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Discover how to create captivating characters that induce chuckles or tears in As Little As 60 Days
This is the key to standing out on social and getting hired by your favorite feature studios like
Fortiche, Sony, or Dreamworks
What are your favorite -top 5 - most cherished animated scenes?
Does Wiley Coyote make the cut?
How about the tear jerker sequence from Up?
Or Klaus desperately trying to adapt to harsh village life?
Whatever your favorite shots are – haven’t you always dreamed of making your own animations like that?
Animations that tug at peoples heart strings – moving them to tears or laughing out loud?
So, what’s been stopping you?
Why haven't you made an animation that people rave about on social?
Why haven't you been hired to work on an exciting movie or game?
You went to school.
You did what they told you to do.
Yet your animations aren’t making a dent.
Nobody seems to give a damn about your art.
And studios like Fortiche, Sony, Dreamworks - feel impossibly out of reach.
So what’s been holding you back?
Could it be:
- Lingering body mechanic struggles like weight or moving holds.
- A messy and slow workflow
- Inventing entertaining animation ideas / stories
- Coming up with cool personalities for your characters
- Conveying that personality powerfully with poses
- Lipsync that fails to ‘sync’
- Getting the face to be as expensive as the body
- Or maybe its a combination of all of this and more?
Well what if that could change?
What if you could get answers to all of this and level up to feature quality animation?
What if 60 days from now you could finally discover the keys to creating captivating characters and entertaining scenes?
You’re probably crossing your arms with full skeptical eyebrows now.
With what you’ve likely experienced in other schools – it's understandable.
But this isn't a Disney fairytale. It's been done.
I know - I’ve lived it
And I've shown other animators how to get there too.
Hi I'm Rusty Gray.
I’ve worked as a professional animator for 6 years in movies, games, and tv.
What’s more – I’ve mentored many student animators to successful careers by getting through those struggles.
But For the longest time as a student I had all of these great character ideas and stories in my head…that never translated very well into my animation.
My great ideas would always fall short. It was never as entertaining as I imagined it would be.
Sometimes people would get a little chuckle here or there which gave me a lot of hope. But people were never BLOWN AWAY, shedding tears, or cracking up.
And I certainly wasn’t getting hired from the animations I made.
Like Rafiki bashing Simba - it still hurts.
I knew I was struggling with body mechanics.
But I didn’t know specifically what in my mechanics to fix or how.
And I had no idea how MUCH stronger my mechanical character ideas, stories, workflow, posing, facial expressions, lipsync, etc could be.
After graduating valedictorian for my $100,000+ bachelors degree this was the best I could do:
They got a few chuckles, mainly for being better than the average student's animation – but do you see how terrible it all is?
Do you see how clunky the body mechanics are, awkward the facial animation is, how the humor is not even there?
With this shot on my reel I applied to something like 87 studios over a year.
No jobs followed. Not even a rejection. Just crickets.
Slowly I realized Rafiki was on to something
A year after my university fails, I nervously dropped another $18,000 for an online school and dedicated 18 more months of my life.
For my 3rd dialogue shot I made this:
A lot of animators laughed watching this shot so I was pretty proud. And compared to my university skill level I think it's safe to say I was at least twice as good - right?
Before this dialogue I also made a pantomime of a Wiley Coyote type character:
Did you laugh a little?
It made an animation supervisor laugh too and that landed me my first job - where I made 1,000 frame pantomimes every 2 weeks like this:
Wanna know the Critical Secret Though?
In all my schooling – nobody taught me how to invent these entertaining stories.
Nobody taught me how to create interesting characters.
You had to just – “figure it out”.
Or suffer with a boring demo reel and never get a job.
Here let me show you.
Compare this Doctors shot to the Hooters one:
What do you notice?
Well first off, with the doctors, did you laugh?
I never do.
Never met anyone that did.
Aside from the story - the mechanics, lip-sync, facial expressions, and body language are all falling way too short for BOTH characters.
I struggled like hell with all of these skillsets.
The result? Trash.
Embarrassing trash that I never wanted to ever show anybody that I made.
To get hired I knew I needed a stronger dialogue shot – and that's when I made the Hooters one.
But my skills were weak – so I had to get crafty when I did it.
