Assoc. Prof. Dr Tomas Mitkus

Assoc. Prof. Dr Tomas Mitkus is a Lithuanian animator, film director, screenwriter, comic artist and animation researcher whose creative and academic work brings together traditional animation, digital technologies, visual storytelling, interactive cinema and research into the creative industries. He is an Associate Professor at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VILNIUS TECH) and co-owner and art director of the animation studio Studio Mitkus.

He received his art education in the United Kingdom. In 2008 he completed a BA in Arts and Media at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, and in 2010 he earned a master's degree in animation from the University of Glasgow. In 2014 he completed a master's programme in communication at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, and in 2024 he defended his doctoral thesis at the University for the Creative Arts, earning a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree.

He has taught at VILNIUS TECH since 2010, where his teaching covers the fundamentals of animation, the film industry, comics creation, animation production, digital image processing and previsualisation. He also supervises bachelor's and master's theses. In 2025 he taught interactive art at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre.

In 2012 he worked at the US video game studio Schell Games, creating storyboards and animation. That same year he began working as co-owner and art director of the animation studio Studio Mitkus, whose creative work spans animated films, comics, characters, visual narratives and other audiovisual projects.

T. Mitkus is actively involved in the Lithuanian and international animation community. In 2017–2018 he was a member of the Film Council of the Lithuanian Film Centre, and in 2018–2022 a member of an advisory body to the Ministry of Culture. In 2019–2025 he served on the selection jury for the competition programmes of BLON, the international animation and video game festival.

Since 2022 he has been a member of the Society for Animation Studies, since 2024 of the Film Culture Association, and since 2025 of the Animators' Guild of the Lithuanian Filmmakers' Union. In 2025 he was granted the official status of an art creator.

In Tomas Mitkus's creative practice, animation is understood as a distinctive form of visual storytelling in which artistic imagination, dramaturgy, character creation, the construction of movement and technological experimentation meet. An animated work is born not only from drawing or the technical ability to set it in motion, but also from building a coherent world in which the characters live.

The artist creates and directs animated films, writes screenplays, illustrates comics, and takes part in television animation projects and video games. His creative experience spans traditional hand-drawn animation, 3D computer graphics, virtual reality and interactive audiovisual narratives.

What matters in this work is not only the final result but the creative process itself: developing the idea, constructing the narrative structure, writing the screenplay, preparing storyboards, designing characters, choosing the visual style and making directorial decisions.

This approach makes it possible to analyse animation not merely as a film technique or part of the entertainment industry. It is an autonomous art form in which the means of visual expression can be used to explore complex questions of human experience, cultural memory, identity and imagination.

One of Tomas Mitkus's significant earlier directorial works is the animated film Cities of Stone and Steam (2012), created at Studio Mitkus. The thirteen-minute film reveals his principles of fantasy world-building, visual dramaturgy and animated storytelling.

In 2023 T. Mitkus worked as animation director on the short film The Crow and the Fox, directed by Edgaras Janušonis. The project illustrates the collaborative model typical of animation, in which different members of the creative team are responsible for distinct areas of realising the artistic concept.

His more recent directorial work prominently features the animated television projects Stomp! Stomp! Rhinos!. His filmography lists a 3D animated version comprising thirteen first-season episodes, as well as a twelve-episode mini-series. Both projects are associated with OAK9 Entertainment.

His filmography for 2026 also includes the four-minute live-action film Very Wild Board, made in the context of international collaboration.

One of Tomas Mitkus's most topical creative projects is Eglė, Queen of Serpents, a twelve-minute interactive 360-degree animated film currently in production.

The work interprets a Lithuanian mythological tale through the possibilities of contemporary animation, virtual reality and interactive viewer experience.

The project raises the question of how a traditional story changes when the viewer is no longer merely a passive observer of a pre-constructed sequence of images. In an interactive environment, the way of viewing itself, the chosen perspective and the possibility of experiencing the visual space in different ways become meaningful.

In 2024 the project was developed at the international CEE Animation Workshop. Production of the film has received funding from the Lithuanian Film Centre.

Another work in development is the short animated film Champion. The project was presented at the international film industry forums Baltic Pitching Forum (2021) and The Nordic Short Film Pitch (2022), reflecting the author's consistent involvement in the development, financing and international presentation of animation projects.

Creating comics and graphic novels is a significant part of Tomas Mitkus's creative work. In this field he explores the relationships between image, text, composition and narrative sequence.

