) Sound Design: Elise Debruyne Final Mix: Christian Cartier Distributed by: Patrick De Carvalho (Je Regarde)
The Job Fair
3D Animator - Weber Shandwick We’re growing our creative team for our Kuwait office and hiring a Remote Animator / Motion Designer to bring campaigns to life across PR, social, events, and brand films. You’ll create high-impact motion graphics, kinetic type, logo stings, product visuals, and mixed-technique pieces.
Freelance 3D Character Animator - Element Animation We are ELEMENT ANIMATION, a small but mighty studio known for creating character-driven stories packed with humour and heart. We create animated content for millions of our own audience, for commercial projects and for global events. Our videos are watched all around the world and we've grown a following in multiple countries. We’re passionate about storytelling, comedy, and pushing the boundaries of what a small team can do with big ideas. You may have seen our other job posts recently, we're working on a big project and we’re looking for a Character Animator to join us on a freelance basis and bring life, charm, and comedy to that and potential future productions.
Lead Animator - FBI Talent Co Reporting to the Animation Director, the Lead Animator helps bring the project’s animation vision to life. You’ll guide the animation team in translating the director’s creative intent into high-quality, responsive gameplay animations, ensuring consistency, technical excellence, and timely delivery across the production
🧠 Automation… that finally makes sense? You know I’m deep into AI and automation—but I’m often let down by how complex it still is. This week, I stumbled upon something really exciting: Gumloop, discovered via a great video from the underscore YouTube channel. It’s a visual automation tool powered by prompting, and it actually understands what you want to build. Instead of wiring up 37 tiny parameters node by node, you just describe what you want and it assembles the logic for you. I built a flow in minutes—not perfect, but miles ahead of starting from scratch. If you’ve got repetitive tasks or digital workflows you dream of automating, give it a shot. You even get a bunch of free credits when signing up.
💀 Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (Netflix) I finally watched del Toro’s Frankenstein—and wow. The storytelling was beautiful, layered, emotional. It felt like a father-son story hidden within a gothic epic. Also: del Toro is launching a stop-motion animation school in Paris, in partnership with Netflix and Gobelins. That’s huge.Even though he once ended a keynote by saying “f*** AI” (😂), I can’t help but admire his dedication to craft, story, and world-building. He’s up there for me with Peter Jackson and Spielberg—directors with entire universes in their heads.
🎤 Teleprompter breakthrough: PromptSmart The problem with most teleprompters? You’re chasing the words. It kills your flow. But PromptSmart is different. It listens to your voice and only scrolls when you speak. If you pause, it pauses. If you improvise, it waits. Game-changer. Especially for course recordings where every second counts. But PromptSmart is different. It listens to your voice and only scrolls when you speak. If you pause, it pauses. If you improvise, it waits. Game-changer. Especially for course recordings where every second counts.
📲 I want to vibe code an app For a while, I’ve been dreaming of vibe-coding an iPhone app using Lovable + Lovable Cloud—a new platform that handles the front-end and back-end through prompting. No need for Supabase or extra integrations. Just tell it what you want and it builds the whole stack. Here’s my silly but real idea: An app for air fryer cooking times. That’s it. No recipes, no fluff. Just the food type, the time, and the temperature. Because honestly, I’m tired of scrolling 5 pages to find out how long it takes to cook a chicken breast 😅 Let me know if you’re also an air fryer nerd. Might give me the motivation to actually build it next time I have a creative window!
PS. Some links in the newsletter are affiliate links. PSS. Was this forwarded to you? 👉 Subscribe here PSSS. Hit reply any time. I reply to every single email.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗻𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘆 is a weekly newsletter for animators. Every Sunday, I share short film reviews, animation tips and personal notes from life as an animator and creator. Inside, you’ll find curated shorts, animation tips, reflections on craft and career, and ideas to keep your animation and creativity alive.
Issue #73 | November 9th, 2025 Smear frame from the Iron Giant Hey Reader 👋Something’s shifting. Not all at once—but quietly, steadily. And it kind of started with the vlog. There’s something raw about it. I turn on the camera, talk straight into the lens, press publish—and that’s it. No editing, no polishing. Even the thumbnails and titles get about 30 seconds of thought. It’s not strategy. It’s therapy. And weirdly enough… it’s working. By letting go of control, by staying loose, I started...
Issue #72 | November 2th, 2025 Smear frame from Lego The Movie Hey Reader 👋I’m writing this with a smile on my face. For the longest time, I feared the launch of Animator NOW would be a total flop. You know, one of those ghost-town launches where nobody shows up and you start questioning every life choice that got you there. But… a couple of people showed up. And somehow, we now have a real community forming — slowly but surely. 🎉 I didn’t expect much, to be honest. In the entrepreneurial...
Issue #71 | October 26th, 2025 Smear frame from the Simpsons Hey Reader 👋This week’s Animation Sunday arrives with a quiet kind of thrill—and a whole lot of meaning. As I write this on a Thursday afternoon, I’m getting ready for something that honestly gives me goosebumps just thinking about: the launch of the Animator Now community. If you’re reading this on Sunday, that means the doors have opened. Maybe you’re already inside. If that’s the case: welcome. I mean it. I’m so happy you’re...
