Learn how to create convincing lip sync animation with Derek Henriques in this intermediate character animation course. Explore the fundamentals of facial anatomy, phonemes, and mouth shapes to understand how speech translates into believable character movement. Whether you're animating dialogue for feature films, television, or video games, this course will help you create more natural, expressive, and polished lip sync performances.

Follow a practical lip sync animation workflow, starting with the anatomy of the lips, jaw, and mouth corners. Learn how to animate tongue and teeth movements, understand vowel and consonant shapes, and connect phonemes to create fluid and accurate dialogue animation. Explore asymmetry, character traits, and shape language to give your characters distinctive personalities while improving the natural flow of their facial movements. You'll also learn how to track mouth arcs, create realistic lip and facial deformations, and connect the mouth with the rest of the face for more cohesive performances. Through demonstrations and a hands-on five-second dialogue assignment, you'll develop your lip sync skills from initial mouth poses and phoneme blocking to final animation polish.

About the Instructor: Derek Henriques is a Lead Animator at DNEG Animation with extensive experience in feature animation, character performance, and visual effects. His film credits include acclaimed animated productions such as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Nimona, Smallfoot, Scoob!, Back to the Outback, and The Garfield Movie. Throughout his career, he has worked with leading animation studios including DNEG, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Reel FX, bringing years of professional production experience to his teaching.