Working on an animation, story or demoreel?

Feedback helps you
to stay productive and improve!

Take your work to the next level by joining our monthly…

“Get shot done!”
Group Animation Mentoring

This is a chance to analyze, discuss and refine your art skills and animation projects every single month.

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  • one online group call every month
  • meet fellow artists and get feedback from an animation mentor how to improve
  • easy to follow frame by frame animation critiques, demoreel feedback, draw overs and advice
  • use the event for deadlines and get your project done
  • each session is available as a recording, so you can re-watch and slow down important moments
Group mentoring on Patreon

I couldn’t have hoped for a better mentor

I had the pleasure of having Ferdinand as my mentor while animating for the video game “The Inner World – The Last Wind Monk” for six months. Ferdi always gave me great advice as well as constructive feedback and help whenever I was stuck somewhere.

Having someone who shared their great experience in both theory and practice – in a such a motivated, yet patient way – really helped me develop my animation skills better than I could ever have done alone or in class.
Momo B.
game artist & animator
Group mentoring on Patreon
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My name is Ferdinand Engländer, I am a 2D (and occasionally 3D) animator from Germany. I worked as an animation supervisor for the video games The Inner World 1 and 2 and A Minute of Islands, and created rigs and layouts for the BBC series Patchwork Pals. I have been teaching animation and storytelling for years here on Animator Island, at the SAE in Cologne, Macromedia Stuttgart and other universities.

During my career, the input from other professionals boosted my skills the most. An experienced eye can not only spot problems, but also explain them in a way that makes it a lot clearer what needs to be done to improve an animation or film.

Frame by frame animation critiques, constructive feedback and helpful draw overs are all tools that I have used every day to push the work of my animation students and teams to be even more precise, entertaining and fun.

With this group animation mentoring workshop I want to pass on my knowledge and help you to become an even better animator! I believe that we can all learn from each other, and that industry “secrets” shouldn’t be secret at all! I’m excited to teach you what I know and start some interesting discussions within the group.

During my work as an animation supervisor I was directly responsible for hiring animators. From this experience, I know what studios and supervisors are looking for in a demoreel. I can help you build yours up and perfect it.

From time to time the sessions might be held by guest mentors, who will contribute different perspectives and valuable, real-world information for you all.

How can I join?

Join the “Group Mentoring” tier on Patreon to get access as a participant to one group mentoring session every month. Your monthly contribution must reach at least the price of this tier to unlock access to the group call.

Monthly Group Mentoring

19 € or
$24.50

+ VAT depending on your country
per month, cancel any time

  
Group mentoring on Patreon

  • Get advice on how to take your art and animation to the next level
  • up to 15 minutes of animation critique per person every session
  • group call on Saturdays or Sundays, time slot will be voted for, recordings are available for participants.

We can talk about anything art and animation related – animation shots, animation tests, demoreels, animatics, thumbnails, scripts, story ideas, concept art, character designs etc.

The critiques will focus on general art, animation, film-making and acting aspects, and less on specific software instructions.

Any work containing hateful or discriminatory content will be rejected. Work featuring nudity and violence might also get rejected at the mentor’s discretion, or will be only discussed at the end of the call, so people not comfortable with such depictions can leave.

Questions pertaining to specific software might get rejected based on time allowances and the mentor’s own experience or inexperience with the software.

By submitting your work you agree that it was created by yourself and that you have all the rights to submit it in this setting. Work that is restricted by an NDA, must not be submitted.

In the submission you can select if you would allow the critique to be released publicly (e.g. on the Animator Island YouTube channel) or if you would prefer it to be only accessible by other Patrons.

There will be a form distributed through the Patreon feed that you can use to submit your work to be presented, critiqued and discussed during the next group mentoring session.

Keep in mind that there is a time limit of 15 minutes per person per mentoring session. If you submit multiple things, leave a comment on which aspect the critique should focus on.

You must submit your work at least 24 hours before the scheduled group call.

Getting animation feedback and critiques regularly will help you to keep you on track, keep you motivated and force you out of your comfort zone. This is the best way to grow over the course of several months.

However, you can cancel at any time or only join for one or two months. No need to make a long term commitment if you don’t want to.

You have two possibilities:

  1. You can join the Patreon Group Mentoring tier for one month only and cancel right after you have been charged for the first group call. Cancel or re-join at any time!
    The only criteria to get access to the group call is that you need to have paid at least the price of the Group Mentoring tier during that month.
  2. Book a one-time personal mentoring call (1-hour) or a pre-recorded video critique (either 15 minutes or 30 minutes of valuable feedback) for a film, animation, animatic, story etc.

No, you don’t have submit something every month. You can also just listen in and participate in the discussions without presenting your own work in the group calls. As a Group Mentoring Patron you also have access to recordings of previous sessions.

If you don’t want to participate anymore and don’t need access to the recordings, you can cancel your membership on Patreon at any time. Access to the critique recordings will only be available to you as long as you are a patron.

We offer a 30 day money back guarantee. If you aren’t happy with your Patreon Group Mentoring Membership for any reason, please use the contact form to get in touch.

Beyond the 30 days we usually do not offer refunds, because you already had access to at least one group call and Patron only content.

Refunds may take up to 2 weeks depending on the payment method you use.

Patreon might test credit cards by charging and immediately refunding $1. Your real Patreon contributions are only ever billed on the first of every month.