Rusty Animator School

Chapter 1 of 6 · 6 min read

My Traditional School Mistakes

It all seemed so clear. So simple.

Go to a great animation college – work harder than everyone else – get hired by Pixar.

Then relish a lifetime career that will never feel like a job — as it does for most people.

Oh, how naive I was.

And I wanted it all FAST.

So I dove into a “top tier” university with an accelerated program to get a bachelor’s degree in just 2 years.

What was the tuition?

$100,000+

(Yeah — that much.)

But it was all worth it if it got me to Pixar or Disney —Right!?

So without hesitation I signed on the dotted line.

From day 1 I buried my head in classwork – determined to ace every semester (which were only a month long).

Because I didn’t want to have a normal 9 to 5 Monday hating job.

Because I wanted a career that would never feel like work. And to make art that would inspire millions.

Thick dark circles soon sunk into my eyes as all nighters became common practice.

60, 70, 80, 120 hours of school work each week – sure.

Whatever it took to stand out.

Whatever it took to be a perfect prodigy artist.

And it worked.

Whatever the subject I did great. 3D modeling, rigging, lighting, even classes that seemed completely irrelevant like college mathematics or English composition — I crushed it.

In a couple months I quickly rose to the top of my class, then to top of my school, and I received a lot of praise for my efforts.

I was winning all the battles but I had no idea I was already losing the war.

Then 1 day about halfway through my 2 year program I took my head out of the sand — I mean classwork — for 5 mins to come up for air.

5 friends were huddled over a single 15″ mac laptop laughing and I went over to see why.

Turns out they were watching something called an animation student showcase on YouTube.

Apparently it was a compilation of the best student animations for the year from the world’s first online animation school.

I never even heard of this school before. How did I miss this?

Immediately I wanted to see how good these animations were. To prove how my hard work was paying off yet again. To prove to myself I was going to Pixar.

Within seconds I was laughing along with my friends.

Entertained by each gag I saw.

And after a minute or so that excitement was instantly replaced with shocking horror as it hit me….

• “Oh my god.”
• “All of their animations look far better than anything I’ve made since coming here.”
• “All their animations are far better than anything I’ve seen anyone do here at all.”
• “Has any student ever been this good at this school?”
• “I’ve never seen examples as good as this here”
• “Where did our best animation students even end up working?”
• “Why did no one ever mention how many animation students got hired from this school”
• “Oh god – did I go to the wrong school?”
• “$100,000+ down the drain?!?”

This all hit me rapid fire as the result of the student showcase played on. And my authentic laughter shifted into forced chuckles.

When the agony was over I buried my head back in the sand (my classwork). Determined to work my way out of this problem. Determined to ignore what my gut was telling me.

From that day forward though doubt and anxiety never stopped building in the back of my mind.

Day after day from semester to semester randomly I’d wonder…

• “How would my animation skills stack up to them?”
• “Would those animators take my dream job?”
• “Would I actually become as good as them by the time my schooling was done?”

And the doubt and anxiety really got out of hand when I dug deeper.

I was horrified to discover…

…That this online animation school only had their students do nothing but animate for 2 years.

No lighting, no compositing, rigging, modeling, scripting, English composition or math physics – just animating.

Not only that but the teachers at this online school were all working professionals at my dream animation studios!

They worked at Pixar, Disney, Dreamworks, and Blue Sky during the day and taught classes after work!

How could you not learn so much about animation from pros like these?!

I also saw that students in the animation showcase were getting hired at all those same amazing studios. Pixar, Disney, Dreamworks, Blue Sky, Sony, Blizzard, Weta, ILM — on and on.

This built up a lot of disdain for my college classes:

• “Why can’t I learn like that?!”
• “None of my teachers are working at Pixar or Disney right now.”
• “And Why do I have only 3 or 4 animation classes total for 2 years?!”
• “Why should I be forced to learn lighting and rigging?”

My grades started to slip.

I started trying to put minimal effort into everything that wasn’t an animation class. And I tried to fight the curriculum of the school by animating extra on my own time.

