Cutting an Animation Reel For Games

Spidey Animation by Giorgos Konstantinos

What should go into a games animation reel? An animation reel for the games industry is essentially a stunt reel - it should include a variety of physical actions - games animators need to be very proficient in body mechanics.  

Games animators are not (for the most part) actors, rather they are "stunt co-ordinators".  It takes a while to break into the games industry so you need to be uploading your work to games sites and showing your progress over time; recruiters and industry folks will watch your progress and keep an eye on you.

2025 Motion Graphics Demo Reel

Congratulations to our Motion Graphics students and tutors on the excellent new 2025 Motion Graphics Demo Reel from Escape Studios. The video above is a compilation of the best work done by Motion Graphics students studying on our short courses, evening classes, and postgraduate classes.  

Animation Demo Reels - To Light or Not to Light?

Chameleon by Dave Novis

A strong animation demo reel isn’t just about great animation — it’s also about great presentation.  

Many student reels rely on greyshade renders or raw playblasts, but taking the time to add simple lighting can make a huge difference to how your work is received. 

You don’t need to be a lighting artist to benefit from a basic setup.  A little polish goes a long way, and you can follow one of our super simple lighting tutorials to get a great result in just a few minutes. 

Character Creation Showreel 2025

Escape Studios is proud to present our 2025 Character Creation Showreel, featuring the best work created by our talented students over the past year.  Our courses in character creation teach students how to design and create their own characters, and bring them to life.  Students learn to design, model, texture, rig and animate their own character, enabling them to be creative artists working with a wide variety of digital tools.

Escape Studios VFX Showreel 2025

We're proud to present our 2025 VFX demo reel from Escape Studios, featuring the best work created by our students over the past year.  Visual Effects is at the heart of what we do; it's where we began over twenty five years ago when Escape Studios was first founded to bridge the gap between the needs of industry for studio ready talent, which remains our mission today.

Escape Studios 3D Animation Demo Reel 2025

We're proud to present the 2025 Escape Studios 3D Animation Demo Reel, a selection of the best animation completed at Escape Studios over the past year.  This year Animation Career Review ranked us #5 for Animation in the UK, #12 for Animation in Europe and #17 for Animation Internationally.  To see more student work at Escape Studios, follow this link. 

Character & Creature Creation Showreel

Check our our new Character and Creature Creation Showreel. This selection of the best work created by our students at Escape Studios shows how far our Character and Creature Creation MA and Short Course has come in the past year.  Congratulations to all our students on their excellent work.

Escape Studios 2024 Anim Games & VFX Demo Reel

Welcome to the Escape Studios 2024 Demo Reel - our selection of the very best Animation Games and VFX work completed over the past year.  This latest edit includes work by our most recent graduating class, as well as clips from many of our award-winning short films.  Congratulations to all our students on their remarkable work, once again raising the creative bar ever higher.

Why Animators Need a Great Acting Shot

Acting shot by Escapee Rich Jeffrey

Why do animators need a great acting shot on their demo reel?  Because nothing showcases an animator’s talent quite like a strong acting shot.  

A well-executed acting scene shows that an animator can approach a shot like an actor might approach a scene in a movie or a play. 

Acting shots reveal whether an animator can go beyond basic mechanics and deliver a performance.

Foundry Educational Showreel 2024

We're delighted to be included in the latest Educational Showreel from Foundry, makers of compositing software Nuke, showcasing the best work done by students using their software. Foundry are among our leading industry partners, supporting our students' work, including live industry projects such as "Dead Shot" - a Sky original feature film directed by The Guard Bros. - to which our students contributed around a dozen shots last year. 

2022 Art of Games Reel at Escape Studios

Above is our 2022 Games Reel, our latest edit of the best work done by our talented students studying the Art of Games at Escape Studios.  Like animation, games has grown enormously at Escape Studios over the last few years, and the quality of the work done by our students speaks for itself.  The games industry itself has expanded rapidly in recent years, overtaking the film industry to be one of the biggest employers in the UK, offering excellent career opportunities for those with the right skillset.

2022 VFX Showreel

Escape Studios was founded 20 years ago to teach the skills needed to service the rapidly growing visual effects industry, in which there was a desperate shortage of talent.  This we still do, and VFX remains at the heart of everything we do at Escape Studios.  To see some of the latest work done by our talented VFX students, check out the 2022 VFX Showreel above.

Escape Studios 2022 Showreel

Above is our just-published 2022 showreel, showcasing a selection of the very best work created at Escape Studios by Games, VFX and Animation students over the past year.  Congratulations to all our students and Escapees on their excellent work.  

Motion Graphics Escape Studios Demo Reel

Animation at Escape Studios isn't just about character animation, it also encompasses the growing field of Motion Graphics. To see some of the excellent work done by our Motion Graphics students at Escape Studios, check out the demo reel above.

Escape Studios 2022 2D Animation Reel

We're proud to present our very first 2D Animation Reel. Here at Escape Studios we've been expanding our 2D animation capacity for some years, starting with our evening classes in Toonboom Harmony, and now offering our undergraduate animation students a new 2D Animation Pathway, focusing on digital tools such as Toonboom Harmony, Adobe Animate and Blender.  The 2D Animation industry is going through a renaissance, and we're proud to offer our students a chance to be a part of it.  The reel was cut by Escapee Miguel Teixeira. 

Free Showreel Guide from Escape Studios

Free Showreel Guide from Escape Studios

Why not download your Free Showreel Guide from Escape Studios?

A showreel is the key to finding work in the expanding vfx and animation industry. 

Our Free Showreel Guide draws on the recent experience of our successful Escapees, including their advice on how to create a quality showreel.

The guide also includes advice from recruiters at Creative Assembly, Framestore, Blue Zoo and DNEG.

Animation Showreel Clinic Tonight

The Demo Reel Doctor is back.  Our next Animation Showreel Clinic takes place at Escape Studios tonight, wednesday 5th February, from 5.30pm until 7pm, with a special guest from Framestore.

The event is all about animation demo reels: how to make them, how to perfect them, and how to use them to land your first job in the industry.

If you're working on your animation demo reel and you'd like to make your reel the best it possibly can be - come along this evening.