Character Animation Studio

grasshorse

meet our team

Bella

Honorary studio mascot, Bella is the manager of morale and enthusiasm. She diligently reminds artists to take breaks by inviting them to go on walks through town and give her belly rubs.

Steve Jennings

Founder and Director, Steve Jennings has been pushing growth in local talent in the Midwest. Between his story abilities and dynamic range of technical skills in animation and visual effects work, Steve's ambition to continually create high quality content pushes the limits of what animation can do.

Sabrina Claman

Sabrina Claman, Studio Media and Communications Manager and artist, operates in several roles within Grasshorse including directing, storyboarding, character design, audio performance, and social media management and marketing. Her primary work falls under story concept development and design.

Brandon Humfleet

Animator Brandon Humfleet has been an integral member of the Grasshorse team for eleven years. Specializing as a technical artist, Brandon heavily works with our hybrid animation process. Many of Grasshorse’s best character performances come to life through Brandon’s skills.

Paderic Waggoner

Proficient in both 2D and 3D animation, Paderic Waggoner excels in character performance through his work at Grasshorse. Paderic is someone who values quality content, ensuring that your project is given plenty of thought and effort into its production.

Dani Massey

Equipped with a wicked sense of humor, Animator Dani Massey is an emerging artist who primarily experiments with 3D animation and character design. A recent graduate of SCC's Animation for Television, Film & New Media Program, Dani participated in the summer 2021 Grasshorse Internship Program. After transitioning from intern to Studio Artist, Dani currently does storyboarding, 3d modeling, and compositing for an active Grasshorse project.

Macey Webber

Macey Webber is a spunky Animator with great taste for both humor and design. Her sincerity shines through a character's expressivity, offering a depth performance ability in her work. She is a recent graduate of SCC's Animation for Television, Film & New Media Program, and took part in the summer 2021 Grasshorse Internship from June-August.

Leah Sloan

Animator Leah Sloan, has an eye for detail and down-to-earth feel in her work. As a participant in the Summer 2021 Internship Program at Grasshorse, Leah is in her 4th year at the University of Iowa, majoring in Art with a Drawing BFA. Her skills include character animation, character design, and comic illustration.

Chris Graber

Chris Graber, Traditional Animator with twelve years of experience at Grasshorse, has been a key team member in many challenging projects since the beginning of Grasshorse’s time in Iowa. She excels in storyboarding and traditional animation, as well as being the source of most hand-painted or hand-constructed elements in final production.

Our Unique Business Model

As an adaptable company, we staff our crews based on production needs. Using a unique business model featuring cost-effective location, talent and customized technologies, we are able to offer both top-notch work and affordability to our clients. This model also benefits our artists with low cost of living, high quality of life and a great work culture here at Grasshorse.

Location

The Midwest is not the obvious choice for an animation studio, but there are many advantages. Cost of living is significantly more economical than in areas on the coast. Artists with families benefit from less expensive housing and quality public schools. Our centralized location is helpful for scheduling to clients on both coasts.

Talent

Great work is created by great artists. We foster and develop talent locally; half our animators are graduates of an animation program we developed for a local college in 2008. Steve remains highly involved on the advisory board for the program.

Technology

Our facilities are outfitted with 10 artist workstations that are configured with state of the art software from Adobe, Autodesk, Apple, Blender and Toon Boom. Leveraging open source technologies for 3D animation has benefited our business by reducing overhead costs, with savings passed on to our clients. With strong programming and database design backgrounds, Steve and Kathy have developed proprietary tools to speed up animation, asset organization, and streamline the production pipeline.