Cloth Cat

To close day one we have built the Get Animated Forum, a new format designed to allow the audience to discuss the state of the market, changes in production (AI), commissioning and investment in our industry. We have asked four independent studio owners from the UK to come on stage and facilitate a question time debate with our audience.

Being someone who (over) animates boards, I felt it was high time to see what it was like for the poor animators that have to deal with it. So I mooched on over to Cloth Cat Academy to take Dani Abram's amazing week-long course in ToonBoom Harmony. Within a SINGLE WEEK I went from absolute confusion to doing this - I'd not even properly lip-synched anything before. What can I say? Dani is a delightful genius of animation, who has a friendly, easy-going teaching style that's placed to have you end up with animation to showcase by the end of the week. You go from immediately learning a rig and posing a pre-school character to diving into a more complex rig mid-week, replete with little challenges to make you think and work around problems. You'll sit with other lovely students helping each-other out. Kudos to all who put up with me making exasperated noises wondering why an arm has suddenly flown off into the sun over a couple of frames. Riggers - I know what a model flip is now so be aware. If I catch one in anything I animate I'll probably scream into a pillow and then try and fix it anyway. But I'll hunt you down and have a moan if I can, you'll see! Anyway, here's one of my short pieces. Bonkers I managed to put this together. Absolutely bonkers. Thanks, Dani!

A massive thank you again to Cloth Cat Academy and Dani Abram for this incredible learning experience! One of the most rewarding parts of this course was getting to connect with fellow animators and experience the studio environment firsthand 🤍 It truly made the learning process even more inspiring and insightful.

📢 𝙌𝙐𝙄𝘾𝙆 𝘿𝙍𝘼𝙒 is BACK! ✎ The 48hr animation challenge returns for 2025! ⏰ Flex your creativity and skills with a quick-thinking brief - we’ll supply the theme and enthusiasm to get you started! All ages and animation abilities from global locations are welcome to join 🌍 Plus you can catch your film as part of the final programme played to an audience! 📽️ 📅 02 - 04 MAY 2025 Find out more about Quick Draw + sign up for free ⇨ www.cardiffquickdraw.com

👍 We have some fresh Academy courses up on our website this week! We would love to see you at our Studio in Cardiff in the coming months. Check our website for details on each course and come and join us for some in person training ☀️ ✅ 28 APRIL - 02 MAY CELACTION2D: PRODUCTION ANIMATION with Cath Lloyd ✅12 - 16, MAY  STORYBOARDING: A PROFESSIONAL TOOLKIT with Benedict Tomczyk-Bowen ✅ 19 - 22 MAY ANIMATION PRODUCTION SKILLS with Jonathan Edwards ✅ 08 - 12 SEPTEMBER TOON BOOM: RIGGING FOR PRODUCTION with Sean Francis

Cloth Cat Academy are running an on-site course for people who want to learn CelAction2D from an experienced animator. It runs from 28th April to 2nd May in Cardiff, and you can find out more details at the link below.

Kidscreen 2025 is over so I'm sitting in a cafe gathering my thoughts before I fly back from rainy San Diego to frozen Cardiff... A more positive experience this year, despite all the upheavals in the industry. I feel we're doing the right thing in Cloth Cat focusing on the links between gaming and animation; working on our new family games this year with an eye to cross platform narrative content. Cloth Cat Games We'll be at Get Animated, Annecy Animation Festival, and CMC next, but I'm going to skip MIPCOM for the first time. There's still plenty of opportunity out there, but for smaller companies it's even more important to raise your own profile and carve out a niche - bigger companies have the cashflow and sales budgets for big projects and provide security for platforms. Nimble companies have to find their own path to success. Thanks again to Sarah and Lauren from The Children's Media Conference for all their support, and DBT for their continued positivity for the media and children's industry! Good to see all my friends on the delegation again and I'll see you at the next one! (I didn't get a photo of me in the conference hotel, so you get one with some gelato instead 😂)

Really enjoying Kidscreen 2025 in San Diego this week! Productive meetings with friends around the world, panel conversions on a wide range of topics, and catch ups with the UK delegation. Lots of interest in our games and cross platform ideas - it's clear the connection between the two industries is becoming stronger. The challenging landscape for animation is still there, but there is light at the end of the tunnel! Thanks to The Children's Media Conference for organising and Creative Wales / Cymru Greadigol for the funding support. Couldn't do it without you!

👋 Cloth Cat Academy is hosting an Animation Toon Boom course this 3rd-7th March with tutor Dani Abram! You can attend this course remotely or in person in the studio in the centre of Cardiff. Visit www.clothcat.com/academy for more information on signing up and how you could get up to 100% funding for the course! 👍 https://lnkd.in/eC7Wqjwa

@pgconnectsconf kicked off our 2025 gaming event calendar this month with two action packed days of meetings, talks and networking. Our Creative Producer Ben C. was there to catch up on the industry outlook (aiming to 'thrive in ‘25') and talk about our studio and games with investors, collaborators and platform holders. This was his 10th time attending the event(!) and in that time it has only grown in scale and attendance.