TONY HA 
Character Animator
 

#209 – 1618 Quebec Street, 
Vancouver, BC V6A 0C5 
778‐869‐5512
HaTony@Live.com
Thanimation.com 
  

Objective  

Experienced animator looking to contribute my skill set at a professional level with a great team. 

Work Experience   

Dec 2017 – Feb 2023 • Next Level Games, Nintendo
Lead Presentation Animator – Mario Strikers: Battle League (Nintendo) 

• Lead a team of 6 – 8 in-house animators, plus others from outsourcing studios and remote work. The goal was to lead by example, there was also a focus to build a strong trust with the team and to give high quality, constructive notes and draw-overs. 
• Worked closely with the animation director to animate and establish the animation style to create a bench-mark. Then assisted the team with the right training, tools and support to reach and maintain that quality bar. 
• Helped cover the director’s responsibilities when needed, this includes communicating with clients as well as outsourcing studios; reviewing and giving feedback to other departments like storyboarding, VFX, modeling, lighting and audio; working with producers to establish schedules. 
• Responsible for reviewing and guiding the team’s animation from storyboard and planning phase, which includes shooting and finding reference, to finishing pass and in-game. 
• Heavily involved with leading and communicating with the rigging team to plan, build and test rigs that can work well for both cinematic and gameplay. 
• Worked with both Jira and Perforce, with a strong focus on consistent naming convention, good use of version control, and formats for notes to be put in from each submission. 
• Performed frequent inter-department communication between producers, designers, gameplay, programmers, and tech-art to maintain consistency and to finish on schedule. 
• Helped the animation department transition from 3ds Max to Maya. Provided support, resources and training in animation, rigs, scripts, tools and prepared the teams for game dev involvement. Also helped to identify potential areas of risk and created solutions before issues can happen. 
• Performed key-frame animation that was snappy, with poses held longer, along with smear frames and squash and stretch thrown in to sell fast motion and impact in a sports game.

Senior Presentation Animator – Luigi’s Mansion 3 (Nintendo) 

• Worked with the lead and director to animate and take each shot from Maya to exporting, implementing and testing in game, all the way through to full approval. 
• Quickly adapted to working with a 3ds max pipeline, coming from a Maya. 
• Communicated often to designer and gameplay animators when the shot involved gameplay. 
• Assisted and supported co-workers with tools, scripts and new animation techniques. 
• Helped out with some gameplay animation. 
• Worked heavily with cameras. 
• Performed key-frame animation that leans more on the smooth movements side, with a bit of squash and stretch.

2014 – 2017 • Bardel Entertainment
Lead Animator – Veggietales in the House (Dreamworks) 

• Lead a team of around 4-6 animators. 
• Worked closely with the animation supervisor and team to maintain quality and schedule. 
• Focused on facial acting, lipsync and body mechanics in a more extreme squash and stretch cartoony style.  

Senior Animator – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Nickelodeon) 

• Focused on action, body mechanics, clothings, weapons and acting.  
• Animated with a mix between cartoony and realistic style, with very snappy animation.

Senior Animator – Dragons Rescue Riders (Dreamworks) 

• Focused on creature animation, mainly quadruped dragons with wings and tails. As well as acting, facial animation, lipsync, and body mechanics. 
• Performed key-frame animation with Disney-like quality, leaned more toward smooth and realistic movements with less cartoony. High quality of animation and speed was also required.
   

Skills & Qualifications  

• 9+ years of proven industry experience ranging from 4 years working on Netflix shows to 5+ years working on two shipped AAA titles.  
• Quick study, good communicator and excellent team player with 3+ years of leadership experience as a lead and 6+ years as a senior animator.  
• An excellent understanding of key-framed animation principles, realistic and cartoony body mechanics, as well as camera skills.  
• Excel at action sequences with a focus on appeal and facial animation with a focus on lip sync.  
• Deep knowledge of Maya and proficient with 3ds Max, Premier, Photoshop, Jira and Perforce.   
• Great understanding of animation implementation, debugging techniques, and the 3d pipeline in both TV and game studios.  
• Experienced working with outsourcing studios and leading a team.  
• A self‐motivated professional who can thrive in both independent and collaborative work environments.  
• Effective in identifying potential areas of risk, creating/implementing mitigation plans before issues happen, and contributing to the development of new techniques and processes. 

Education  

Visual College of Arts and Design • 2012 – 2014 
3D Modeling Animation Art and Design Diploma.  

Vancouver Technical Secondary • 1997 – 2002 
High School Diploma.