My name is Valentina and I am a 2D character animator from Rome, Italy, specialized in
Toon Boom Harmony, but proficient with Moho, Animate CC and the whole Adobe
package as well.
I also storyboard, design, rig and I am an experienced animation Educator and Lecturer.
I had my training in animation at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London
(UK), where I graduated in 2008, achieving a Post Graduate Diploma in 2D Character
Animation.
I have a long experience in the animation industry and I worked on a wide variety of
projects such as tv series, short films, web series, commercials, music videos, corporate
videos, explainer videos, for both animation studios and clients.
Since 2020 I specialised in Toon Boom Harmony (I studied rigging, animation,
compositing) over a three month course run by Toon Boom trainers, achieving a Toon
Boom Harmony certificate.
Following that, in 2021 I had a year long employment at B-Water Studio/Animar Media SL
in Barcelona for which I worked on their animated short film “The Hedgehog Tree” rigging
and animating in Toon Boom Harmony. The short film was greatly acclaimed in many
animation festivals worldwide in 2024/2025 and won a few awards.
In 2022/23 I got a full time employment at Florence (IT) based Doghead Animation Studio,
for which I animated on a few tv series all in Toon Boom Harmony (“Topo Gigio Season 2”,
“Pipo, Pepa and Pop”, “Spooky Wolf”) and I worked as a cleap up artist on the adult Netflix
show “Zerocalcare” – This world can’t tear me down”.
In September 2023 I was hired as an Animation Lecturer at UClan (University of Central
Lancashire, UK) in their partner branch at Hebei University in Baoding, China, where I
lived and worked throughout the whole academic year 2023/2024. My role involved
lecturing in animation to year one, two, three and four students at the campus, teaching
animation principles and all the fundamentals, Toon Boom Harmony and Storyboard
Pro, contextual studies and assisting the students on their many film projects and briefs.
I then started working for Toon Boom Animation Inc. as one of their trainers over
the many online courses they run throughout the year, teaching animation on Harmony
and storyboarding on Toon Boom Storyboard Pro.
In December 2024 I got a full time job at Blue Zoo Animation Studio in London, UK, as part
of their animation team working on a brand new children’s animated show for the BBC,
“Rafi the Wishing Wizard”. I’ve been working on the show throughout 2025 and we
recently wrapped the project in early February 2026. The show is now airing on Cbeebies
and BBC iPlayer and it’s currently receiving a great amount of attention and praise. No
wonder, I think it’s so beautiful and I’m very proud of the way it turned out.
While I went back to freelancing in February (I’m currently working on an animated promo
video for a client’s book publishing project and teaching Toon Boom Harmony), I’m also
looking for more long term work on another lovely tv show or similar bigger gigs.
I have now a fairly long experience in rigged animation in Toon Boom Harmony,
which I had the opportunity to hone throughout all the animated shows I worked on in the past few years.
I’m well versed in working as part of a remote team as well as an in-house team.
I have years of experience in Toon Boom Harmony rigged animation and so I’m 100%
comfortable working with rigs, master controllers and in the given production’s style.
I believe I can animate really well due to all my experience, enhancing characters’ expressiveness,
working on strong poses, applying all the animation principles and making sure the shots
are ready for compositing straight after the animation stage (very often animating
background elements too). And I’m used to having to stick to tight production deadlines,
which I always meet as I am a hard worker and very dedicated to my animation work.
Here is an animation showreel I’ve put together featuring my favourite shots from “Rafi the
Wishing Wizard”, the show I recently wrapped at Blue Zoo Animation Studio:
https://vimeo.com/1144676962?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci.
Here is my previous showreel featuring many of the shots I animated on over my
employment at Doghead Animation in 2022/2023:
https://vimeo.com/1105532954?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci.
Here is my Vimeo page, which features a whole range of animated videos I worked on in
the past few years, also prior to the tv series above:
https://vimeo.com/user18486556.
And here are more animation projects, as well as my artwork and storyboards I worked on
up on my website:
http://valentinagrasso.com/animation/.
I’m ready to jump in and contribute in making another animated show masterpiece!
Valentina