Character Designers

Richard Bickenbach

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"Richard Bickenbach was born in Indiana August 9 1907. He moved to Los Angeles California during the 1930’s where he became a longtime animator for Hanna-Barbara. Spending the first years of his animation career (the 1930s, 1940s) working as a layou..."

Marc Davis

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"Began working with Disney on December 2nd 1935, during the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He developed and animated many of the best-remembered characters, including Thumper from Bambi (1942), Cinderella (1951), Tinker Bell in Peter P..."

Andreas Deja

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"Deja has worked in Disney more than two decades. He was always a fan of Disney since he was little. He wanted to become an animator in Disney studio when he saw Jungle Book at 10 years old. Then he went to art school to study graphic design and human..."

Pete Emslie

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"Following school, freelanced as a cartoonist including regular work for newspaper, The Ottawa Citizen from 1978 to 1984. Moved to Toronto in 1984 to work for Disney Canada Consumer Products, illustrating Disney characters for various merchandise. Rel..."

Vance Gerry

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"For half a century, Vance Gerry was one of Disney’s most integral employees. In 1955, he was hired as an assistant in-betweener, then was promoted to layout artist, and later worked in story developed in the 1960s. His artistic range broadened duri..."

Bob Givens

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"“I went to Chouinard, mostly nights, and then I went to Bistram School, New York Art Students League and Jepson in Los Angeles. Quite a bit of art training then and over the years…Drawing is the basis of all this business. You can’t get too muc..."

Joe Grant

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"Born in New York, Grant worked for The Walt Disney Company as a character designer and story artist starting in 1933, leaving in 1949 to start his own ceramics and greeting card company. I..."

Ferdinand Horvath

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"Ferdinand Horvath was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1891. Horvath was an animator and illustrator at various major animation studios such as Fable Studios, Inc., Walt Disney, and Screen Gems (Columbia Pictures) Horvath died of a stroke on Novem..."

Marcell Jankovics

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"Marcell Jankovics is a Hungarian animator, director, graphic artist, and writer. He was the former art director and managing director of Pannonia Film Studio in 1995 and 1996, the former president of the Hungarian Cultural Society in 1998 and the St...."

Jaime Escudero & Carlos Trupp

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"Jaime Escudero was born on June 23, 1914 in Santiago. Juan Carlos Trupp's date of birth is unknown. Escudero and Trupp are best known for producing one of the earliest animations in Chile, 15 mil dibujos. The film was a box office failure, leaving..."

Fyodor Khitruk

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"Fyodor Savelyevich Khitruk was born May 1, 1917 in Tver, Russia. He was a Soviet animator best known for his Vinni Pukh animations, a Russian adaptation of A.A. Milne's British book series, Winnie the Pooh. Khitruk won numerous awards at several f..."

Ward Walrath Kimball

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"Ward Kimball was a prolific animator for Walt Disney, part of the earliest team of core animators known as "Disney's Nine Old Men." While extremely influential, his importance in the early days of Disney has meant that biographers have encountered se..."

Robert Fred “Freddie” Moore

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"Freddie Moore was a highly influential animator with Walt Disney Productions in a crucial era of its development during the 30s, up until the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937) and the establishment of the core group of animators k..."

Yan Dingxian (严定宪)

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"Yan Dingxian (严定宪) is the most renowned animator, character designer and director of early Chinese animation. He is the former president of Shanghai Animation Film Studio (SAFS, 上海美术电影制片厂), China Film Association (中国影协..."