Matthew Leonard is an aspiring 2D frame-to-frame animator graduating from the University of Salford. Matthew has had a passion for drawing cartoon characters with vibrant personalities from an early age, and growing up he enjoyed nothing more than bringing his characters to life through the power of animation. During his studies at Trafford College, he experimented with a variety of animations styles including 3D and stop-motion. This was where he found his enthusiasm for 2D and wanted to pursue that further as a career. As he progressed to university, not only did he learn the principles needed for his animations, he has taken them a step further by putting his time through the animation pipeline and learning new essential skills such as storyboarding, conceptualising and compositing.

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Outside of animation, Matthew enjoys creating digital art in his spare time and experiment with his illustrations by trying out different styles and brushes. To help take his eyes off the screen, Matthew goes out with the Scout’s Networking group and engage in physical activities such as bowling, escape rooms and outdoor camping.

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Matthew is pro-active and is always looking for new opportunities to expand his knowledge, from volunteering at film festivals to collaborating with other students for animation contests. His new short film 'Arachnophobia' is the summit of his technical abilities applied into one film, and with his hard-working mindset, he is still striving to discover more of what’s out there and improve on the skills he has already learnt.