Thomas P Thesen
Senior Lecturer
Summary
Thomas has worked for companies like Pixar, Dreamworks Animation and Sprite Animation Studios as computer-animator and visual development artist. He has also done illustration for print for many publications and projects. For the last eight years he has been teaching for SCAD Hong Kong, Tisch Asia NYU in Singapore and other universities.
About
Animation career
Assistant Professor for Animation and Digital Arts, SCAD Hong Kong (2013-2015)
Assistant Professor for Animation and Digital Arts, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Asia (2010-present)
Teaching Character Design, Animation History, Interactive content for children, Dynamic Environments for The Day After Tomorrow, Composition for moving images
Professor for Animation, Hongik University (2009-2010)
Taught storyboard, concept design, layout and graduate project
Visiting Professor for Animation, KyungSung University (2008-2009)
Taught beginning animation, storyboard, character design
Visual Development Artist/ Character Design, Sprite Animation (2006-2007)
Projects included GON, Franklin B.C., Journey to the West
Visual Development Artist, DreamWorks Animation (2003-2005)
Bee Movie, Puss in Boots
Assistant Character Animator
Shrek 2
Intern character designer, Pixar Animation Studios (2002)
Ratatouille
Education
California Institute of the Arts 2000-2003
MFA at School of Film/Video, majoring in Experimental Animation. Produced 2-D animated short Fische (2min 30sec)
University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Germany 1995-2000
Degree in Communication Design, majoring in Illustration. Produced short animation C’est la vie (stop motion animation, 3 min)
Julius Maximilians Universität; Würzburg, Germany 1993-1995
Majoring in History of Art; uncompleted
Freelance clients
Netflix, Curious Pictures NY, Microsoft, Snoop Animation, Digital Kitchen, Animation X, Financial Times Germany, Cornelsen Publishing, Scopas Medien, Citroen, Lionhead
Specialist areas of interest
Film
Animation
Comics
Art
Archeology
Teaching
Subject area/group
Digital Media
Courses
Animation
Modules
Drawing for Animation, Figure Drawing, Animation Project
Publications
Books
Thesen, T. (2018). Composition of the 21st 1/2 centuryVolume 1: Image making in animation Volume 2: Characters in animation. (1st). Focal Press.