Andy Smirnov

Welcome to my Planet!

I was born in the South part of Russia near the Black Sea,but moved to Auckland,
New Zealand in 2001. Growing up I was into films, cartoons, animation and drawing.
In 2003 I graduated from high school in Auckland with extension in digital art and
design. From there I devoted my life to art and animation.
I graduated from MDS (Media design school) With diploma of 3D Animation in
2004. Shortly after that I realized how important it is to have skills in digital art in
this industry, so I went to Natcoll and graduated with Diploma of Multimedia,which
gave me a perspective on the interactive and graphic design. I then decided
to explore the deep of technical skills in computer animation and visualization. In
the year 2006 I got graduate level 7 Diploma in Imagery and Visualization, by that
time I already had freelance experience in digital art and animation, working
part-time for “Ptangaroa Entertinment” and “PSI2000”.
In the beginning of 2007 I was packed with information and  experience in
multimedia, graphic design and digital animation. I now know inside out Photoshop,
Flash, Director, After Effects, Maya, Motion Builder, Toon Boom, Illustrator and
so many other software packages. But my artistic skills were poor at that time, so I
went to South Seas college and did Drawing and traditional animation studies to
get an edge on "paper and pencil" work. At the beginning of 2008 I got a full time
job at Flux Animation studio as an animator and digital artist, where I still remain,
my job however  included more then just digital art, I worked on commercials and
interactive projects, website animation and ink and paint jobs, 3D animation and so
much more
I feel extremely lucky for what I'm doing and have fun at
what I do. From here, I want to thank my family and friends and
all those people that helped me along the way.