But it was like trying to swim out to sea in hurricane waters.

I couldn’t put enough hours in with the demands of school.

And I didn’t have help from professional animators to show me how to reach the next level.

So I knew I was failing.

This brought anxiety and doubt to new heights.

And it all came to an overwhelming tipping point in my final class at the school.

The night before I was supposed to present my animation demo reel in front of all the animation teachers, and hundreds of students — I collapsed in complete depression in my apartment.

My demo reel was a complete failure in my eyes.

It was never going to get me a job.

So I was a complete failure.

And for most of the night I dug deeper into the abyss. Convincing myself I would never become an professional animator. That I wasn’t talented enough.

At some very early morning hour I reached a breaking point where I couldn’t wallow any lower — and I passed out.

When I woke up, I realized I dumped a year’s worth of anxiety and depression in one night.

And with how terrifying it was I decided to just let go of all of it.

To let go of the tight grip I had on my dream.

To celebrate my hard work for these 2 years regardless of the outcome.

And to just have fun for the final days of school.

It was the exact mental shift I needed.

My demo reel presentation went amazingly well.

All the teachers and students that watched it were over the moon about my animations.

And I ended up graduating valedictorian.

Hundreds of job applications followed a couple weeks after (including the top studios like Pixar, Disney, and Blue sky of course).

Chapter 2 of 6 · 5 min read

My Online School Mistakes – Part 1

What was the result of applying to Pixar, Disney, Blue Sky and tons of small animation studios for an entire year?

I’d love to tell you I went straight to Pixar.

I’d love to tell you all the struggles were over.

But the only response I heard was crickets.

Just Slow. Torturous. Silence.

Day. After. Day. For 12 months.

No jobs offers ever came.

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Not even a single rejection letter.

Which was far worse as it meant my art was so bad – I was so bad – that I didn’t even exist.

And when minutes passed like hours — I had all the time in the world to think of why. As well as to beat myself up for it.

• Is this what I get for $100,000+ in tuition?
• For my bachelors degree?!
• Would my parents have to bail me out for the rest of my life?
• Why Did I even go to this school?
• How could I have been so stupid?

That old familiar doubt and anxiety crept back in and took hold for most of that year.

Until I realized the darkness had no answers.

That the only choice I had was to bite the bullet and face the music.

My demo reel, my current skills, and my degree clearly weren’t going to get me an animation job.

I saw two options:

• Quit and live a normal job hating 9 to 5.
• Or Go back to school —-this time at that online animation school.

The choice wasn’t easy.

As it meant spending another $18,000 and dedicating another 2 years of my life — to a career I wasn’t sure would pan out.

But with a hope, wish, and a prayer I dove in again.

And as soon as I signed up I was giddy like a kid on Christmas.

Daydreaming about:

• All the animation pros I’d learn secrets from at the best studios
• How good my skills would be be after 2 years of nonstop animating
• And all the job offers that would finally set me free!

Armed with the wisdom of my bad college experience – I came in day 1 with a new game plan:

• Suck it up and move back in with parents so I can focus on non stop animating 40, 60, 80+ hrs a week for 2 years.
• Surround myself everyday with the most talented and hungry students in the school to tackle our struggles together.
• Make everyone’s jaw’s drop with my animation — earning a place in the new animation showcase on YouTube.

The first class was on the fundamentals of animation.

Simple shots like ball bounces, pendulums, and walks.

Basic skills that despite my college experience I knew I had down pat.

They were child’s play and I was going to look like a prodigy in class.

Boy was I foolishly arrogant.

Starting with a simple ball bounce my mentor from Pixar served me humble pie.

He pointed out how the ball momentum was off — suddenly getting faster in the middle of a roll and slowing down abruptly with a bit of sliding as it rotated. How the squash and stretch wasn’t angled correctly.

That the distance of the arcs varied too much. Etc, etc.

Nobody had EVER critiqued me in such high detail. Especially for a simple ball.

And it continued. Into. every. animation.

