Allow me to introduce myself
Howdy! My name is Thorin Kafka. I'm a freelance animator based out of the Pacific Northwest with a passion for making pictures move. I specialize at creating 2D animations in myriad styles and software for both games and video. I'm also proficient in illustration, editing, compositing, writing, and project management. While my focus is on animation, I believe having broad experience makes my work deliver better on your needs, which is why I strive towards the understanding and application of a broad range of skills. When I'm not animating, I'm playing games of all kinds, thinking about game design, writing essays, painting miniatures, getting people to laugh, and taking naps with my cats.
LIST OF CREDITS
Curious Media
January 16th, 2023 - May 8th, 2026
9 Story Media - Rosie’s Rules
Overall
Rigging and animation in Esoteric Spine. Skinning was used to implement different costumes.
Designed particle emitters for developer use in Pixi HTML runtime environment.
Curious Media - Curious Labs
Rigging and animation in Esoteric Spine. In some cases remade animations in Spine that were previously made in Adobe Animate. Heavy use of mesh-deforming to make assets more flexible and to create faux-3D effects on some animated props.
Rigging and animation in Esoteric Spine. Often remade animations in Spine that were previously made in Adobe Animate.
Curious Media
Animation in Adobe Animate. Combination of frame-by-frame and tweened symbols.
Disney Junior - Pupstruction
Rigging and animation in Esoteric Spine. Made use of transform constraints for interconnected machine animations.
Visual mockups for developer use and reference made in Adobe Animate.
The Fred Rogers Company - Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood
Rigging and animation in Adobe Animate.
Rigging and animation in Esoteric Spine
Rigging and animation in Esoteric Spine. Skinning utilized for changing character costumes.
Rigging and animation in Adobe Animate.
The Fred Rogers Company - Donkey Hodie
Made updates to someone else’s prior animation work (in Adobe Animate) as needed.
Rigging and animation in Esoteric Spine. Skinning and animation layering was utilized to give a character multiple emotions that could share some animations.
Won an Emmy for Outstanding Interactive Media at the 2025 Children’s and Family Emmys
Rigging and Animation in Esoteric Spine
Designed particle emitters for developer use in Pixi HTML runtime environment.
Rigging and Animation in Adobe Animate.
Made updates to someone else’s prior animation work (in Adobe Animate) as needed.
Made updates to someone else’s prior animation work (in Adobe Animate) as needed.
Made updates to someone else’s prior animation work (in Adobe Animate) as needed.
Made updates to someone else’s prior animation work (in Adobe Animate) as needed.
Future Brain Media - City Island
Overall
Rigging and animation in Adobe Animate. Provided direction to the client on how to structure animations for development use. Converted client-provided animations to be efficient and work in the game environment.
Mainframe Studios - Phoebe and Jay
Overall
Rigging and animations in Esoteric Spine.
Used Toon Boom Harmony for gathering assets for rigs.
Designed particle emitters for developer use in Pixi HTML runtime environment.
Mighty Picnic - Lyla in the Loop
Overall
Rigging and animation in Esoteric Spine.
Designed particle emitters for developer use in Pixi HTML runtime environment.
Won an award from Kidscreen 2026 for Best Alternative Game
Some visual mockups for gameplay elements were made in Adobe After Effects.
Newell - Elmer’s Squishies
Squishtopia Website
Character animations finished in Adobe Animate. Someone else made the key animations, while it was my job to clean up and color the final animations.
Sesame Workshop - Sesame Street
Overall
Rigging and animation in Esoteric Spine.
Designed particle emitters for developer use in Pixi HTML runtime environment.
Georgia Power
Rigging and animation in Esoteric Spine.
Some mockup work in Adobe After Effects.
THIRTEEN Productions - Count on June Bug!
Rigging and animation in Esoteric Spine.
Designed particle emitters for developer use in Pixi HTML runtime environment.
Independent Freelance Work
Game Grumps
“GG Animateds to fill The Void™ || ALL NEW GAME GRUMPS ANIMATEDS”
Audio edited and spliced in Adobe Audition.
Storyboard/Animatic/Animation/Coloring/Light compositing in Adobe Animate.
Some scene references built in Blender.
Final compositing in Adobe After Effects.
Final edits and exports in Adobe Premiere Pro.
"Gettin' SPOOKED! - Ghoul Grumps Animated Collab"
Audio edited and spliced in Adobe Audition.
Storyboard/Animatic/Animation/Coloring in Adobe Animate.
Backgrounds and additional assets made in Clip Studio Paint
Compositing in Adobe After Effects.
Final edits and exports in Adobe Premiere Pro.
"We made up a story and these animators ANIMATED IT! - A Porcupine Animated Collab"
Storyboard/Animatic/Animation/Coloring/Compositing in Toon Boom Harmony.
Final edits and exports in Adobe Premiere Pro.
"Fake Sponsors... but make them ANIMATED! A Game Grumps Collab"
Audio edited and spliced in Adobe Audition.
Storyboard/Animatic/Animation/Coloring in Adobe Animate.
Final edits and exports in Adobe Premiere Pro.
Itzchitt Productions
Storyboarded on paper
Animatic/Animation/Coloring in Adobe Animate
Some rough animation done in the Rough Animator App on iPad.
Backgrounds and additional assets made in Clip Studio Paint.
Compositing in Adobe After Effects
Final edits and exports in Adobe Premiere Pro
SmashBits Animation Studio
August 12th, 2020 - October 20th, 2020
Funrise - Bright Fairy Friends
Bright Fairy Friends Web Show
Animation in Adobe Animate. Rigs, Props, and Backgrounds were laid out and provided to me prior to animating. Some frame-by-frame effects animation was done, also in Adobe Animate.
Animated on shots for these episodes: