Frequently Asked Questions
Do you do birthday parties/group/corporate events?
We have done them, but it depends on our availability, and the feasibility of accommodating the size of your group. We do not have a location of our own, so when we have done these kinds of events, we travel to the client's premises. If you're interested in having us do a step-by-step cartoon drawing lesson for a group, please email us: info@moencartooncourses.com
Do you offer intermediate/advanced level courses?
We have offered these in the past, and will probably offer them in the future if they are not currently offered. The preparation for these kinds of courses is extensive, so it's difficult to do them all the time while running other aspects of the business, and keeping up with client commissioned artwork as a working artist.
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Our most popular type of class is the introductory, step-by-step cartoon character drawing class, and we will continue to offer that for as long as it is in high demand. For students seeking to grow beyond what we offer in that course, and beyond even what we have offered in our intermediate courses in the past, we created the "One-on-One Virtual Mentorship". This mentorship is designed to meet students age 12+ regardless of their skill level. So in that way, we do accommodate students who want to progress with us!
Do you offer courses/classes online?
Currently, we do not offer any online instruction outside of the One-on-One mentorship. As of this writing (August 2025), we have only been giving instruction for about 4 months, and it has mostly been in-person. It is a longer term goal of ours to offer intermediate and advance courses in video form. The structure would be to teach specific lessons in the videos, give assignments based on the lesson, and then conduct live video follow-ups between myself (Tim) and the students to review and instruct further based on the homework assignments. If this is something you are interested in, feel free to let us know by sending us an email. If there is substantial support for these types of offerings, I will prioritize them.
Do I have to bring anything to the in-person classes?
Nope! We provide all the materials you need. We use pencils, paper, erasers (kneadable and film), sharpie pens (because they dry quickly and do not smear easily), crayola pencils (we currently have 60 different colors on hand), and clipboards if needed. If you want to bring your own supplies to our classes, you are welcome to do so!
Do you offer private instruction?
We do not offer in-person private instruction at the moment, but the closest thing to this is our One-on-One Virtual Mentorship. As it says in its description, the mentorship is not a series of prepared lessons, but is rather a weekly online meetup with me (Tim) where the student can show me artwork he or she needs help with, and ask me questions about specific aspects of cartoon drawing/design. This program is partially designed this way based on some experience I've had teaching students lessons. Sometimes, students already have a decent knowledge of certain lessons before I've taught them. The mentorship allows students to ask, in a private setting, for help with areas that they may not have such proficiency in, or in areas they really want to grow more in. It's the most tailored type of instruction we offer.
Where are you located?
Moen Cartoon Courses is based in East Tennessee. We operate primarily in the communities of Seymour and Maryville, which are in the Knoxville region. We do not have a physical building (one that is open to the public) for our business, but rather we travel to the locations where we hold our in-person classes. Locations are listed with the classes.
What is the difference between your main offerings and your "partner classes"?
The primary and consistent difference here boils down to who collects your money and administrates the classes. If you sign up for a class on this website, that means we are collecting the money, handling registration, and finding a facility to have our classes. If you sign up with a partner class of ours (For example, the "Fine Arts Academy" [FAA] of Seymour FBC), that program hosts the class on their premises, and takes care of monetary transactions and registration, which is done through their website and not ours.
Also, FAA's scheduling considerations are different than ours, so the duration and prices of the program(s) we offer there are sometimes different than what we offer elsewhere. In the past, we have offered cartoon character drawing classes at FAA and at other locations, and each week, the same lesson is given at both locations. A difference, however, is that the FAA programs run for 6 weeks and the programs we administer ourselves run for 4. That means that with our FAA partner classes, there are a couple more characters drawn, and that is reflected in the price.
Aren't you an animator?
Actually, I am not an animator. Animators animate! Which means they move the characters around, acting and emoting with them. In order to animate a character, however, the character must first be designed. That is what my career has been in: character design. Character designers are responsible for developing the aesthetic style, personalities, and general functionality of a character so that any animators who might animate with that character have a consistent "blueprint" to work off of. This means that for an animated production, a character designer must go through a process of developing the overall look and personality of a character, making many exploratory/experimental drawings to see what best reflects who the character ought to be and look like, and also what that character looks like at different angles, in different poses, hitting a variety of expressions, and sometimes changing wardrobes and/or forms.
Its easy to confuse the two terms, "animator" and "character designer", like it may be to confuse the term "architect" with "engineer". While an animator and a character designer may have some overlapping methods in their work (such as drawing in some situations), they are quite different roles from one another. I have only ever animated once in a professional capacity, and it was for a shot on DuckTales that was probably less than 1 or 2 seconds long!
As a "working character designer" what do you work on?
These days (as I write this it is 2025), I have been working on a variety of projects for clients as a freelance character designer/illustrator. Almost all of my freelance work since leaving Disney TVA has been helping creative visionaries with [animation-related] pitch decks. A pitch deck is what a creative person needs in order to present an idea to an investor, production company, or distributor with the hopes of getting their idea produced as a movie or tv show. It consists of several pages outlining the general story premise, characters, settings, etc, and is usually accompanied by a series of graphics. Clients will hire me (and occasionally an illustration partner(s) that I work with) to develop the character/location images needed in their presentations. It's a lot of fun, and I love doing it! But because of the secretive nature of development work in the animation business and protecting individuals' creative ideas, I'm often not allowed to share what I am working on publicly.
If you are looking for that kind of service, and have happened to stumble across this site, email me: info@moencartooncourses.com . I also have a professional portfolio and resume available at: https://timothyamoen.myportfolio.com/ . Additional artwork samples, including background art that I co-illustrate, are available upon request.
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I am also a contributor to a new children's book subscription series called "This Book Might Explode". It's an anthology series that packs in comics, games, stories, puzzles, and other cool stuff for kids. My inaugural contribution is a unique concept called "W.O.O.F.: For Dog and Country." It's a "case file" that introduces the audience to patriotic good-guy spies and world-dominating villains in an all-dog world!