Khalid Sulaiman al Dakheel (born May 11, 1981) is an Award-Winning Cartoonist, Illustrator, Animator, Actor, and Director. Known as one of the pioneers of the animation industry in the middle east, and the first animation filmmaker in the region to receive awards for his animated films. The artist’s first website was launched in the year 2000. (Browse the gallery of the website’s history).
Khalid started drawing when he was about four years old, and his passion for cartooning was obvious at a very young age. He began producing many comic books when he turned eight years old, most notably was the two comic books titled Kamil & Robbie, from the late 80s to the early 90s. His first comic to be published for the public was Hassan al Fannan (Hassan The Artist) in a children’s magazine called AlJeel AlJadded (The New Generation) in the mid-90s.
As a kid, he started creating animation in a flipbook style. he then developed his style of animating using a number of tools, most notably was a wooden desk which he made by himself to contain the papers/frames under the camera’s lens. He produced his first 15-minute cartoon inspired by the famous Pac-Man character. Later, while watching the WoodyWoodpecker series, he was introduced to cel animation, which he used since then to produce several animated cartoons later on.
He also worked in stop-motion using clay and toys, although he did not continue in this field for long. he moved later on into acting, directing, and doing characters in front of the camera. He worked with his two brothers Ahmad and Abdullah for many years in producing cinematic-styled home videos, which actually began with them recording podcast-like audio stories on cassettes when they were kids.
In 2000, he launched his first personal website and started using different software’s, mainly Adobe Flash (‘Macromedia Flash’ at the time) and produced many animated short animated cartoons, including Cats Benefits in 2003 which participated in a number of events including Jeddah Film Festival 2007, and the animated film Sida in 2005, which has received multiple awards in global animation networks online, and in Arabic cinema evens, most notably was Emirates Film Competition in 2006, in which Khalid received a Quality Production award.
After 2006, Khalid started to seriously focus on his skills and began working on developing stories for his official productions in comics & animation, besides publishing personal artworks online on his website and on social media. Later, he officially established K.D.CARTOON | Khalid al Dakheel Cartoon Studio to be a completely new page in his personal & professional journey.
