Tony Siruno

Tony Siruno was born and raised in Minnesota just outside Minneapolis in a small town called Minnetonka. Always with pen and pencil in hand at a very early age, his parents encouraged his talents by letting him read comic books, enrolling him in art classes, and many field trips to the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

After pursuing a degree in Journalism and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota, his passion for animation started to grow, which led him to move west to attend Calarts: California Institute of the Arts. It is there he would earn a BFA in Character Animation and Film.

Tony began his animation career in 1994 with Film Roman working on The Simpsons for 2 seasons then later with DreamWorks SKG where he would spend the next 18 years as a character designer and visual development artist on projects such as Kung-Fu Panda, Over The Hedge, How to Train Your Dragon 1 and 2, MegaMind, Bee Movie, The Croods, and Road to El Dorado. Since 2013 Tony has lent his creative talent to Illumination Entertainment, Nickelodeon Animation, Warner Brothers Animation Group, Reel FX, Paramount Animation, Bento Box, Marvel Studios, and Sony Pictures Animation.

While at Sony Pictures Animation, Tony served as a Senior Designer and a Character Design Art Director on various projects. In 2017, Tony was fortunate enough to work on the critically acclaimed “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”, which won an Oscar for best Animated Film in 2019.

In his free time, Tony can be found playing hockey at various ice rinks in LA/OC and training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with his 2 sons. He is also an advocate of the mantra “Always be learning.”

In late 2021, the team at Meta Sports League LLC approached him with an exciting new opportunity. As a hockey player and Minnesota native, Tony was thrilled to partner with and lend his artistic expertise to the MetaBeauts Hockey-Themed NFT project.