Seb McKinnon is a Canadian freelance illustrator. He has illustrated many cards for the

collectible card game A collectible card game (CCG), also called a trading card game (TCG) among other names, is a type of card game that mixes strategy game, strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards. The genre was introduced with ''Magic: The G ...

'' Magic: The Gathering''.

Early life, education, and family

Seb McKinnon was born in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, growing up in a creative family with four younger brothers. He attended

Dawson College Dawson College is an English-language public college in Westmount and Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The college is situated near the heart of Downtown Montreal in a former nunnery on approximately of green space. It is the largest CEGEP in the p ...

, where he received a degree in illustration.

Career

For some time after college, McKinnon worked for the video game company

Ubisoft Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include '' Anno'', '' Assassin's Creed'', ' ...

as a

game designer Game design is the process of creating and shaping the mechanics, systems, rules, and gameplay of a game. Game design processes apply to board games, card games, dice games, casino games, role-playing games, sports, Wargame (video games), war ga ...

. At Ubisoft, he was a part of the concept team for the tactical shooter

Rainbow Six Siege ''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege'' is a 2015 tactical shooter game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. The game puts heavy emphasis on environmental destruction and cooperation between players. Each player assumes control o ...

. In 2012, McKinnon received his first commission from

Wizards of the Coast Wizards of the Coast LLC (WotC or Wizards) is an American game Publishing, publisher, most of which are based on fantasy and List of science fiction themes, science-fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail game stores. In 1999, toy ...

to illustrate a card for the ''

Magic 2013 Magic or magick most commonly refers to: * Magic (supernatural), beliefs and actions employed to influence supernatural beings and forces ** ''Magick'' (with ''-ck'') can specifically refer to ceremonial magic * Magic (illusion), also known as sta ...

'' core set of ''Magic: The Gathering''. He has since provided art for more than 100 ''Magic: The Gathering'' cards, having gained a reputation within the ''Magic'' community for his wistful, dreamlike compositions. Aside from illustration work, McKinnon started a film production company, Five Knights Productions, with his brother, Ben. In 2013, they released ''Kin'', a short film which went on to win the Best Cinematography awards at both the Montreal Fantasia Film Festival and the Cyprus International Film Festival. In 2015, the two McKinnon brothers completed ''Salvage'' and ''Requiem'', two more short films set in the same '' Kin Fables'' universe. After Ben died in 2016, Seb and his brother Liam started work on ''Kin Fables: The Stolen Child'', a ''Kin Fables'' feature film in honor of his brother. Seb has run two successful

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

projects to fund ''The Stolen Child'', offering playmats featuring his ''Magic: The Gathering'' art as compensation for donations. In addition to digital illustration and filmmaking, Seb McKinnon produces music under the name ''CLANN''. Much of the music in the ''Kin Fables'' films was made by McKinnon using the

Logic Pro Logic Pro is a proprietary digital audio workstation (DAW) and MIDI sequencer software application for the macOS platform developed by Apple Inc. It was originally created in the early 1990s as Notator Logic, or Logic, by German software devel ...

software.

Controversies

In January and February of 2022 McKinnon was criticized by fans for a January 30 Instagram post supporting the

Canada convoy protest The Canada convoy protest, known as the Freedom Convoy (French: ''Convoi de la liberté'') was a series of protests and blockades across Canada in early 2022, initially organized to oppose COVID-19 vaccination in Canada, COVID-19 vaccine man ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McKinnon, Seb Canadian illustrators Artists from Montreal Canadian fantasy artists Game artists Living people Year of birth missing (living people)