Next Lab Generation Awards 3 Top Honors in Madrid as AI Tools Draw Mixed Reviews
Updated
Updated · Cartoon Brew · Jul 1
Next Lab Generation Awards 3 Top Honors in Madrid as AI Tools Draw Mixed Reviews
1 articles · Updated · Cartoon Brew · Jul 1
Summary
Three projects — The Message, Sad Mahan and Taras — won top honors at Next Lab Generation 2026 in Madrid, earning professional accreditation to Annecy’s Mifa market in 2027.
Six finalists were chosen from more than 70 submissions and spent eight weeks building proof-of-concept pitches using Meta’s Quill and the AI image platform Magnific.
Quill won broad praise as a fast way to sketch, animate and prototype in 3D, though teams said it had a learning curve.
Magnific drew a far cooler response: participants said it helped with concept art, lighting tests and mood exploration, but many dropped it for production because of inconsistency, weak control and costly iteration.
That tension shaped the showcase’s broader takeaway, with several creators saying AI handled image generation while artists were left preparing inputs — a trade-off one director called “the boring part.”