I made 1 ball look as heavy as I could while another was as light as a beach ball. He told me the heavy ball felt floaty, and the beach ball didn’t float enough. That the key was in the timing and spacing — an animation principle I thought I had figured out.

I thought I succeeded in making smooth overlap with a ball and tail. He said “well not every shot can be a homerun.”

When animating a normal walk forward, something I had done in school before several times, I realized I had no idea where the hips hit their extreme rotations in y and z. He noticed.

Each basic animation wasn’t a cake walk at all. It was frustrating agony for this “valedictorian”.

Week after week I was shocked -no-humiliated.

Especially when I compared myself to my new talented classmates. One of who, Rob, actually seemed like a prodigy. And he was fresh out of high school!!

I was nervously jealous. Even in this basics class everyone seemed to be sprinting straight for Pixar — leaving me in the dust.

“Why am I not keeping up?!”

Of course I started blaming myself.

But also, the entire first class, something felt off me about my mentor.

Early on, I assumed the 2 hr lectures each week would maybe fill in the gaps there. Like maybe we’d get clear animation demos on each exercise or something like that.

Instead, the lectures didn’t seem to have any plan from week to week. He’d play a classic Disney shot he loved and drone on for 2 hrs about it. I couldn’t connect any of the dots back to the basic struggles I was having.

And when he was really unhelpful he’d talk about the soccer game on tv, or introduce us to his kids.

I expected more.

And I wasn’t alone. The entire class felt the same way. After the first few weeks many would disappear from the lecture or hide their webcams.

In fact, the classmates that did really well, you know the ones leaving me in the dust — they were just naturally catching on quickly on their own. And they were the few among the many.

Overall, this first class at this “great” animation school left me worried. Worried that my time and money would get wasted. That I would move ahead into the next class unprepared for the harder animations.

Maybe I was wrong though. Maybe this was just a “one off” mentor whose teaching style was hard for me to grasp. Maybe the next class would be far better.

How do you think it went?

Chapter 3 of 6 · 4 min read

My Online School Mistakes – Part 2

So how did my 2nd class at this top tier online animation school go?

Was the first class, the first mentor just a one off experience that just didn’t work for me?

I think the reality will surprise you.

For the 2nd class, I was randomly sorted into class with a new mentor. She had worked at Blue Sky, Dreamworks, and was now at Disney on some of the latest animation blockbusters.

Best of all, most of my new talented animation friends got into the same class.

We were extremely excited to be all in this together, with an experienced mentor, and to start creating cool body mechanics animations like parkour vaults.

Turns out it was far worse than anything we could have ever imagined.

Her critiques were confusing and contradictory to everything we had learned so far. The more any of us followed her advice the worse our animations got. And the more she bashed our shots too.

And by bash – I mean shame.

She shamed students for their mistakes, making some students even cry on camera during lectures.

It didn’t take us long to realize the unthinkable. She actually didn’t know how to animate well at all. And even though she somehow found a way to work at studios like Dreamworks — she didn’t actually stay at those studios very long.

Needless to say, all the students in her class didn’t learn much. The prodigy classmate friends of mine like Rob still did ok without her help. Everyone else struggled like hell though.

The problems I had carried over from my first class – exponentially snowballed with her.

And my animations got so bad by the end of this 2nd class I was ready to quit.

If every class was going to be like this I wasn’t going to be able to take it. It would be another massive waste of money, time, and what little confidence I had left.

“Maybe I’m just not cut out for this anyway. I’m not like Rob. I’m not a talented prodigy. I just don’t get it.”

With these thoughts and the start of class 3 looming — I looked at what students in other classes – with other mentors – were animating.

I was looking for evidence to quit or stay.

• How were their animations compared to us?
• Compared to me?
• How behind was I?
• How were their mentors critiques?
• Did their mentors have more skill or seem to actually care for their students?

Most of the animations I saw were “meh”.

Most of the mentor critiques felt like that too.

Coincidence?!

At least those mentors seemed to care more than mine though. That was something. But would it be enough to get to Pixar?! Or any animation job at this point?

All this evidence was quickly tipping the scales towards the quitting side for me.

