Charles Kenny

As a twitter user, one of the joys of the service is the ability to interact with people you otherwise might not be able to. Yes, you could listen to the random ramblings of various celebrities, but there are plenty of normal people on there too, and they are immensely more interesting.

There are plenty of animation folks on there for a start, and if you are looking for a nicely curated list of the best, look no further than the Cartoon Brew Twitter Directory, which contains dozens of noted, famous and otherwise talented animators, producers and studios.

What I’m posting today, however, is a list of people I follow. Now I will admit that even though I’ve been on Twitter for almost two years, I’m still learning and constantly discovering new people to follow or people who I didn’t know were on Twitter. Some are famous, most are not.

However, following people is not about how famous they are or are not, it’s about what they have to say, and I think I can safely say that the people below represent a diverse section of the animation industry, from the big boys down to the independents, so I get a pretty wide view of the happenings in animation on a daily basis. OK, sure, there are some people who don’t update very often, but that should not discourage you from following them. They might say something interesting someday, and you will want to be listening when they do; there’s no disadvantage to be had by adding them to your ‘following’ list.

Of course, if you’re already on twitter, all you have to do is follow my animators list, or my animation industry list, which features the studios.

Here is the list, presented in absolutely no order whatsoever, although while it most likely approximates when I began following them, it in no way represents what I think of them or how important I think they are. One note though, I have not included people who have protected their profiles as they’ve done so for a reason and the last thing they need is a whole bunch of invites they didn’t ask for.

• Paul Young – CEO of Cartoon Saloon
• Catherine Hicks – Animator at Pixar
• Chris Oatley – Visual Development Artist at Disney
• Bill Oakley – Yes, that Bill Oakley of Simspons fame
• David Silverman – The David Silverman of Simpsons and others fame
• Walt Disney Pictures – Official Twitter stream
• The Ottawa International Animation Festival – Official Twitter stream
• Animation Magazine – Does exactly what it says on the tin.
• Walt Disney Animation – The outreach and development team
• ASIFA-East – My home ASIFA chapter!
• Meg Hunt – Illustrator and cartoonist
• Dietrich Reisler – Animation news and views
• Brooke Duckart – Animator and illustrator in Milwaukee
• Brianne Drouhard – Better known as Potato Farm Girl
• Amy Mebberson – Not an animator per se, although she does draw a lot of animation-related stuff 🙂
• Raina Telgemeier – “Cartoonist by day, cartoonist by night”
• Andrew Stanton – That guy that works at Pixar
• Disney/Pixar – Their official stream
• Animation Insider – Animation news and views
• AliEnRobOt – “Animator at a major studio”
• Animation Ireland – Does exactly what it says on the tin.
• Ed Catmull – Computer geek that may have had something to do with the Pixar Imaging Computer
• Seth McFarlane – Animator and Frank Sinatra fan
• Floyd Norman – Calls himself a “wacky cartoonist” but he’s better known as a Disney legend.
• Titmouse Animation – An awesome studio
• @JPidgeon – storyboard artist and toy maker
• Floyd Bishop – animator
• Johanne matte – Also known as @ruftoon, story artist at DWA
• Eoghan Kidney – Animator among other things and Irish to the core
• Scott Wright – Animator
• Robert Kohr – Animator who did The Lift
• Nina Paley – Animator who created Sita Sings the Blues
• Lili Chin – Animator
• Kristin Lepore – “I am a tiny animator”
• Kent Osborne – Currently a storyboard artist on Adventure Time
• jamie Karrot – jack of all-animation-trades Englishman
• JG Quintel – Creator of Regular Show on Cartoon Network
• Eddie White – “Writer director of Earthly and Unearthly animated films”
• Jenny Lerew – Also known as Blackwing Jenny
• DreamWorks Animation – official stream
• Disney Animation – Official stream of the studio
• Don Shank – “I draw and paint at Pixar”
• Bob Boyle – Creator of Wow Wow Wubbzy! and Yin Tang Yo! among other things
• Pat Smith – Indie animator who co-writes the Scribblejunkies blog
• Phil Lord – Co-director of Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs
• Atomic Cartoons – Canadian cartoon outfit, eh?
• Caboom Animation – Dublin and LA-based outfit.
• Craig Kausen – Grandson of Charles M. Jones
• Jen Quitter – Animator and all-around creative type
• Alex Deligiannis – Story artist and TNMT lover
• Phil Rynda – well-known for his escapes on Adventure Time
• Sam Levine – Animator amongst man, many other things
• Shem Cohen – Knows his storyboards inside and out
• Doug TenNapel – Creator of the one and only, EarthWorm Jim
• Cathal Gaffney – CEO of Brown Bag Films in Dublin
• Asterisk Animation – NYC-based outfit
• Lev Polyakov – Promising young animator
• Fran Krause – Gifted animator from NY
• Katie Cropper – NYC animator and essential ASIFA-East cog
• Katie Shanahan – “A storyboard artist by day and comic making nut-bar by night!”
• Brown Bag Films – Academy Award-nominated Irish studio
• Ghostbot – West coast-based aniamtion studio with a cute mascot
• Dan Meth – creator of the ground-breaking Meth Minute 39 web series.
• Ronnie Del Carmen – Superb creative-type
• Bill Plymton – Indie animation king
• Niko Anesti – South Jersey animator and friend with a very sharp sense of humour
• Pendelton Ward – Creator of Adventure Time
• David OReilly – Berlin-based, Irish animator genius
• Clay Katis – Animation supervisor on Tangled among other things
• Kim Hazel – Also known as @trexarms
• The Rauch Bros. – NYC-based wonderful animating brothers
• Jeaux Janovsky – LA storyboarder and inventive guy
• Daisey May Edwards – Australian animator in NYC
• Elliot Cowan – The other Australian animator in NYC
• Jerry Beck – Animation author
• Cartoon Brew – should be obvious