Animation Mentor Unleashes Total Creativity with Release of Flagship Animated Character Bishop 2.0

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Animation Mentor Unleashes Total Creativity with the Release of Flagship Animated Character Bishop 2.0

Press Release from AnimationMentor.com

New Customizable Character Rig Now Offers a Plethora of Versatile Options Giving Students and Alumni the Ability to Animate Infinite Character Traits and Looks    

Emeryville, CA (September 23, 2010) – AnimationMentor.com (Animation Mentor), the leading online character animation school created by animators for animators, has taken another leap forward in innovative teaching tools with the release of Bishop 2.0, the newest version of their flagship animated character that students use for their Animation Mentor course work. First unveiled at SIGGRAPH 2010 in July, students and alumni now use the new character rig to build on their growing animation skills. This release allows them to morph Bishop into an infinite number of unique personalities, appearances and expressive looks as they bring their animation to life. Characters can be built from the ground up with everything from body shape, nose, lips, chin, ears, hair and skin tones, to what their character is wearing.

"Bishop could be one of the most collaboratively animated characters in the world with about 1.7 million hours logged by students over the course of our program", said Taylor Mahony who heads the schools technical and content care at Animation Mentor. What is cool about Bishop 2.0 is that the sky is the limit and allows even the most novice Maya users to completely alter the appearance of their characters while keeping it easy to move around and totally recognizable."  

"One size does not fit all. When developing Bishop 2.0, we were focused on giving our students the flexibility to fully express themselves," said Bobby Beck, CEO and cofounder of Animation Mentor. "We're so excited to see the possibilities that they come up with and we're already starting to see some amazing results!"

Animation Mentor students make some of the most incredible friends for life and tap into their inner geek while they learn the craft of animation face-to-face with their mentors, the masterminds behind the movies and games that they love. Students get all this with support, encouragement – and lots of "funtivities" – from the Animation Mentor crew during their journey. Graduates go on to work on a range of feature films, television and video games.

To view the YouTube overview of Bishop 2.0 and short demo of its creative flexibility, visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WT7_F5wsQk [1].

A bout Animation Mentor (AnimationMentor.com)
Animation Mentor is a state-of-the-art online animation program teaching students the skills needed to learn to animate like a professional animator in the studio environment.  Focused 100% on character animation, the 18-month animation program is designed and taught by some of the industry's top professional animators from top studios. Different than an animation university, Animation Mentor's online campus environment provides students around the world with a convenient, flexible, and accessible learning environment 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  By graduation, every student will have worked in a production-style environment with mentors who are working studio animators. Students learn how to accept guidance and criticism, to meet deadlines and to budget and schedule their time to succeed in a career in animation. The animation courses lead students to a diploma in Advanced Studies in Character Animation and are built with a focus on production studio skills, allowing students to get comfortable with the many challenges and opportunities they will experience when working in an animation career.  Upon graduation, Animation Mentor coaches graduates and connects them to job opportunities with major recruiters, video game companies, and film studios. For more information, visit http://www.AnimationMentor.com [2].