Laurent Benhamo. Senior and Lead Creature Animator with over 27 years in feature films at ILM, Framestore, MPC and Disney. Credits include Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Lion King, Paddington and Gravity. Annie Awards nominee, 2023.

Professional training for animators of all levels

Creature and animal animation, taught by a senior animator from Framestore, ILM and MPC.

Live online courses with weekly feedback on your shots. Every session is recorded, so you can watch it again. The next courses start on Saturday 31 October.

See the Courses

Get Your Shot Reviewed

What You'll Learn

Realistic 3D animation, built the way a production works
Locomotion, behavior, human and animal anatomy, gravity, weight shift, rhythm, choreography, negative space, impact and pose
Polishing motion curves
Composition and storytelling, with deep analysis of references and observation
Realistic performance, acting and facial animation
How animation relates to sculpture, drawing and live-action film
Rigging techniques and tips on animation layers

About Me

Weekly feedback

Live lessons on Zoom, all recorded. Theory and practice are explained with graphics and video.

Production Quality Asset Rigs

Every student will be provided with state-of-the-art asset rigs. Ultra realistic skinning deformation and details with an incredible amount of controls and space switch options for achieving fantastic results.

What makes animation an art

Let's build a bridge!

Comparison between animation and other major arts, live action films, sculpture, drawings and music for better understanding of your medium.

Rendering and Lighting

The final piece of animation study will be rendered with Maya in high-quality lighting ready for your show reel.

Students Gallery

Reviews

“ It was such an amazing and rewarding experience for me to be able to follow this Advanced Animation Class in body mechanic on a gorilla with Laurent. The purpose of this exercice was about to study in detail the anatomy of an ape and to re-imagine and understand the complexity of a reference with missing part. Laurent was really dedicated to share all his knowledge and his understanding of the creature locomotion. I learned a lot and I definitely recommend this class to anyone who wants to step forward on a strong fondation process of building a solid creature Keyframe animation. Thanks so much Laurent!”

VINCENT CAUDEVILLE

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