Dino Athanassiou

Dino Athanassiou was the animation director and character adaptor for the twelfth series of Thomas & Friends. He worked in conjunction with Nitrogen Studios and HiT Entertainment.

He was originally asked to consult with executives at HiT Entertainment to see if it was possible to add CGI elements to the models. Following this he was asked to supervise two pilots for the new style which convinced the HiT executives to ask him direct the animation for hybrid look and redesign the human characters as well.

Dino owns the animation service known as Stardust Pictures, and has worked with many studios such as DreamWorks, Walt Disney Studios and Arc Productions.