Thomas Thorspecken, also known as Thor, attended the school of Visual Arts and Design in New York City.  In his 10 years as a freelance illustrator in the city, one of his assignments for the Daily News included sketching historic buildings throughout the city for a column called “Undiscovered Manhattan”.  Thor relocated to Orlando in 1993 to work for Disney Feature Animation.

After 10 years the studio closed, and he continued to pursue his passion for art through teaching and sketching.  His blog “Analog Artist Digital World” began in 2009 as a resolution to post a sketch every day.  He describes it as “his way to finally put down roots, to be part of the community, one sketch at a time.”  Thor has also been teaching Traditional Animation at Full Sail University and now is part of a great team of instructors at Elite Animation Academy.  Thor will continue his passion to teach and now will include Middle and High School students.  Some of the classes he will teach include Traditional Animation, Drawing Fundamental and Urban Sketching.

Colin Boyer is a freelance genre illustrator who works for Magic: the Gathering and does cover illustrations for Fantasy Flight Game’s Star Wars: Legion. He studied illustration at Ringling College of Art + Design, and while there he took an intensive multi week summer workshop called The Illustration Academy, where he learned from world renowned illustrators like Mark English, Gary Kelley, and Jon Foster. When the Academy started an online school he was awarded a full ride scholarship. He also studied classical drawing and painting at The Southern Atelier, and did a private mentor-ship with illustrator Greg Manchess through SmArt School. He lives in Orlando with his beautiful wife and daughter.

Dana Corrigan is a 2D animator from Tampa, with a passion for storytelling and an MFA in Fine Arts from Savannah College of Art and Design. She is someone who’s always loved a school environment, and has been teaching Animation and Digital Art at a college level since 2011, at the University of Tampa and the University of South Florida. She has worked as a freelance animator and graphic designer since 2005.

Some of her projects include character sprites and animations for Flash games and the Xbox 360, animation for a TV series in Cartoon Network South Asia, TV pilots, short films, motion comics, book illustrations, pitch booklets and presentation material, online commercials and interactive media. In her spare time, she develops pitches for cartoon shows, some of which have been pitched to Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Warner Brothers.

Amanda Moldovan is a skilled animator, painter, illustrator, graphic designer, and professional weirdo. In school, she crawled her way through the jungles of the amazon to get her BFA in Animation. Being a University of Central Florida student taught her what it was like to work in a studio environment and create a short animated film. Since then she has had animation jobs around the US, started her own art business, directed a short, and worked as a painting instructor.

In her first job as an instructor she taught people of all ages how to get creative and pick up a brush. She has animated on short films, music videos, video games, YouTube series, and Television shows. She also is an avid member of Women in Animation, where she was lucky enough to be in a mentorship group under a head of animation at Pixar.  Her hobbies include Dungeons and Dragons, rock and roll, and re watching old Muppet show episodes. Raised in the state of Florida (home of the mouse himself), she found herself inspired by the world around her and began to create. The world hasn’t been the same since.

James Parris was born in New York City, attending the High School of Art and Design and Pratt Institute before migrating to Los Angeles to become a multi-hyphenate filmmaker.

Cutting his teeth in traditional animation during the 90’s Disney animation renaissance, his traditional animation credits include The Lion King, Mulan and Tarzan. He later migrated to CG visual effects for blockbuster features like Spider-Man, I, Robot, Transformers 2 and The Oscar-winning Curious Case of Benjamin Button. James is also an Animation Director on popular TV series like Apple’s Doug Unplugs, as well as an avid live-action filmmaker and storyboard artist, directing short films and music videos, while developing feature and series content through his production company, Paper Tiger Films.