lit a candle 3h agoSaw this on the news this morning and I keep coming back to it, didn't know the name but I knew the hands behind it if that makes sense. My grandson showed me Wallace and Gromit years back on a VHS someone had dubbed, and I remember thinking the dog did more acting than half the actors I grew up watching. Found out just now it was this fella, Loyd, who was behind Gromit's face moving the way it did, frame by frame for hours. 64 is no age. Anyway. Didn't mean to write this much, just sat here thinking about that dog's eyebrows for some reason.
Their story
Loyd J. Price (1962 to 2026) was a British stop-motion animator who spent more than thirty years at Aardman Animations in Bristol, where he rose to Head of Animation and trained the generation of animators who became the core of the studio's feature team. He was supervising animator on Chicken…
Loyd J. Price (1962 to 2026) was a British stop-motion animator who spent more than thirty years at Aardman Animations in Bristol, where he rose to Head of Animation and trained the generation of animators who became the core of the studio's feature team. He was supervising animator on Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, won a Visual Effects Society award for bringing Gromit to life, and earlier animated on Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. Aardman announced his death on 16 October 2026. He was 64.
Price was born in Manchester in 1962. He learned his craft at Cosgrove Hall Films, the Manchester studio behind many of Britain's best-loved children's programmes, where he worked from 1984 to 1992. In his own words he spent eight years animating there on series such as The Wind in the Willows and Truckers. He then joined the crew of The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), one of the landmark stop-motion features of the decade.
He began working with Aardman in 1994, at first as a freelance animator, directing commercials such as the 1994 Colgate spot Cuckoo, and animating on A Close Shave (1995), the third Wallace & Gromit half-hour film. In the late 1990s Aardman co-founder Peter Lord asked him to take on an extra role: training the animators the studio would need for its move into features. Lord later wrote that Loyd was "tutor in chief" and that the effort was an incredible success. He is also credited with setting up animation training at the University of the West of England in Bristol.
He did not give up animating. On Chicken Run (2000), Aardman's first feature, he combined the roles of animator and supervising animator. He supervised animation again on Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), describing his job as training animators in the ways of Wallace and Gromit as they joined the production. He believed Gromit was the deeper character of the pair and that, without a single line of dialogue across a whole feature, the dog demanded the greatest emotional range. In February 2006 the Visual Effects Society gave Price its award for Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Motion Picture for Gromit.
Price also co-directed the Wallace & Gromit's Cracking Contraptions shorts with Chris Sadler in the run-up to the Were-Rabbit film, and spent time at DreamWorks working on Flushed Away, Aardman's first computer-animated feature. Over the following years he animated or supervised animation on The Pirates! (2012), the Shaun the Sheep series and Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015), Early Man (2018) and Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023), on which he shared animation supervisor credit with Ian Whitlock.
As Head of Animation he remained a teacher at heart. In 2013 Aardman and the National Film and Television School launched a 12-week Certificate in Character Animation in Bristol with Price as main tutor. By 2015 he said that more than 70 percent of students from the first two courses had gone on to work as animators. Peter Lord remembered him as patient and encouraging, kind and demanding, with a superb analytical eye, someone who knew every animator under his charge and would act as their spokesperson and champion when times were tough. Lord added that his retirement party was bursting at the seams with animators he had taught, mentored, inspired and encouraged.
Price was married to Alison and was, in Lord's words, fiercely proud of his family as a husband, a dad and a grandad. Aardman announced his passing on 16 October 2026, calling him a gifted animator, mentor and friend who had inspired and championed generations of animators. The exact date, place and cause of death were not included in the studio's announcement. Tributes poured in from animation fans around the world who had grown up with the characters he helped move, one frame at a time.
Biography adapted from https://x.com/aardman/status/2111034455422804355; https://www.instagram.com/p/DejRQIGl8jV/; https://www.awn.com/animationworld/plasticine-memories-bringing-wallace-gromit-big-screen; https://showmethe.
In their own words
“He was patient and encouraging, kind and demanding, with a superb analytical eye.”
Sir Peter Lord, Aardman co-founder, in his tribute posted on 16 October 2026
“A gifted animator, mentor and friend, Loyd dedicated more than 30 years to Aardman, inspiring and championing generations of animators along the way.”
Aardman's announcement on X, 16 October 2026
“Of the heroes, I think that Gromit is the deeper, more interesting character. Wallace is the one who gets into trouble, while Gromit is the one who sorts things out and gets things done.”
Interview with Andrew Osmond, Animation World Network, October 2005
“When you're slogging through 10 hours a day, moving a stop-motion character incrementally, what you're always holding onto is: What's the feeling? What's the emotion? What's the character doing?”
On performance in stop-motion, Animation World Network, 2005
“The UK is very much a powerhouse of animation at the moment.”
Announcing the Aardman and NFTS Certificate in Character Animation, Screen Daily
“We are looking for students with a real passion for character animation and a desire to develop and improve their skills.”
On selecting students for the Aardman course, Show Me The Animation interview, May 2015
His eyebrows carried that whole film honestly