Dylan
Sisson

I began in comics and independent animation, writing and illustrating a comic book and making short films before I had any sensible plan for a career. One of those films received the Best Computer Animated Short award at the Ani.Mar Festival in Mallorca, Spain. It opened a few doors, including one at Pixar.

I joined Pixar Animation Studios in 1999 and have worked with the RenderMan group ever since. Today, as Head of RenderMan Creative Engagement, I work between artists, engineers, studios, and the wider computer-graphics community, helping make advanced rendering technology more understandable, useful, and creatively ambitious.

My work is rooted in a simple observation: tools shape creative decisions. They affect what artists try, what they can see while working, and eventually the kinds of images and stories that become possible.

Outside Pixar, I maintain an active art practice across drawing, painting, sculpture, digital experimentation, and emerging media. A sketch can become a VR sculpture, a render, a manufactured object, or a talk. The route is rarely direct, which is usually where the interesting part starts.

I live in San Francisco, still draw monsters whenever I can, and remain interested in the same question that has followed me through all of it:

How do the tools we build shape the art we create?