AnimationWorld Magazine — February 13, 2019
How To Design an Infinite Number of Dragons in DreamWorks Animation’s ‘The Hidden World’
Director, animator and story artist Simon Otto, known for his work as the head of character animation of DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon movie franchise, has been instrumental in developing the look of the characters, their personalities, and the overall style of the animation in all three films, as well as working in the story department on the second and third films. He was recognized with a VES Award for Outstanding Animation in an Animated Feature for the first film, in 2011, and was nominated again in 2015 for his work on How To Train Your Dragon 2.
Born in Switzerland, Otto studied animation at France’s famed Gobelins institute and has been an important part of DWA’s character animation team ever since he joined the studio in 1997 to work on their first animated feature, The Prince of Egypt. He worked as a supervising animator on many of the studio’s animated features both in 2D and CG, including Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and the Aardman co-production Flushed Away, and also worked as a character designer on Over the Hedge. In addition, Otto has directed episodes of DreamWorks Television’s Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia and Dragons: Race to the Edge, and recently served as an animator on the William Salazar’s Bird Karma, the first project to emerge from the studio’s short film program.