This five-day immersive bootcamp is designed to help artists refine their animal character design skills for animation. Participants will balance anatomical accuracy with stylization, ensuring their designs are both artistically compelling and functionally animatable. Through a mix of lectures, hands-on exercises, and feedback sessions, artists will develop a stronger understanding of animal anatomy, expressive posing, and animation-ready design.

Anatomical Foundations

• Studying skeletal structures, muscle flow, and proportions.
• Identifying key anatomical landmarks for stylization.
• Drawing basic animal forms and gesture sketches

Pushing the Boundaries of Shape Language

• Understanding how to simplify and exaggerate anatomy.
• Exploring caricature techniques while maintaining believability.
• Silhouettes & Readability in Animation
• How shapes impact clarity and expressiveness

Expressing Personality & Emotion

• Character Development Through Design.
• Understanding how proportions, posture, and expressions influence personality.
• Exploring storytelling through animal design
• Facial Expressions & Emotion Mapping. Breaking down key facial expressions for different species
• Designing emotion sheets for expressive characters. Designing characters that are instantly recognizable

Animation-Ready Design & Functionality

• Making Designs Work for 2D & 3D Animation.
• Understanding rigging-friendly shapes and clean silhouettes.
• Optimizing details for different animation styles
• Linework, Shapes, and Structure Refinement.
• Developing clean character linework for production.
• Fine-tuning shape consistency for animation flow

Finalizing & Presenting Designs

• Polishing Your Work & Industry Presentation
• Final touches: textures, patterns, and finishing details
• Preparing portfolio-ready animal character sheets
• Individual Reviews & Professional Feedback
• One-on-one feedback with Len Simon
• Understanding how to present character designs in a professional portfolio

Final Showcase:

• Each participant presents their best designs
• Group critique & discussions on next steps in character design

• Concept Artists and Designers: Individuals with experience in design seeking to specialize in animal character design.
• Aspiring Character Designers: Artists aiming to enhance their skills in creating animation-ready animal characters.
• Professional Animators: Those looking to deepen their understanding of character design to improve their animation work.

• Basic Experience – A foundational experience in design
• Technical Requirements: Proficiency with digital drawing tools such as Photoshop or Procreate
• Openness to Feedback: Willingness to receive and apply constructive critiques to improve design work

Fees

Czech artists: 200€
All other artists: 1 100€

The fee covers participation in the course. It doesn’t cover accommodation, meals, and travel.

Funding for Czech employees and freelance artists

Czech Labour Office (Úřad práce) offers to cover up to 82% of the course fee. See the details and conditions here.

Cancellation Policy

• In the case of cancellation 6 weeks or more before the course starting date, the whole fee (course fee, or course fee + accommodation) will be refunded minus 150€ admin fee.
• With less than 6 weeks‘ notice, 50% of the total course fee will be refunded.
• If cancellation occurs in the final 30 working days before the starting date, no refund will be given.
• However, we will consider transferring the fees to another course (conditional upon vacancies) but a 20% cancellation fee will be charged if this change will be made in less than 4 weeks before the course starting date.
• We reserve the right to cancel a course if fewer than 4 people are enrolled. In this case we can transfer your fees to any future course or refund the fees you have paid in full.
• Refunds will be paid within 2 weeks after receiving your full bank details.