I kept it to 1 character from the waist, and put him in a setting where he never needed to move from his seat.
Nobody guided me through this either.
In all my schooling I was rushed into harder and harder animations before I was ready.
Critical animation skills got glossed over or swept under the rug - including body mechanics.
So the closer I got to “graduation” the more my animation struggles snowballed.
And now years later I’ve found it wasn’t just me.
Almost every professional I’ve worked with has had the same experience.
Tons of other pro’s graduated university with poor body mechanics - let alone acting skills and didn't get a job.
They then had to stumble their way through years of additional schooling and $10s of $1,000’s of dollars to — eventually make it like I did.
Wanna know the sad bit?
Those were the few people who ‘figured it out’ enough to make it.
91% of students didn’t make it.
And today, decades later, thousands of animation students are experiencing the same results.
But none of us should have to spend 2-4-6-8 years of schooling and $20,000 to $100,000+ to just have to "figure it out" for character animation.
There is a better way to become a Pro Character Animator.
What if you could focus on character animation 100% of the time instead of modeling, rigging, or even other kinds of animation.
What if you could skip having to just “figure it out” and get immediate answers on:
- What animations you need to make it pro
- Creating entertaining stories and captivating characters
- How to shoot reference, find audio, make idea adjustments
- How to bring faces to life, get lipsync on point, and expressive body language
- And if they are lingering body mechanics issues holding you back in your character performances – you get all the answers on that too.
What if you could get professional feature animators to guide you through every single thing:
- Demos of critical skills
- Walkthroughs of creating entertaining animations from scratch
- As well as all the supportive critiques you could ever ask for.
What if you could discover all the keys to character animation in 60 days what takes everyone else years.
Introducing...
If you want to create captivating characters and entertaining scenes that induce giggles or tears on demand – that's exactly what Character Animation Mastery will give you.
You’ll be walked through every single frame of a dialogue shot from planning to polish by a veteran feature animator.
This alone will reveal exactly what it takes and how to reach feature quality animation.
But CAM even goes beyond that.
You’ll also be able to dive into specific focused lessons on the most common character animation struggles students have.
Issues with weight? Not any more.
Confused about moving holds? Thing of the past.
Struggles with Lip-sync? Easy peasy now.
Character Animation Mastery will zero in on whatever is holding you back and break the chains – so you can finally create the entertaining animations you’ve always wanted to make.
Much to the same degree our animation students have already made in Rusty Animator School:
Inside Character Animation Mastery You'll:
- Finally fix your remaining body mechanics struggles
- Fully focus on character animation with clear direction to level up fast
- Create hilarious or tear jerker character shots your really proud of
- Go viral on social and create a stand out from the rest demo reel
- Get hired by a studio with exciting movies or games because of it
- And finally smile everyday you get out of bed getting paid to animate in feature or cinematics and entertain people on a massive scale
What You Get In Character Animation Mastery
Multiple Pro Animators Mentoring You
Decades of experience at feature studios as Seniors / Directing Animators - will lift you up to feature level.
Michael Lewis
Senior VFX and Feature Animator
for 6+ years
Experience:
- Sunrise Studios
- Reel Fx
- On Animation Studio
- Mikros
- MPC
- Jellyfish Pictures
Credits:
- David
- The Monkey King
- Scoob! Holiday Haunt
- Paw Patrol the movie
- Spongebob Movie
- Call of the Wild
- Noelle
Brittney Thalayan
Senior Animator and
Animation Director for 10+ years in Freelance, VFX, and Feature
Experience:
- Sony Imageworks
- Animal Logic
- ICON Creative
- Rainmaker Entertainment
Credits:
- Spider-man: No Way Home
- Hotel Transylvania: Transformania
- Leo
- Ariel
Rusty Gray
VFX, Game, and TV
Senior Animator for 5+ years
Owner of Rusty Animator
Experience:
- Steamroller Studios
- Digital Domain
- MPC
- One Animation
Credits:
- X-men DOFP
- Cinderella
- Pixels
- Night of the Museum 3
- Into the Woods
- Oddbods
- Rend
With 3 professional animators at your back who also have years of experience mentoring tons of students to succeed - you have every advantage.