Then I saw it.

I hit play on a critique from a friend of mine, Richie, who was having a blast with another mentor.

In the critique he broke it all down. This mentor not only knew his craft — he was going the extra mile for all of his students to explain things and to encourage them when they struggled.

Richie had the same background as me. He went to a top animation college and dropped more than $100k in tuition. Only to graduate jobless with mediocre skills.

The only difference is his degree took 4 years instead of my 2.

Yet here I saw Richie excelling past me! If he could do this – then I could too!

I wished I could learn from a mentor like his. I needed a mentor like that for my 3rd class!

Class 3 was halfway through the animation school program. It felt very make or break for me. Either I get a great mentor or I quit.

Chapter 4 of 6 · 7 min read

My Online School Mistakes – Part 3

Having lost almost all faith in becoming an animator – I gave this “great” online animation school one last shot.

And in class 3 luck finally started to smile at me.

I found out there was a mentor like Richie’s that was available.

In fact, as chance would have it – it was the exact same mentor that Richie had!

He just decided to teach the more advanced class for the next semester.

Getting him as a mentor was still up to chance though.

We weren’t allowed to choose our mentors directly.

All I could do was lie about my time availability so it only matched his schedule —- to give me the best shot of getting in his class.

And the lie worked!

This is what I had to do! I had to hunt for the “good” mentors. And cheat my way into their classes if need be!

With very little confidence and a ton of animation baggage I started class 3 hoping for a miracle.

My hand was shaking like a 90 year old man when I submitted my first animation for critique to him.

I think I was terrified that somehow, some way, I still made a major mistake. Like he wasn’t the mentor I’d thought he’d be. Or he’d prove that I just don’t have enough talent to do animation.

But his first critique was everything I could have hoped for.

The difference between mentors was night and day.

He told me straight up about the skills I had struggles with. No sugar coating. Just the truth.

“Your animations from class 2 lack weight and fluid overlap. Especially with the spine. And those issues are showing in your early blocking here. You also need to lean your character more horizontally for a line of action that matches where he’s pushing.”

He then went the extra mile compared to other mentors:

“These struggles are normal, and It’s normal to be frustrated at this stage.
But I think the idea you have for your character as a medieval wile e coyote is fantastic.”

Finding out there was something I did great — made me glow like a christmas tree and fist pump like a maniac. “YESSSSSS! VICTORY!”

And it was so reassuring to hear that my struggles are normal. Even though I was still frustrated and comparing myself to classmates like prodigy Rob.

Week after week my mentor was slowly course correcting my skills and encouraging my strengths.

Each recorded critique was only 10 minutes so the time was super limited. But they were a far more valuable 10 minutes than anything I had before.

And it was enough to start making progress again, to start rebuilding confidence in my skills as an artist.

Plus, in one random lecture, I was beyond ecstatic when he decided to bring in a coworker who animated the Lion King.

And to my surprise he showed him my animation — live — saying:

“Rusty came up with this super entertaining looney tunes style story that
runs across 3 animations you gotta check it out.”

“Oh hahaha that is pretty funny”

This is ground control to Major Tom. Rusty is a rocketman!

These random events, this extra effort from my mentor meant everything.

And before I could blink Class 3 was over.

Yet during that time I made massive progress in overcoming my setbacks from classes 1 and 2.

Compared to all other classmates my animations felt good overall. Not Rob prodigy level. But good.

And seeing this progress, I remember wishing so bad that I didnt have to move on so fast. Wishing to stay at this level of animation, with this mentor longer.

So I could catch up —really ironing out the body mechanic struggles that still felt clunky.

I didn’t feel ready for Acting in Class 4.

Maybe it would all work out though? Maybe if I could recreate my class 3 experience with another great mentor?

After scouting out who might be a good one, I rolled the dice and lied about my schedule again.

And it worked again!

This time my mentor wasn’t particularly good at helping with body mechanics. But she was fantastic at taking my acting / storytelling skills to a whole new level.

In doing so she also pushed me to trust my ideas, trust my creativity, letting go of what people “might say” about my art.

