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Colin Searle is a Toronto-based animation and art professional specializing in storyboarding, matte/background painting, CG environment work, and production design across film and games. With a background spanning photoreal and stylized pipelines, he supports directors and production teams from ideation through final delivery. He has led teams on episodic and feature-style work, built reusable visual/lighting libraries, and transitioned between story, design, and previs/animatic production. His work includes major animated series and games, as well as ongoing freelance illustration and concept art for tabletop and AAA clients.…Colin Searle is a Toronto-based animation and art professional specializing in storyboarding, matte/background painting, CG environment work, and production design across film and games. With a background spanning photoreal and stylized pipelines, he supports directors and production teams from ideation through final delivery. He has led teams on episodic and feature-style work, built reusable visual/lighting libraries, and transitioned between story, design, and previs/animatic production. His work includes major animated series and games, as well as ongoing freelance illustration and concept art for tabletop and AAA clients.

Colin Searle

Storyboard Artist, Animator, Background Designer, +2

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Colin Searle is a Toronto-based animation and art professional specializing in storyboarding, matte/background painting, CG environment work, and production design across film and games. With a background spanning photoreal and stylized pipelines, he supports directors and production teams from ideation through final delivery. He has led teams on episodic and feature-style work, built reusable visual/lighting libraries, and transitioned between story, design, and previs/animatic production. His work includes major animated series and games, as well as ongoing freelance illustration and concept art for tabletop and AAA clients.…Colin Searle is a Toronto-based animation and art professional specializing in storyboarding, matte/background painting, CG environment work, and production design across film and games. With a background spanning photoreal and stylized pipelines, he supports directors and production teams from ideation through final delivery. He has led teams on episodic and feature-style work, built reusable visual/lighting libraries, and transitioned between story, design, and previs/animatic production. His work includes major animated series and games, as well as ongoing freelance illustration and concept art for tabletop and AAA clients.

Available to hire

Colin Searle is a Toronto-based animation and art professional specializing in storyboarding, matte/background painting, CG environment work, and production design across film and games. With a background spanning photoreal and stylized pipelines, he supports directors and production teams from ideation through final delivery.

He has led teams on episodic and feature-style work, built reusable visual/lighting libraries, and transitioned between story, design, and previs/animatic production. His work includes major animated series and games, as well as ongoing freelance illustration and concept art for tabletop and AAA clients.

Skills

Experience Level

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Intermediate

Intermediate

Intermediate

Work Experience

Senior DMP Artist at Atomic Cartoons / Thunderbird Entertainment

January 1, 2023 - January 1, 2024

Collaborated with a small matte-painting team to create 2D and 3D background assets in styles ranging from photorealistic to cartoony. Produced set geometry in Maya/Blender and painted complex multi-layer setups in Photoshop/Substance Painter. Tested BG assets in-shot for director approval using Nuke and finalized delivery through the Katana/Shotgrid pipeline.

Storyboard Artist and 3D Previs Animatic Artist at Elliott Animation (Far Cry 6)

January 1, 2019 - January 1, 2021

Collaborated with the cinematics team to create 2D cinematic storyboards and 3D first-person pre-vis for the full game and expansions.

Senior DMP Artist, Story Artist, 2D Designer, Art Director at Elliott Animation / FreshTV

January 1, 2019 - January 1, 2022

Produced matte paintings, CG set extensions, and episodic production designs across environments, props, characters, textures, and graphics using Photoshop/Blender. Integrated CG renders into BG plates to achieve quality from photoreal to cartoony. Directed lighting, comp, and environment teams using mood boards, color scripts, and a production library of light/color rules used pipeline-wide. Created Blender models to support modeling tasks and built topographical set maps for production. Transitioned into storyboards using Storyboard Pro, adapting show visual language and staging while building shared pose/model libraries for board artists. Designed marketing illustrations and toy concepts using paint-overs to enhance vibrance and marketability.

Storyboard Artist and Designer at Elliott Animation / (Crossfire: Legion)

January 1, 2017 - January 1, 2018

Worked remotely with a previous Ubisoft director to produce concept trailer storyboards in pre-production, as well as 2D concept art illustrations. Managed timezone/time-budget constraints to meet a tight schedule.

Storyboard Artist at Freelance / Animation studios (Bunsen is a Beast; Fairly Odd Parents)

January 1, 2016 - January 1, 2017

Collaborated with three revision artists in Storyboard Pro, reporting to in-house and remote Nickelodeon supervisors. Built detailed checklists to track style, hookups, staging, rig limitations, and directorial preferences to ensure consistency in posing, expressions, and shot angles.

Concept, Production and Storyboard Artist at Elliott Animation (Starlink: Battle for Atlas; Starfox Expansion)

January 1, 2016 - January 1, 2018

Created cinematic storyboards across the full game cycle, plus 2D concept art, 3D models, and polished production illustrations from pre- to post-production. Advanced into leading an animation team for 2D marketing trailers, handling storyboards through motion graphics and final compositing while balancing creative duties and tight production deadlines.

Video Games and Animated IP Development (Vis-dev / Pre-production / Pipeline work) at Elliott Animation; EA (multiple properties, NDA)

January 1, 2016 - January 1, 2022

Developed two video games, handling pre-production design, Unity/Unreal pipeline setup, asset creation, 3D modeling, texturing, rigging, and animation, delivering vertical-slice demos. Served as vis-dev artist on five animated properties at EA, designing characters, environments, vehicles, and props in varied styles. Produced funding-pitch packages, pre-vis reels, and storyboards for games and animated IPs. Work includes multiple NDA projects across 2016-2022.