Michael Paone was born on June 25, 2000.  As a young child, Michael expressed a passion for drawing and telling stories, as well as making other people in his life laugh.  His love of animation began at the age of 5, after watching many of the classic Tom and Jerry shorts on TV. By the age of 10, he knew that he wanted to pursue a career in animation.

 

Over time, Michael began developing his own set of characters and created comic strips with them during his time in middle school.  In 2014, his parents signed him up for Saturday drawing courses at the Joe Kubert Art School.  In his four years there, he learned many new drawing skills and befriended many other kids with common interests that motivated him to keep moving forward.

 

Not being prepared to leave his home yet, Michael enrolled in The County College of Morris in 2018 under the then new animation major.  There, he took numerous art courses and learned more about what makes an appealing drawing or painting, either for a realistic piece or for something more simplistic for his cartoons.  While more trained in the ways of traditional drawing, Michael became quite interested in learning how to do 3D animation in the animation courses at that school.  In his spare time, he likes to draw difficult facial expressions and body gestures from the cartoons he watches to try to challenge his drawing abilities.

 

Michael is currently attending William Patterson University, with a focus on Media Production to help broaden his job opportunities.  Wherever the future takes him, either an animated or live action production, Michael will continue to do his passion; making people laugh and smile with his ideas and artwork.