This was HUGE!

And it led to a very strong acting animation for my demo reel. An animation that felt like it could get me a job.

Was the rest of school a fantastic experience?

Well not exactly.

For Class 5 using the same scheduling cheat, I landed a mentor with a lot of my talented friends.

(At this time I also found out my friends were using the same scheduling cheat this whole time and somehow I missed the memo).

They swore he would be an amazing mentor given his years at Disney as well as the critiques they saw.

And for most of them he was.

For me 2 character acting pieces where they moved around a room were too much to handle.

I was still anchored down by the skills I struggled with in Class 1, 2, 3. I needed more time to wrestle with them or for someone to show me step by step how to make my characters move better.

This Disney mentor didn’t really help me there. He seemed frustrated or uninterested in explaining more of the basics. He’d point out:

“hey that head arc is off and this character is moving too much here.”

But he wouldn’t break down step by step how to fix it.

From week to week, as my animations didn’t improve much, I felt his interest in critiquing my animation wane.

Afterall he had students who were crushing it -my prodigy friends. For them with their Disney level shots he was far more enthusiastic and helpful. Why should he waste energy on me?

So I finished class 5 feeling left in the dust again.

It was a horrible waste of a class for us non-prodigies.

And it was strange that the entire time there.

Class 6 was the final class in school. My DreamWorks mentor was probably the best available at the time.

He had a fantastic eye for polishing up animations and encouraged my entertaining ideas.

He also gave solid advice about what should go on demo reel when, as well as what new animations I should make.

But half my time in class 6 was spent trying to animate a new 2 character acting piece. I tried my best but just couldn’t get it working.

Before school was over, I decided to ultimately cut my losses and I created a new shot at the same level as my class 4 animation.

Thankfully it was entertaining and it got my DreamWorks mentor laughing. I prayed it would be enough.

But I had my doubts with all the ups and downs I had along the way.

Especially looking at my talented classmates with they’re impressive 2 character acting pieces and far more fluid action scenes.

I wanted to finish school with a bang! With a demo reel that made people’s jaws drop. That made animation studios fight over me with job offers.

Instead I just felt okay. Compared to my traditional university experience and how my first classes went here I was massively better.

Chapter 5 of 6 · 4 min read

My Online School Mistakes – Part 4

In the last few days of school, I assumed we’d finally hear about how we should apply for jobs.

How we could best get the attention of studios like Pixar or Disney who everybody wanted to work for.

How many studios big and small we should apply to, and how long we should wait for responses.

Certainly the school would help us right? Like if our skills are good wouldn’t the school put us in touch directly with recruiters at animation studios?

We took time to make pretty resumes, demo reel title cards. We even heard fun statistics like:

“2,000 animators apply to dreamworks every week.
It’s statistically easier to get into the NFL than into Feature Animation.”

How to best apply for animation jobs though – was left a mystery.

Like something only elite artists whisper about when nobody else is listening.

And the school never set up any connections I’m aware of.

I’m convinced a few prodigy students had some secret talks with mentors they impressed.

But I definitely didn’t have that experience.

Ending school for me was more like:

“You have your demo reel, now apply online and good luck. Bye.”

And suddenly I felt the same as when I graduated University as Valedictorian.

I would apply with my new demo reel online and wait. Probably for months.

And I was not looking forward to watching the clock everyday. The tortuous silence as nobody responds. I remembered it all too well.

Especially while family says:

“You graduated — great! So when do you get a job?
When do you go to Disney?!”

Ugh. They had no idea that finding an animation job was completely different from getting a job at McDonald’s or Walmart.

How few animation companies actually offered jobs compared to normal 9 to 5s.

At least this time I had really talented animation friends that we’re in the same boat. One of them was sure to get hired – right?

I thought that would give me some sort of idea for when I should hear back from companies.

Every week we also teamed up on finding smaller, lesser known animation studios with job openings. Scouring the web, talking to all our contacts for what information they discovered.

And we could at least talk about the tortuous wait together.