Not only that you'll discover even more ways to improve from each mentors different perspectives and approaches.
Recorded Go At Your Own Pace Lessons (and Critiques)
If you've got a full-time job, part-time, or your a full-time student CAM is completely go at your own pace. So you can start or pause whenever you want.
Optional recorded critiques also have this flexibility.
Easy to Finish Truly Bite-Size Videos
With a 30 minute maximum video length - you won't be wore out, daunted, or bored by trying to follow along and animate from these lessons.
You'll feel like you're getting quick win after quick win for fast level ups.
Lifetime Access - Future Updates
Part of CAM being flexible to your schedule is having constant access. So if things get hectic in your schedule you don't need to fret - you'll still have access to CAM. when things calm down again.
Additionally, we have several more lessons in mind for CAM. And you'll get those Future updates for free.
Character Animation Mastery Video Lessons
1
Craft a Feature Level Entertaining Dialogue
Feature animator Michael Lewis walks you through animating an entertaining dialogue shot from planning to polish.
You'll see every frame. In the early stages you'll discover the way to find your audio clip, create your best reference, how to use that reference effectively -- all the way through to teeny tiny polishy like lip corner arcs.
After you follow along with Michael through this shot - you'll know exactly what it takes and what it looks like to create a Feature Quality shot. And then you'll be ready to apply it all to your own character demo reel shots.
2
7 Focused Lessons on Essential Character Animation Skills
Do you feel like you have a specific skill that you've been really weak in?
Or maybe you'd just really love to brush up on a specific skill?
Icon Directing Animator Brittney Thalayan will guide you through a deep dive into your choice of the most critical character animation skills.
- Lip-Sync
- Facial Anim
- Acting Workflow
- Planning
- Posing
- Moving Holds
- Weight
To really improve quickly in animation - often the best approach isn't to do a long complicated animation. Its to do short simple exercises that let you quickly test yourself and focus on 1 thing at a time.
That's why these focused lessons may give you quicker wins than any thing else and lead to some massive light bulb moments.
2a
Facial Animation
When you animate a face does it feel a bit stiff or emotionally weak? Or maybe your not even sure how to approach it like a feature animator?
Brittney guides you through several character reactions that ooze emotion in the face - all in one shot.
2b
Lip-Sync
Follow Brittney through a short dialogue to level up your lip-sync skills like a pro. Know your mouth shapes, how to emphasize shapes, make shapes more appealing, create overlap in the whole mouth, fluid arcs, plus involve the jaw, tongue, and teeth.
2c
Acting Workflow
Follow Brittney through a short dialogue to develop a feature level workflow at each stage of your process.
2d
Planning
Planning is the single most important phase of animation yet its often the most underrated and overlooked. Discover essential steps and less known methods for planning your character animations to make them entertaining before they are even blocked!
2e
Posing
What makes a great pose? What makes a pose feel more furious, depressed, lazy, or delighted? Character Animators can't afford not to know. Posing is the foundation of every animation. Take your posing to outstanding feature quality and watch your shots captivate people.
2f
Moving Holds
Struggle with the pixel-moving keep alive holds? Getting into that subtle weight, arcs,
2g
Weight
Weight issues are an epidemic among animators. And its really difficult to get sucked into an entertaining animation when your character appears to be drifting on the moon.
Brittney provides you various animation examples and challenges to avoid floaty animation forever -- including in your poses.
Demand the Best of Yourself and Level up 2x as Fast with Recorded Critiques (Optional)
If you refuse to wait another second longer than you have to - to get hired, if you demand quick answers in frustrating movements of your animations, if you don't only want to rely on yourself to push through --- this is what you're looking for.
Inside CAM your discovering the keys to creating captivating characters and entertaining stories in 60 days.
And you do this with a mixture of 2 approaches:
- Finishing a complete dialogue shot that you follow a professional feature animator (Michael Lewis) through frame by frame from planning to polish.
- Plus 8 focused acting lessons to level up your skills in brand new or weak areas – that you can dive into at any time
Both of these set you up to create your own outstanding character animation shots.
Most animators though will improve 2x as fast if they also have a professional animator also critiquing their animations every step of the way.
So CAM also offers recorded critiques - which gives you the best of everything.
