The Italian-born artist Raffaello Vecchione is best known for his maquettes & 3D computer graphics character models created as visual development for iconic animated movies such as Disney’s Tangled, Lilo & Stich, and DreamWorks’ The Prince of Egypt, to name a few. He also is a renowned visual development artist who played a crucial role in the characters visual development and painterly model style of the Sony’s Spider- Man: Into the Spider-Verse—winner of the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Animated Film.

Raffaello was born in Genoa, Italy in 1966. At the age of six, he was given a projector and a collection of Disney shorts; thus, the dream of becoming a Disney artist was born. After having received a Diploma in Art, he moved his first steps in the animation industry in 1991, collaborating on the Italian movie Volere Volare by Maurizio Nichetti & Guido Manuli.  In 1994, he moved in London to work as an assistant animator at Amblimation’s Balto while sculpting maquettes in his spare time. Raffaello’s passion and talent for sculpting did not go unnoticed, giving him the opportunity to sign his first contract as maquette sculptor for the first animated feature of the newborn DreamWorks, The Prince of Egypt. Eventually, in 1998, he started a prolific collaboration with The Walt Disney Company, Walt Disney World, and Walt Disney Classics Collection.  In recent years, Raffaello has been collaborating with American and Chinese animation studios as a character designer supervisor, modeling, visual development, and director. He is currently experimenting with 3D-printed sculptures and working on his first 3D animated project.