Months went by. For all of us.

Filling out one online application after another.

Writing more and more cover letters that maybe nobody was reading.

The doubt grew. And grew.

None of us were getting interviewed – let alone hired.

“If my talented friends aren’t even getting interviewed I’m screwed.”

Until one friend, Tim, found a job opening that JUST popped up at a very unknown company.

Tim told me about it the second he found it and we applied immediately together.

Then in a couple days he landed an interview!

Turns out the animation supervisor of this studio who did the interview used to be a mentor at our school! A mentor we all wished we could have had.

And he asked my friend if he knew anyone else who might be interested in working there.

DING, DING, DING.

In a flash I was interviewed. Apparently he watched my reel and laughed out loud. “OH!? MUSIC TO MY EARS!”

Which animation made him laugh I wondered?

The acting piece I made in Class 6? The most advanced shot I could make!?

No.

My body mechanics shot of a Wile E. Coyote style Medieval guy from class 3.

It wasn’t so much the mechanics as those were still ‘meh’.

It was my ability to tell an entertaining story. A strength of mine that thankfully 2 good mentors encouraged.

That – got me the job offer.

The catch?

It was an unknown small company in Singapore. They were looking to create a high quality tv show with looney tune style gags for kids.

Having never traveled outside North America I was hesitant. Where was Singapore exactly anyway?!

As Tim and I chewed on the thought of starting our careers there — we suggested the studio interview a few more of our friends.

All of them got offers – including Rob of course.

If we took the offer Tim and I would be the first to arrive in just 2 weeks. The rest would follow a few weeks after.

Rob didn’t even have a degree which I thought might be a major obstacle.

But that only meant he’d have a minor 1 month delay – due to some extra government paperwork.

That’s when two revelations hit me:

• Holy shit – degrees don’t matter — only skill
• Friends were probably the greatest result of this animation school. We got each other interviews.

With a lump in my throat I boarded a plane to travel to the opposite side of the world — to live in a country I’ve never been to.

2 sunsets from the air later — I arrived.

And thus began my career as an animator.

Chapter 6 of 6 · 6 min read

Professional Story and How Rusty Animator came to be

I couldn’t be happier to finally get paid to animate. To finally prove that I was a good enough artist to be an animator. To finally prove to my family that this was a real career.

That it wasn’t a waste of 4 years and $118,000+ dollars.

On day 1 I had no idea what to expect. No idea what animating in a studio would be like.

But I was optimistic – with everything that I’d been through I should be ready. I’ve already made it through the tough times.

Maybe, given that this is a foreign country in a small studio — maybe the animation is even easy.

The BIG wake up calls always seem to sneak up on me.

As soon as we arrived the Singaporean locals seemed to look up to us like legends. And our animation supervisor expected us to animate like rockstars.

My friends and I appreciated the praise.

But my heart sank when we discovered our deadlines:

Every 2 weeks. The deadline was a 1,000 frame high quality pantomime – with looney tune style slapstick gags.

The panic struck me like a heart attack.

• “1,000 frames in 2 weeks?!”
• “In school I did 240 frame pantomimes in a month!”
• “I’m not fast enough for this!”

And I wasn’t.

My body mechanics weren’t there.

At least that was my story.

My friends were fine.

Especially Rob.

I’d work Monday to Friday putting in 3 or 4 hours of ‘free’ overtime everyday to try to keep up.

Rob would do nothing from Monday to Wednesday. Then animate it all in 2 normal working days.

That weak foundation, those terrible body mechanic skills were still there to anchor me down.

All the setbacks from the days of class 1 and class 2 didn’t just vanish because I got a job. Surprise, surprise.

They were quietly waiting to screw me up again

Now, I had to somehow figure out how to animate better and faster than I ever have while on the job with tight deadlines.

Or soon they’d find out my demo reel was a lie. They’d realize I don’t know how to animate. That I was an imposter this whole time!

And I’d get fired.

80% of the students from my school still didnt have a job. I didn’t want to be like them.

