A guy once asked me how I'd started with animation and without hesitation I replied: "Watching Tom&Jerry!" Yes. That's the truth. And also Top Cat and Pink Panther.

My name is Nickolay and I've been professionally involved in animation since '94. As early as that time it happened so that

I constantly received offers for working on different PC products - multimedia titles, interactive presentations and computer games. And as the years are passing by it seems that I have worked equally for television and interactive products. You'll see that there are more CD titles than TV products in this site, but this is because they are shorter to produce and take less time.

I decided to have more text in the site than usually expected, but you can skip any part which is of no interest to you. My impression, visiting sites of colleagues and studios, is that most of them tell us so little about themselves and the projects they took part in, that is just not enough.

I've touched almost every area of the 2D animation production - from the clean-up to preliminary budget, time and people estimations. I've worked as an animator, character designer, storyboard artist, animation supervisor, technology consultant, compositing artist, editor and director.

My education is in traditional animation - in 1994 the College of Animation and Arts, Sofia, Bulgaria as an Animator and in 2000 The National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts, Sofia, Bulgaria as an Animation Director (MFA).

Since the beginning of 2003 I live in Australia.

If you like what you see and would like me to help you with your project, don't hesitate to contact me. I can give a strong contribution to your team as both an experienced animator or a technology advisor.
If you just feel you'd like to tell me something, drop me an email. I will be glad to know what you think about this site.

Thanks for visiting! :)

You can download my CV in PDF format by clicking here

Below is a brief list of my experience record:

March 2007 - till present :: Character designer at Blue Rocket Productions, Hobart, Tasmania, working on Pixel Pinkie - 26x12' Flash TV episodes.

Aug 2005 - Feb 2007 :: Animator, concept artist, graphic designer and illustrator (full-time) at the Victorian Department of Education and Training, Melbourne. Working for Languages OnLine - a web project, containing hundreds of educational Flash activities that assist foreign language education in Australian schools.

2004 - 2005 :: Animator and character designer (full-time) at Konami, Australia - Sydney.

2003 - 2004 :: Animator and character designer for Arthur's Pet Chase, a side-scroller game for The Learning Co. Riverdeep, developed by ImaginEngine Corp. Created all the in-game animation.
Illustrator and character designer for Dora's Fairytale Adventure - a "Dora The Explorer" PC game, developed by ImaginEngine Corp, published by Atari / Nick Jr.

1999 - 2002 :: Animator, character designer, director and 2D department supervisor working in the field of multimedia and PC games at Electric Dog, Sofia, Bulgaria (www.ed-multimedia.com). Games: Tonka Construction2, Barney Magical Music, Barney On location All Around Town, Arthur's Camping Adventure, Tonka Power Tools, Hooked On Phonics, Blue's Clues Preschool, Blue's Clues Kindergarten, Rugrats Go Wild. All games developed by ImaginEngine Corp., San Francisco, USA, (www.imaginengine.com) for Hasbro Interactive, Mattel, THQ, The Learning Co., Gateway Learning Corp.

2002 :: Animator for the Weekly Political Cartoons for Panorama, the main political broadcast at the Bulgarian National Television

2000 - 2001 :: Director, producer and concept artist of 'California Dream', a music video for the song of Barabi Blues Band

1998 - 1999 :: Lead animator and animation supervisor for Paradiso TV-series, a German TV production, AssikArt Studio, Sofia; consultant for Electric Dog

1996 - 1998 :: 2D-animator, designer, consultant and Lingo programmer for the multimedia titles Virtual Gallery, Sheep Counter and Kid's Planet, Produced and developed by Electric Dog

1995 - 1997 :: 2D-animator and interface designer for The Animated Children's Encyclopedia, Usborne Publishing, London, developed by Great Bear Technology, Sofia.

1994 :: Animator for the Hans Christian Andersen Multimedia Fairy Tales CD-ROM, a Danish production, developed by Multi Mind, Sofia.

Software skills: Windows and Mac; Director; Flash; Photoshop; Illustrator; AfterEffects; Premiere; ToonBoom Studio; CTP; RetasPro; Painter; LipSynch; SoundForge

Tutorials: In 2005 I was asked to write three tutorials on a specific way of using Adobe AfterEffects and finally they are available on my site as well. T1 - Cut-Out Animation; T2 - Masking Techniques and the most interesting one, I think - T3 - MultiPlane 3D Simulation.

Favorite authors: Jerom D. Salinger, William Saroyan, Roger Zelazny, Clifford D. Simak
Hobbies: Listening to jazz and blues, watching cartoons and taking animal photos :)

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