The Cartoon Recruit Blog

As you may have heard, Cartoon Recruit is hosting an animation jam from November 1st to November 24th. The purpose of the jam is to encourage artists to collaborate (in teams of three) on 20-second portfolio pieces. Participants are intended to work on their projects over any seven days during the event. You can find details about how to register for the event in our portfolio jam announcement.

We first announced the jam’s theme on Discord on November 1st, but if you’re not into Discord you can still participate. When I pitched the jam to my earlybird followers, I promised that the theme would be both goofy and thematic to Halloween. I think I’ve fulfilled that promise.

The official theme for Cartoon Recruit's 2025 portfolio jam is…

“Doot doot”

A reference to a mysterious GIF of a skeleton playing the trumpet, also known as ‘Trumpet Skull’ or ‘Mr. Skeltal.’ This prompt can be interpreted however you like, with or without influence from the animated GIF itself.

The original animation was made by Cathy Jarboe. There’s a terrific YouTube video called no one knows who created skull trumpet (until now) by Jeffiot that goes into the GIF’s origins and deconstructs 3D animation techniques from the late 90s.

If you’d like to participate in the jam, you can read more details about the event and register your team here.

By popular demand, Cartoon Recruit is hosting an animation jam from November 1st to November 24th with a mystery theme. The purpose of the jam is to encourage artists to collaborate (in teams of three) on 20-second portfolio pieces. Participants are intended to work on their projects over any seven days during the event. You can find details about how to register for the event in our portfolio jam announcement.

Since it wouldn’t be an animation jam without a bit of healthy competition, we invited seven industry artists to join our judges panel. Each judge has the opportunity to cast votes for their three favorite films. The film with the most votes will be crowned winner of the jam during the awards ceremony on November 30th!

Meet this animation jam's judges panel:

• Brent Smith is a layout artist, 3D generalist and team coordinator with nearly 20 years of experience working in Toronto’s animation industry. He also has a well-earned reputation for connecting artists and storytellers.
• Eden Timm is a director, animator, storyboard artist, and college instructor. Their most recent projects include storyboarding at WildBrain Studios and animating on Giant Ant Films' upcoming feature.
• Jake Hollander is an LA-based writer and supervising director, with directing credits on Duncanville and Krapopolis. His indie work includes My Wife the Monster and The Yolk Bros.
• Kaitlin Sutherland is a Vancouver-based director and storyboard artist. Her production credits include episode director on The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder and Assistant Director on One-of-a-Kind Marcie.
• Lindsay Knowler is a Vancouver-based supervising 2D rigging artist and production trainer. She is also the founder of Eat Your Peas, the first animation production school that works like a real studio.
• Megan Ferguson is a director with over 15 years of experience working in the animation industry. She is also a founding member of Ottawa Animators Talking Socially (OATS).
• ZeBirdBrain is a Montreal-based YouTube creator known for producing in-depth Harmony and Storyboard Pro tutorials. She also recently published a series with advice for freelancers in the animation industry. (You can also join her Discord server.)

What’s a portfolio jam?

This is a community event where teams of artists work together to produce 20-seconds of animation, each following a theme. The purpose of this jam is to give students and early-career artists an opportunity to collaborate on portfolio pieces together.

Teams of three are encouraged, but projects could be completed by groups of any size. There are no restrictions on techniques or software, so long as assets are not generated by AI. (We’re not here to help HAL 9000’s portfolio.)

Update: We just announced the judges panel for this animation jam.

Update 2: We officially announced the jam’s theme.

When’s the portfolio jam?

The jam’s theme will be announced at 8:00 PM Eastern on Saturday, November 1st on Cartoon Recruit’s discord server. The theme will be silly and appropriate for post-Halloween. Artists will have up to 7 days to complete their jam films. In order to participate, projects must be uploaded to YouTube by November 24 before midnight (in your timezone) with links sent by email to mike@cartoonrecruit.com along with your team’s name.

To allow for participation from the widest pool of artists, project days may be non-consecutive. This helps working artists participate after work or on weekends. We are not strictly enforcing these time limits; it’s mostly there to keep the scope of the project manageable. We encourage everyone to work at a reasonable pace and get plenty of sleep.

The films will each be screened during a livestream on Cartoon Recruit’s Discord server at 8:00 PM Eastern on Sunday, November 30th. There will be a panel of judges as well as a community vote.

How to portfolio jam?

If you don’t already have a team assembled, you can look for one on the Cartoon Recruit Discord server through the #​portfolio-jam-lfg board or anywhere else you can wrangle friends and colleagues together. Once you have a team of three ready, fill out this form.

Will there be prizes?

Cartoon Recruit doesn’t endorse spec work or contests. We’re only playing for bragging rights and a film that you can feel proud to have in your portfolio.

Hey, uh, what’s Cartoon Recruit?

CartoonRecruit.com is an ad-free job board for finding studios actively hiring in animation, game development and VFX. Whether you’re an early career artist or a seasoned professional, our goal is to provide the resources that you need to connect with your next animation job. And we’re interested in hosting more online events in the future.