- You get to see how a feature level animator creates a dialogue frame by frame.
- You get focused lessons to answer your most common struggles.
- AND you get personalized critiques from me on whatever acting shot you're working on.
I’ll guide you through inventing characters, story ideas, poses, the mechanics of your shot, the facial animation, — all of it.
It’s as close as you can get to a pro animating the shot for you.
It’s also the best way to keep yourself accountable and make sure you're not missing critical level ups. That you’re not blind or confused about a key acting skillset.
And in CAM there are 2 critique options to choose from:
- 6 personalize video critiques from me you can request at anytime
- Or Unlimited personalized video critiques on every shot you work on for 3 months straight.
At my first animation job I still struggled with body mechanics and acting. Thankfully I had a anim supe with old school 2d skills drawing over my animation every day for months.
It taught me far more than I could have ever imagined. Every month I doubled in skill.
This is why I offer critiques to you. I know how powerful it is for your growth. And for my students in Rusty Animator School and Body Mechanics Mastery – it's already done wonders.
As CAM is brand new we don't have shots from former students yet. But here's an example from a student in Rusty Animator School with the same mentors.
What Students Say About My Mentoring
As CAM is brand new - there are no student testimonials yet.
However, here's what a few students have said who have received critiques from me in other programs:
I’ve learned from you more than I have from any other individual instructor...
Rusty is here to see you through it, he honestly cares whether we get better or not, and I think he comes across that way immediately…..
I can’t think of another reason why he wouldn’t be into this, if he weren’t trying to do this for other people, helping them grow, building a better community, and honestly I think that comes across without me even having to say it.
Yeah, that’s how I felt from day one, you know… I’ve learned from you more than I have from any other individual instructor, I’m sure.
Going into my first animation job I found my skill level was higher than the lead animators
Going into my first animation job I found my skill level was at a higher level than the lead animator at the studio.
I was able to finish animations faster, had them looking more appealing, and talk about the animation style better with the creative director.
I blame you Rusty. You did it with the challenging animations we had in Rusty Animator School.
Without you Rusty I wouldn't have made it and gotten hired -- so thank you for everything! You're awesome!
That's all I kept thinking “THIS guy really cares about how much I succeed.”
You helped me the most. By telling me what the important stages of animation are, the essential body mechanic exercises to level up, the different approaches you can have, and I felt like you really cared and it was not just like some advice for enrolling in your school or something.
That's all I kept thinking “THIS guy really cares about how much I succeed.”
You know even though I had great mentors before from studios like Disney - they were really interesting and all, but I felt disconnected from them. It was embarrassing even to send them a message about things. I didn't feel close enough to do that.
But you really care - you're really here for your students. It feels like I can message you whenever – even though you have loads of things to do haha - you always answer.
Even just to talk about my mental health or something. You take time to talk about that and I really appreciate it. You really care about my progress I make and my animations and that's what really makes a difference.
Example Game Emote Character Anim
by RAS Student Theron Chaplin:
Join Character Animation Mastery Today
Option 2
CAM with 6 Recorded
Video Critiques
$174
4 Monthly Installments
SPOTS ARE LIMITED
Option 3
CAM with UNLIMITED
Recorded Video Critiques
$299
4 Monthly Installments
SPOTS ARE LIMITED
If you have any questions or concerns about the course you can email me directly.
I'm happy to help.
Rusty@RustyAnimator.com
Example Acting Shot
by RAS Student Liam Konieczny:
Try CAM with my Best Character Animation Course Ever Made Guarantee for 60-Days
Give CAM a shot for 60 days (2 months of acting level ups) and if you're not feeling it - you get 100% of your money back.
This is actually enough time to finish the dialogue shot walkthrough and weeks more!
Why would I offer you this?
Character Animation Mastery isn't just about improving your animation skills, it's about improving your career, improving your life.
How?
If you finally unlocked the skills to create captivating characters that entertained the hell out of people once and for all - or at the very least tripled your acting skills – that would completely transform your career right?
You’d be over the moon excited to finally make animations that people love. Shots people laugh or cry at. And they’d be demo reel pieces that get you hired at that studio you've always dreamt of. You'd be set up to win as an animator for the rest of your career.
