non-traditional animation school. free for students.

Apply for our Winter 2025 session now!

The session runs from February 10th through May 2nd, 2025.
You can join us in person at Boxfort in Detroit, or test our new online program.
Applications close on December 31st at Midnight EST.

Have questions about our program?
Join us for a live Q&A session on December 17th at 1 PM EST. Sign up here!

A new type of school

Aspiring students are often met with a paywall at art schools, making it difficult to have a diverse student body. We want to change that.

Gunner finds empty seats at animation studios and offers a free curriculum to learn next to professionals. The more studios that join, the bigger our school gets.

We are looking for like-minded donors to help us expand our method to a network of participating studios, and to ensure no financial burden falls on aspiring students.

Ian Sigmon and Nick Forshee sitting for an interview in the Duolingo Studio.

From Studio to School

Gunner started as an animation studio in Detroit and quickly became a valued partner to many top Fortune 500 companies.

After being acquired by Duolingo, the Gunner name lives on with a new mission — to change the world of art education, training the next generation of artists at no cost to them.

The Hobbes studio space with empty desks. Text on the image reads "Why can't any studio be a school?"

Be part of our growth.

We want our curriculum in hundreds, if not thousands of studios nationwide, supplementing their internship programs or replacing them entirely.

The more studios that opt in, the more opportunities there are for students.

And we don’t want to stop there. The more support we have, the more impact we can have on the future of the creative industry.

Student Taylor Stanislawski poses for a portrait with two animation reference books.

Hear from our students.

“I liked the workflow here more than my internship because it was formatted in a sense that you had to really be self-motivated, but the resources and the direction were much stronger.”

— Taylor Stanislawski

Help us out!

We’re a 501c(3) non-profit organization, which means we rely on donations to keep us running.

All your donations go directly to expanding our program, keeping the curriculum relevant to the industry, and providing students with the tools and software they need to succeed.

Students work on projects at their desks. Text on image says Open your doors to future talent.

Volunteer with us.

Are you a working professional in the creative industry? Great! We’re always looking for volunteers to help mentor students or expand our curriculum.

Become a host studio.

This is an opportunity to foster new talent without needing to direct or manage them; we do that remotely.

Students will work on Gunner projects from a hot desk in your studio while observing the inner workings of a professional environment.