00 — Frames
Press stills
The look of the film.
Promotional images from the official campaign. Artwork © Aaron Blaise Studios. This page is an unofficial tribute.
Animated short film · 2025 · 11 minutes
A lonely polar bear looks for a friend in the Arctic. One man draws 11,000 frames by hand to say, without a single word, what it costs to lose someone — and what it means to find them again.
00 — Frames
Press stills
Promotional images from the official campaign. Artwork © Aaron Blaise Studios. This page is an unofficial tribute.
01 — The film
What it is
Snow Bear is an American hand-drawn 2D animated short written and directed by Aaron Blaise, produced by Nicholas Burch for Aaron Blaise Studios. It was released on November 28, 2025 and is available on Blaise’s YouTube channel.
The score is by Mark Mancina (composer of Brother Bear) and Marlon E. Espino. Sound went through Skywalker Sound. Blaise animated it alone on a Cintiq Pro 32: story, boards, backgrounds, effects, edit. Every shadow. Every flake.
02 — The artist
The creator
“Snow Bear is about love, loss, and being adrift. About grief, loneliness, and the need to connect. I saw myself in it.” — Aaron Blaise
He was born on February 17, 1968 in Burlington, Vermont, and grew up in Naples, Florida. He drew animals as a child. He studied illustration at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota because he wanted to work for National Geographic. In 1988, at 20, he landed a Disney internship. That is where he fell in love with animation.
He worked as an animator and supervising animator through the Disney Renaissance:
In 2003 he co-directed Brother Bear with Robert Walker. The film earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature. Blaise has said he took the project because he wanted to animate bears.
After his wife Karen died in 2007, he left Disney. He tried to direct The Legend of Tembo at Digital Domain / Tradition Studios; the studio went bankrupt. In 2012 he and partner Nick Burch founded the online school CreatureArtTeacher.com, one of the most respected places to learn animal drawing and animation.
In 2013 he was 2D animation supervisor and character designer on the beloved British Christmas ad The Bear and the Hare (John Lewis). In 2025 ASIFA-Hollywood gave him the Winsor McCay Award for lifetime achievement — at the same Annie Awards where Snow Bear won Best Short.
Artist site: creatureartteacher.com · YouTube: The Art of Aaron Blaise · X/Instagram: @AaronBlaiseArt
03 — Story
Film lore
Glen, a male polar bear, lives alone on an unforgiving Arctic floe. He tries to befriend an arctic fox, an orca, and some Canada geese. No one stays. So he does the only thing he can: he builds a companion out of snow.
They spend their days together. They watch the aurora. They play hide-and-seek. They eat seals. They slide down snowbanks. They mimic walruses. It is a made-up friendship — and completely real to him.
One morning the snow bear starts to melt. Glen tries to save it. He cannot. He mourns. Later he finds an island with green grass and, exploring it, meets Luma, a female polar bear who has also built a snow bear. They stay together. They make another snow bear so the two ice friends are not alone.
“When a lonely polar bear can’t find a friend… he makes one.”
There is no dialogue on purpose: Blaise did not want language to get in the way. The acting lives in the eyes, the weight of the body, the wind, and the music.
04 — Meaning
Why it exists
In 2007 Aaron lost Karen, his wife of 20 years, to breast cancer. He said it felt like the sun would never rise again. That loneliness — and the feeling of watching someone “melt” with nothing you can do — is the metaphor of the snow bear.
“The snow bear melting is exactly like watching Karen go. I animated that scene in tears.” — Aaron Blaise
The short was not born as a climate manifesto. It was born as grief. Researching it, Blaise studied Baffin Island in Greenland: granite cliffs, glaciers, breaking ice. The iceberg that calves away from the mainland, he has said, is “saying goodbye to your old life.”
Years later, while making the film with Nick Burch, he met Vedanta, Nick’s sister-in-law. They fell in love and married. The ending of the short — finding another bear, and another snow bear — is that second light. Blaise has said that if he could talk to Karen, he would tell her: “It’s been a long journey, but I’m okay.”
The seed is personal, but the landscape is not accidental. Polar Bears International and the National Parks Conservation Association stood behind the project. After finishing the film, Blaise traveled to Churchill, Manitoba, during Polar Bear Week to see wild polar bears. Part of the proceeds from a Snow Bear card game go to conservation.
05 — Craft
Process
06 — Accolades
Awards (selected)
An incomplete list on purpose: the film is still adding honors. These are the distinctions most often cited by the team and by IMDb.
07 — Screen
Watch
The player is at the top of the page. Here it is again, wide, if you want to watch it after reading the lore.