For half a year I hobbled along making mediocre shots. Wondering if today was the day my career would be over. And I felt embarrassed next to my friends. Lackluster once again.

Especially each month when we’d all watch each other’s animations in the studio theater. My friends would get laughs, aww’s, and applause from everyone. And I’d hear nothing.

Nobody would ever say anything. But you could tell they didn’t consider me to be the same kind of animator as them.

I was less than. I didn’t have the talent.

Oh how I cursed the unhelpful school experiences of my past.

Oh how I wished I could go back in time and make all the right choices.

• Skip the massive tuition of a traditional college
• Dont worry about degrees
• Only animate during all of my schooling
• Learn from pros right off the bat
• Find a way to not get rushed through my classes
• Do everything I can to hopefully find good caring mentors for every class.

If I could have then maybe I would have been considered a prodigy. Maybe my career wouldn’t feel like a near impossible challenge to succeed.

Thankfully my career did continue.

I learned to lean heavily on my strengths creating my own entertaining stories and characters while my body mechanics got better— slowly.

That got me through my first year as a pro under those 1,000 frame pantomime deadlines. And I ended up with some awesome animations for my demo reel.

But that nagging regret of wishing I could have had better schooling never went away.

I always felt I was playing catch up to my peers who were zooming ahead to that next level with their stronger foundation.

I even chose to go into VFX movies the next year – specifically to improve my body mechanics.

But I found friends there too who were animating at a higher level than myself.

And for a long time I thought I was the only one in this boat.

The only one who had a tough experience learning at even the best online schools.

The only one who found body mechanics, dialogue shots, and getting offers from studios hard as hell.

Then while working on X-Men Days of Futures Past in Montreal I started venting my frustrations in online animation blogs.

And these blog posts exploded!

(1,000s of animators saw this particular blog post in a few days
and 700 people joined the newsletter for the first time)

• “Oh?!
• “Seems like animators agree with me!”
• “Maybe something can be done about these problems.”

I began to wonder:

• What if I helped animators learn how I wished I could have?
• What if I showed animators everything I’ve learned?
• What if I created my own animation courses?
• Maybe I could help animators succeed easier than I did.
• Maybe I could help animators have the success I wish I had.

So I started Rusty Animator.

At first, I started with a short but impactful video course that focused on what I was good at — how to create entertaining animations.

It was called Memorable Animator and it cost $49 bucks.

I expected to get 10 students. Which seemed like a manageable amount to give personal feedback / critiques to.

Instead I got 47 students.

Needless to say I was overwhelmed but also overjoyed.

Students loved it! They developed skills that nobody teaches. And they invented far more entertaining ideas than they ever had before.

But I discovered that many students were either stuck struggling with the basics or body mechanics.

They came up with great ideas, fun characters, and entertaining stories but most of them needed to improve how well their characters moved.

So then I started tackling those problems.

I created far more in-depth courses about the basics, and body mechanics, as well as live personalized-to-every student mentoring.

And over the past 10+ years I’ve helped hundreds of animators succeed.

They have doubled, tripled, or quadrupled their animation skills in a few months for 1/200th the cost of traditional schools.

Students have accepted their first jobs after attending several of the best online schools for years.

Students have also accepted their first jobs having never attended those online schools.

But while creating these courses, mentoring students, and seeing students succeed has all been extremely fulfilling…

…10s of 1,000s of student animators are still turning to traditional colleges and the established online schools.

And they are still having the same struggles I did in the past.

• Dropping $20k to $100k+ in tuition at a traditional colleges that hand out irrelevant degrees, have many inexperienced teachers, and don’t focus on solely on animating.
• Learning from hit or miss mentors in online schools that often don’t really care about each individual student, don’t have the time, or cant help due to the constraints of the school.
• Getting generalized cookie cutter exercises that everyone does regardless of your current skill, struggles, goals, or week to week progress.
• Being rushed along into more advanced classes before their ready –snowballing their struggles in the fundamentals, body mechanics, or acting the further along they get.
• And ultimately creating a mediocre demo reel that makes them struggle like hell to find that first job or that dream studio.