After gaining a first class honours degree for audio visual communications in 1975, Les Orton joined Halas and Batchelor animation where he trained under Harold Whitaker. Though working mainly on commercials, he also had the opportunity to work on major productions including the Heavy Metal feature.In 1982, Les left to join the newly formed Siriol Animation in Cardiff where he headed up the animation team to produce the ‘Superted’ series. This lead to work on several half hour specials until 1989 when Les joined Robin Lyons at Siriol Productions to direct animation for the feature film ‘Princess and The Goblin’. Les continued as animation director at Siriol Productions directing animated series and developing a wide range of animated film projects. Whilst with Siriol Productions, Les directed several projects including ‘Under Milkwood’, ‘Santa’s First Christmas’, The drums of Noto Hanto’, Knife and Wife’ and several children’s series including ‘Billy the Cat’, ‘Meeow’ and ‘Sali Mali’. During this period, Les was also a member of the advisory board of the British Animation Training Scheme and has been a member of the Skillset Animation Forum for training in animation for whom he was college animation course accreditation assessor.Les is currently freelance with a wide range of past clients including Aardman, Calon, BKN, Aproductions, Evergreen Entertainment and offers a wide range of animation services including storyboarding, storyboarding supervision, character design, traditional 2-D animation (Including Flash), sheet timing and animation direction.