Aardman animator Loyd Price dies, Peter Lord pays tribute
Price co-directed the Cracking Contraptions shorts and supervised animation on Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
Aardman has announced the death of animator and supervisor Loyd Price. Co-founder Peter Lord paid tribute to Price in a statement from the studio, recognising both his work on Aardman films and his role in training the animators who followed him.
Price's credits at the studio include A Close Shave, Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. He co-directed the Wallace & Gromit's Cracking Contraptions shorts with Chris Sadler.
On Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Price served as supervising animator, helping incoming animators perform the characters the studio had already established. Peter Lord said Price trained animators in the late 1990s, helping develop the team behind Aardman's feature production, and recalled a retirement party attended by many of the animators he had mentored.
In 2005, Price told Animation World Network about the demands of sustaining Gromit's silent performance across a feature. In 2006, he won the Visual Effects Society award for outstanding animated character in an animated motion picture for his work on Gromit.
Quick answers
Which Aardman films did Loyd Price work on?
His credits include A Close Shave, Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
What did Loyd Price direct at Aardman?
He co-directed the Wallace & Gromit's Cracking Contraptions shorts with Chris Sadler.
What award did Loyd Price win?
In 2006 he won the Visual Effects Society award for outstanding animated character in an animated motion picture for his work on Gromit.