Thomas R. Dickens's career has spanned nearly 30 years. Growing up in Fort Lauderdale, FL, he started his training to be an effects and animation artist before reaching his teens, by drawing photo-real pencil drawings, and doing stop motion Claymation, then foam puppets. His father encouraged him to us anatomy and proper animal characteristics and behavior, no matter how bizarre the creature design - while discouraging watching "weird" movies and shows that somehow quite interested the young boy. As a teenager, he taught Stop Motion Animation and Entomology at the Discovery Center Children's Museum.

Thomas studied Communications and Cinematography in Ithaca College, NY, then moved back to Florida, to earn his Illustration Degree at Ringling College of Art and Design, as well as win the 1st Place Illustration Award for 1989, and 7 runner up positions. Shortly after this, Thomas moved to Los Angeles.

Thomas moved to Los Angeles in 1989, and began his career at Landmark Entertainment Group, sculpting and painting architectural miniatures for Japanese theme parks, as well as Jurassic Park Universal theme park.

Through the early 90s, Thomas began film work, for Churchill Films, building Stop Motion Puppets, and painting Matte Paintings, on such films as "Uncle Elephant". Soon after, he began working on many films, theme parks, and commercials, as sculptor, painter, puppeteer, mold-maker, etc. on a Freelance basis, and for Full Moon Entertainment and other studios. Thomas worked on Addams Family Values, The Arrival, Star Gate, Armies of Darkness, etc.

In 1994 Thomas became Visual Effects Supervisor/Producer, on the feature, Dinosaur Valley Girls, as well as Thrifty, Pledge, Starburst, and Orkin commercials. Thomas learned to do nearly all elements of shots, and all stages of post-production.

In 1996 Thomas was approved by Ken Ralston and recruited by Barry Weiss for Sony Pictures Imageworks. Due to Thomas' multi-talents, at first it was difficult to know where to place him. The studios soon realized his many talents were an asset, not a liability, and he began concept design, and was hired as a CGI Modeler. Thomas' first CGI project, was Anaconda, followed by Stuart Little I&II, Cast Away, What Lies Beneath, Hollowman, and others, both modeling, face shape modeling, concept designing (Stuart Little, Harry Potter, Spider-Man, Astroboy) and animating.

One of the hardest working artists in Hollywood, Thomas simultaneously also freelanced, on many independent pictures at the same time, producing entire post effects, for such films as, The Pearl, Girls Will Be Girls, Vlad, Straight Jacket. And on major pictures at Digital Domain on We Were Soldiers, and Academy Award Winning, A Beautiful Mind.

In 2000-2005, he moved to Warner Brothers Feature Animation, as a Modeling Supervisor/Lead, Face/Body Shape modeler, and Character Designer, also MEL Script Writer, Skin-Weighting, Technical Animator, and Character Animator on Scooby Doo I. He then worked on Scooby Doo II, Sponge Bob Movie, Rumor has It, Dukes of Hazzard, Looney Tunes Back in Action, and others. He was then made CGI Supervisor, and Thomas created his own "B" Team within WBFA, to tackle smaller jobs, such as a CGI Ronald McDonald, and 3D backgrounds for "Fat Albert".