Ken Nicholls
Kenneth A. Nicholls was the Production Designer and Art Director for ReBoot's fourth season.
Ken began his higher education in 'Architectural Technology' at the Mohawk College of Applied Arts and Technology, Hamilton, Ontario from 1984. Afterwards he enrolled full-time in 'Communication and Design' within Ontario College of Art in Toronto, Ontario until 1988; finally attending Vancouver Film School in 1999 to complete his part-time studies.
His career as a designer started in 1988 with "Architectural Dimensions", being employed as a set and architectural model maker right up to 1991. For the next four years he worked in a similar job at "B & B Scale Models Ltd", Vancouver, BC.
Ken moved to the west coast with his wife, Ellen and young daughter, Leigh 10 years ago to continue his career in architectural model making. He began this career 3 years prior in Toronto after studying at Ontario College of Art. Realizing he had hit the glass ceiling in architectural model making, he began training in animation through a friend who was a successful storyboard artist. It was this friend's enthusiasm for animation that inspired Ken so much. Ken's love for architecture was a great benefit in animation as it showed through his layouts and background designs.
Between 1995 and 1996 Ken worked as a Layout Artist for 'Delany & Friends' in Vancouver BC, providing character models for "The Sandman Series", 13 one-half hour TV specials featuring 'Nilus the Sandman'.
In 1996, Ken was hired as the Head of the Layout department for Walt Disney Animation Canada's Vancouver studio. While at Walt Disney, Ken supervised the Vancouver Layout Department for such direct to video projects as "Beauty and the Beast – An Enchanted Christmas", "Winnie the Pooh – A Valentine for You" and "Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas".
Unfortunately, the Disney studio closed its Canadian doors in 1999, but Ken saw this as an opportunity to broaden his horizons. He was hired by Mainframe Entertainment Inc., as a set/prop designer for the 26 episode CGI "Action Man" series. During this project, he was promoted to Production Designer/Art Director where he was in charge of the entire "look" for the series including an IMAX 3D feature production. After "Action Man" was completed, Ken became the Production Designer/Art Director for ReBoot's Daemon Rising and My Two Bobs movies. As Art Director he was charged with supervising teams of artists, overseeing production designs, backgrounds, props, lighting, texturing and modeling.
After leaving Mainframe in 2001, Ken along with many employees from the studio joined 'Electronic Arts Canada' in Burnaby BC as Games Designer for the design of locations, backgrounds and props for PlayStation 2 games.
As well as these full-time contracts, Ken has also worked freelance from 1995 onwards designing sets, various logo designs and illustrations for several productions including Bowes Productions' "Voyage of a Unicorn" for Hallmark Entertainment, and designing sets and props for gaming companies, such as 'Electronic Arts'. Also providing storyboard layout cleanup for 'Blue Sky Productions II', Toronto "Amelia's Notebook"; Tom Nesbitt Animation / Nelvana Studios, "Blazing Dragons" and Saban Entertainment Ltd Los Angeles, CA "Tenko and the Guardian of Magic".
Ken is presently the Sets/Props Designer for Bowes Productions, Inc., British Columbia (now named "Bowes Productions & Associates") emerging as a talented and diverse artist, with vast experience in 3D Studio Max, Adobe Photoshop and PC Macintosh, who enjoys challenges in a variety of animation mediums. He looks forward to applying his enthusiasm to many new projects.