Allow us to introduce you to our newest characters:

Animation Mentor community, meet Stan and Stella.
Stan and Stella, meet the Animation Mentor community.

Who Can’t Be Excited?!?
As you can imagine, when we started work on the new character designs — we got a little excited. We don’t like to operate around any constraints, so we found ourselves asking a lot of questions (or you can call it a wish list):

Wouldn’t it be cool to have characters full of expressiveness?

Can we design characters that are easy to use?

Can we design characters with simple, clean designs?

Can we really design characters as central storytellers?

Why not?

That last question was the most important. Why not have it all?

A Big Thank You to DEISIGN
So we got to work with our friends at DEISIGN to help bring our new characters to life. And to put it simply — they absolutely nailed our vision. What you have through Stan and Stella (and don’t forget Scout) is the perfect introduction of true characters into our growing tribe.

If you’re a fan of Animation Mentor, you know that the older members of our tribe helped you design around different body types. Now, with Stan and Stella, you can conduct the same character and animation testing — only with more fleshy expressions and complex, feature-rich physiologies … all with simple, clean designs and much more intuitive controls.

The Power is in Your Hands
All of these features combine to offer more realistic characteristics, emotions, and movements — elements that are so vital to storytelling. And if there’s one thing about the Animation Mentor community — there are many stories to be told.

That’s why it was extremely important for us that we do this — that we bring life to the next generation of characters — to put the power of the story back in the artists’ hands. Someone just like you.

We can’t wait for you to tell your story.

— Justin Owens
Artist
Future Animator
Proud Member of the Animation Mentor Crew

P.S.
Join the Animation Mentor community and tell your story. Apply today for our Animation Fundamentals … or circle the date — Thursday, February 28 — when applications open for our new VFX Fundamentals. You may also request more information or contact an Admissions Advisor. See you in the studio school.