Otto was born in Switzerland and grew up in Gommiswald, in the canton of St. Gallen.
After completing a banking apprenticeship,[1] he started his career in the arts by carving commercial snow sculptures[2] in nearby resort towns and drawing news cartoons for his hometown newspaper, "Die Suedostschweiz".[3]
His professional animation career started in 1997, when he was hired by DreamWorks Animation in Los Angeles to work as a traditional character animator on their first 2D animated feature The Prince of Egypt. He then spent 21 years as part of the character animation team working on both 2D and CG projects for the studio. Otto is particularly known for his work as the Head of Character Animation for the How to Train Your Dragon movie franchise and has been instrumental in developing the look of the characters, their personalities[6][7] and the overall style of animation for the films, and was rewarded for his achievements with the VES Awards for 'Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Visual Effects in an Animated Featuree' in 2011 by the Visual Effect Society.[8][9] Simon Otto designed a number of characters in the film including Toothless and Lightfury and did storyboarding work on the second and third films.[10] He was a key contributor to the development of Premo,[11][12][13] the animation software developed at DreamWorks Animation that won an Academy Award for Technical Achievement.[14]
Involved as a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,[15] Simon participates in numerous of events, talks and interviews highlighting the work of the animator in the feature film industry.[16] In 2016, Otto founded LuMAA[17] (Lucerne Master Academy of Animation) with the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Lucerne, Switzerland where animation industry veterans teach a 6-week summer course[18] for up and coming talents.
In the fall of 2019, after 21 years working for DreamWorks Animation, Simon left the company. He now works as an independent director on various film and television projects.[19] His first released project after leaving the studio is the episode ‘The Tall Grass’ he directed for the NetflixTV series, Love, Death & Robots Season 2.
^mobiles, Maven Sarl, solutions Web et. ""Dragons 2": interview vidéo de Simon Otto". CLAP.CH. Retrieved 20 April 2020. (FR) Il se lance ensuite dans l'élaboration de nouvelles bandes dessinées pour un journal local, Die Südostschweiz. / (EN) He start then creating new cartoons for a local newspaper "Die Südostschweiz."{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Bishop, Bryan (12 June 2014). "The amazing animation software behind 'How To Train Your Dragon 2'". The Verge. Retrieved 24 June 2020. DreamWorks CTO Lincoln Wallen went to the company's artists, asking them to daydream what kind of tools they would like to use in a perfect world. "I recall it very well," Simon Otto, head of character animation for Dragon 2, tells me in a suite at the studio's Glendale headquarters.
^""Meinen Drachen werde ich vermissen"". suedostschweiz.ch (in German). 2 February 2019. Retrieved 20 April 2020. Nach 21 Jahren verlassen Sie die Dreamworks-Studios. Was haben Sie als Nächstes geplant? Otto: Ich bin jetzt «vogelfrei» (schmunzelt). Ich weiss, was ich möchte, aber noch nicht wo: Mein nächstes Ziel ist es, in der Regie von Animationsfilmen Fuss zu fassen. Wohin es mich genau verschlägt, ist aber noch offen.