So I'm confident that if you put in the work you'll be thrilled with your growth.
And if you don't feel like you're improving - you're protected with the 60 day 100% best character animation course ever made guarantee. Simply send me a message and you're covered. No questions asked. I'll even eat the credit card fees.
Acting Shot Example by
RAS Student Pierre Klemm:
Got a Question? Heres the FAQ
Every school, workshop, or course focuses on teaching animation only with critiques and recommended cookie cutter exercises at the same speed.
For a few (often already experienced) animators this can get them hired. But for the vast majority it doesnt.
A lot of animators also need to learn by example. They need to see how a pro animates a feature level shot step by step. They need demos and lectures to deep dive on to specific skills to smash through roadblocks and level up quickly. And they need critiques to catch their mistakes and skyrocket them forward weekly.
No other school, workshop, or course does that. Sure, they may offer some live or recorded demos of some random shots.
But they dont walk you through everything. They dont teach you all the critical skills you need to stand out as a character animator.
CAM is the first program to do this.
Plus, its kept simple for quick digestible wins that you can also do at your own pace.
CAM lessons are all done in Maya. The 3d software used the most by animators in studios.
That said, if all you had was pencil and paper, the animation skills you'll learn will still apply.
Yes, you wont have all the technical hurdles or graph editor - you'll have to draw instead - but how you create overlap, weight, power, balance, and so on will all be the same. The art is the art regardless of medium.
I don't care if your a 65 year old with blue hair that's attended 3 online schools and still don't have a job. Character Animation Mastery will set you up to win with character animation.
You'll get the answers to craft shots that will make people literally laugh out loud or choke up.
And you'll be over the moon that you're finally able to bring to life any great idea that pops into your head.
So, If you still think your a special snowflake who will always have it harder than 1,000s of other animators ask yourself -- are you just looking for an excuse not to join? An excuse to prove you can't succeed?
The animation lessons in CAM are built by veterans of Feature Animation with decades of experience between them at all level of animation studios.
And they are designed to solve the issues we've seen hundreds of student animators wrestle with over and over again.
In all your schooling have you ever been walked through character animation skills frame by frame from start to finish? With a pro feature animator showing you how? With another pro deep diving into the most common skill struggles?
With another pro giving you personal draw over video critiques to guide and support you through any character animation your working on?
If you haven't had this, Character Animation Mastery will not only help you - it was built for you.
CAM focuses on Character Animation with recorded video lessons that show walk you through a feature quality dialogue shot as well as demos on critical skills.
You learn at your own pace, as fast or as slow as you want.
RAS is a custom live schooling program that adapts to your skill level, struggles, and goals with non stop weekly classes for 3 months. If your an absolute beginner, an advanced animator focusing on acting, or somewhere in the middle you can get the guidance your after.
It's Very adaptable. Very helpful. Though you cant pause the course whenever you want. And you don't get to see a veteran animators -- animating every frame of a shot, multiple demos, or lectures.
If join Character Animation Mastery makes the difference between you getting your student loans paid or eating – do NOT buy this course.
I repeat you do NOT have my permission to buy this course.
Spend the money on your basic survival first. This won’t bring helpful pressure to the artistic challenges you’ll find inside. I truly want what’s best for you and if money is that tight this course is NOT what’s best for you right now.
Beyond all that, what about all the students who already paid in full?
It wouldn’t be fair to them to discount now or in the future.
What would your reaction be if you bought a TV at full price and then the next day saw it was half off?
This is also a barrier to keep out those who aren’t serious.
If you invest in Character Animation Mastery you probably wont let it go to waste. You’ll put extra effort into making the most of it - you’ll be dedicated.
Also, the price of CAM won't stay this low. In the near future the price will go up. (no idea when that will be right now).
Yes! I want lifetime access to
Character Animation Mastery
Option 2
BMM with 6 Recorded
Video Critiques
$174
4 Monthly Installments
Spots are limited
Option 3
BMM with UNLIMITED
Recorded Video Critiques
$299
4 Monthly Installments
SPOTS ARE LIMITED
If you have any questions or concerns about the course you can email me directly.
I'm happy to help.
Rusty@RustyAnimator.com