Ivan Leonidovich Maximov (Russian: Иван Леонидович Максимов; born 19 November 1958; Moscow) is a Russian artist, animator and film director. Ivan Maximov was born on 19 November 1958 in Moscow. He studied photography at the Biophysical Institute in Moscow till 1976. From 1976 - 1982 Maximov studied at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in Moscow. He worked as an illustrator for various magazines and from 1982 to 1986 he was an engineer at the Russian Space Research Institute. Between 1986 and 1989 Maximov took advanced studies in Film Directing and Script writing. In the early 1990s, Maximov became involved with Russia's first gaming magazine, Video-Ace Dendy (Russian: Видео-Асс Dendy), and the television series, Dendy: The New Reality (Russian: Денди новая реальность, tr. Dendy Novaya Realnost, IPA: [ˈdʲenʲdʲɪ ˈnovəjə rʲɪˈalʲnəsʲtʲ]). Here he was in charge of designing Dendy the Elephant, Dendy's trademark mascot. Starting in 1995 Maximov worked as "virtual studio IVAN MAXIMOV" where he set up his studio at home to work on film, video and computer animation. He worked as a caricaturist for VREMYA mn and in 2000 and 2001 he worked as a caricaturist for VREMYA NOVOSTEY. In 2003, Maximov created the computer game Full Pipe at PIPE-STUDIO. The same year, he also began teaching film directing and script writing at school-studio SHAR and VGIK. From 2002 - teacher of film directing in school-studio "SHAR". From 2011 - teacher of animation filmdirecting in " PiterMultArt " in Saint-Petersburg. From 2011 to 2019 - artistic supervisor of animated series "Lucky!". From 2019 - teacher of film directing in the Modern Art Institute.