In 2015, together with Andrius Tapinas, he published the comic Hour of the Wolf. Silver. Adventures in Arizona; in 2016, with Karolis Zikaras, he created the historical comic series Leičiai; and in 2020, together with Raimonda Steiblytė, he produced the graphic novel War Aviators.

Historical, fantasy and educational themes are central to his illustration and comics work, allowing complex information to be conveyed in a visually engaging and coherent narrative form.

In 2023–2026 the artist also contributed to several new comics projects in collaboration with other authors, among them Lady with a Fox (2023), Agent File “Ivanov XII” (2024), Juozas Lukša (2025) and Directionless Times and the Question of History (2026). In these projects T. Mitkus worked as a comics colourist.

In his work, comic art is closely linked to animation. Both rely on sequential visual storytelling but differ in how they convey time and movement. In comics, movement arises from the sequence of images and the reader's imagination, whereas in animation it becomes a directly perceptible visual phenomenon.

Tomas Mitkus is an active researcher of animation and the creative industries, and the author and co-author of academic articles, monographs and teaching publications.

His research interests include animation aesthetics, visual storytelling theory, the expression of animation for adult audiences, comics communication, the development of the animation industry, creative work processes and the impact of new technologies on artistic creation.

In 2018, together with Vaida Nedzinskaitė-Mitkė, he published the monograph The Animation Industry in Lithuania: Analysis and Opportunities, and in 2025 the monograph The Aesthetics of Asexual Nudity, Eroticism and Pornography in 2D Animation. The latter examines animation as a distinctive aesthetic and cultural form of expression, analysing the principles by which animated images for adult audiences are represented.

He has also contributed to textbooks for animation and visual storytelling studies: Comics: Discover and Create (2018), Fundamentals of Animation (2020) and Narrative in Fiction: Structure, Methods and Principles (2022). In 2026, together with V. Nedzinskaitė-Mitkė, he published the textbook Film Project Management: Planning, Production and Distribution.

In recent years his research has focused increasingly on the influence of artificial intelligence, virtual reality and contemporary digital technologies on animation.

In 2023–2024 he took part in research on the impact of generative artificial intelligence on the visual creative industries, and his 2026 publications examine rotoscoping methodology, rigged motion technologies in 2D animation, lighting in computer animation and challenges in virtual reality design.

His latest research, prepared together with Uri and Michelle Kranot, analyses the possibilities of integrating generative artificial intelligence into the development of animation projects.

In 2026 T. Mitkus also took part in a virtual production technology workshop in the Netherlands, which explored the use of the Unreal Engine game engine, Gaussian Splatting technology and generative artificial intelligence in creating virtual audiovisual environments.

This research allows his creative and academic work to be understood as an ongoing dialogue between artistic practice, technological experiment and theoretical reflection.

Tomas Mitkus's work reveals the complexity of contemporary animation. An animated work can be an individual artistic expression, the result of collective creative work, an object of academic research and a product of the creative industries.

The artist's experience spans all of these fields. He not only creates animated films, comics and other visual narratives but also investigates their aesthetic principles, technological conditions, production processes and cultural significance.

This interdisciplinary approach is particularly relevant at a time of rapidly changing audiovisual technologies. Artificial intelligence, interactive cinema, virtual production and new digital tools raise questions about the role of the artist, authorship, the autonomy of creative decisions and the relationship between human imagination and technology.

T. Mitkus's creative and academic work makes it possible to explore these questions on the basis not only of theoretical assumptions but also of concrete experience in making and researching animation.

31 January 2027, 12:00

The conversation with Assoc. Prof. Dr Tomas Mitkus, held as part of the programme of the international contemporary art triennial “Dialogues”, will explore contemporary animation and its aesthetic, technological and narrative possibilities.

The meeting will discuss how the idea of an animated film is born, how a story is constructed, characters are created, movement is shaped, a visual environment is built and directorial decisions are made.

It will consider how the artistic language of animation is changing and what role drawing, composition, time, sound, technology and collective authorship play in its making.

Particular attention will be paid to the relationship between animation and comic art, virtual reality, interactive storytelling and generative artificial intelligence. Drawing on the artist's latest creative and research projects, the conversation will examine how technological innovation is changing the animator's work and what new creative possibilities it opens up.

The conversation will be moderated by art critic, media artist and Professor of Arts at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University Dr Remigijus Venckus.

The meeting invites us to see animation not merely as a technology for making moving images, but as an autonomous space for artistic thinking, imagination, storytelling and the study of contemporary visual culture.