Nicolás P. Villarreal was born and raised in La Plata, Argentina. He studied at the Escuela of Animacion y Cinematografía de Avellaneda where he earned a degree in 2D Animation. While studying animation he was taken under the wing of Miguel Alzugaray, a well-known fine artist from Argentina. He continued studying animation and fine art painting until he entered the Master’s Program at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Villarreal graduated with honors in the Spring of 2002, and since then he has been working as a traditional animator, character designer, sculptor and Visual Development artist for films and video games including Walt Disney Studios, Sony Computer Entertainment, Jim Henson Studios, Sega, DigitalDomain and Amazon Studios among others.

On his own time Villarreal is adapting his children’s book “The Aces” to his first feature film.