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February at Cloth Cat Academy
Cloth Cat Academy’s new series of courses began this month, kicking off with Sean Francis’ Toon Boom: Rigging for Production course! Our awesome Academy trainees had a wonderful week, creating controllers and applying deformers to craft high-quality, top-grade rigs in Toon Boom Harmony.
We’d like to say a really big thank you to Sean for supercharging our trainees’ rigging skills! With a passion for animation and storytelling, Sean is dedicated to helping aspiring animators master the tools and techniques needed for success.
Dani Abram then hosted her Toon Boom: Animation Toolbox course, teaching our fantastic Academy trainees how to utilise the drawing tools, deformers and node based compositing features in Toon Boom Harmony. The following week, Dani also taught her Moho: Mechanics of Motion course, where our terrific trainees learned how to squeeze the maximum juice out of production rigs, creating high-calibre, approvable character animations using Moho Animation Software!
Dani Abram has 15+ years experience in the animation industry, working across games, films and TV, for some of the worlds best loved studios! Thank you so much for inspiring all of our talented trainees over the past two weeks!
Benedict Tomczyk-Bowen will be here at the studio from 2nd - 6th March 2026 to teach his Storyboarding: A Professional Toolkit course. We're looking forward to a deep dive into the art and working practice of storyboarding for production! Full information on all of our upcoming courses and potential funding opportunities is available on our website.
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Animation Production Skills
There's still time to apply for Jonathan Edwards' Animation Production Skills course! Managing an animated production requires thoughtful planning, an understanding of the artform and creative problem solving. From pitch and commission, the course will go through establishing a strong creative workflow; matching with a resourceful production structure to anticipate and build a process that syncs project, crew and client with a solid foundation for the full production and post stages and the cyclical links between the departments.
Jonathan Edwards has over 30 years of industry experience in Animation, VFX and Live Action. He has worked in production and studio management roles across award winning series, features, commercials and shorts in 2D digital & traditional animation. His expertise also encompass Computer Animation, Stop Motion and Post Production, alongside 10 years of lecturing & workshop experience.
Be sure to check out the support section on our website in order to see if you're eligible for any bursary funding. Applicants living in Wales are eligible for a 50% discount! Screen Skills, Media Cymru, Ymddiried and ReAct+ also offer a selection of funding opportunities if you meet their criteria. Please ensure that you have left enough time when applying for any external funding in order for your applications to be processed prior to the start of your course!
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Serious Kids to Distribute The Ghost of Midwinter
We have some great news! Serious Kids are now the official global distributor of The Ghost of Midwinter! The haunting, 24 minute-long special is set in medieval Wales and is the perfect creepy tale for a cold, wintry evening. The film has had such a great response so far and we look forward to sharing it with the world! Follow the links to read about the news on UK Screen Alliance, Animation Magazine and TV Kids.
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Background Artwork for The Ghost of Midwinter
Here’s a closer look at some of the vivid backgrounds that set the stage for The Ghost of Midwinter. Nia’s fantasy world was built one brushstroke at a time by Cloth Cat’s Head of Animation Development, Tom Lucas. Tom incorporated lots of lyrical curves and waves to portray the undulating Welsh landscape and the cyclical turn of the seasons. It’s incredible how much of a story can be told through environment and colour alone!
“Using Lara Pickle’s lovely background concepts as a starting point, I tried to re-create the tone and painterly feel, using a process that could be applied to any of the many backgrounds efficiently. My focus was on the action plane and anything the characters interact with.
"Another designer created a kit of trees, bushes and rocks to populate the area and our CG wizards used this kit to add detail to the undulating hills and dramatic skies in the distance. I would then pull all of these elements together and dress each background for the appropriate season and time of day.”
- Tom Lucas If you’d like to watch our animated short film, the Welsh broadcast Ysbryd yr Oerfel is currently available to watch with English subtitles on BBC iPlayer!
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The Magnificent Train Journey
In 2021, Cloth Cat Games teamed up with Transport for Wales to create The Magnificent Train Journey Game: Route Wrangler. Customise your train and complete the track to get it to the next station! The 12-level HTML5 puzzle game is made for PC and was created in Unity to celebrate the launch of TfW’s new rolling stock.
To learn more about how the game was developed, be sure to check out our article, Bringing Unity to Cloth Cat – Games Development in Action! written by Shane Skuse, the Senior Developer at Cloth Cat Games. Follow the link below to launch the game!
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Cardiff Animation Nights
Cardiff Animation Nights took place online this month! We had the pleasure of experiencing yet another outstanding showcase of independent animated films, thoughtfully curated from a diverse group of gifted and imaginative creators from across the international animation community.
Below is a still from one of the stunning films featured in this month's event. Chère Fin (2025) was directed by Khéma Cousin, Lien Franckel, Laora Le Boursicot, Alissende Masson, Joséphine Mounier, and Clément Saden and produced by GOBELINS Paris.
Next month's Animation Nights will take place at The Underdog in Cardiff city centre on Thursday 26th March. We hope to see you there!
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