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Sylvia Bennion was born in 1968 in Ormskirk, Lancashire. She studied Illustration at Kingston University (graduated in1990) and from there worked as freelance Illustrator in London. In 1995 she travelled to Auckland, New Zealand to train as a 2D Animator for Disney Television, returning to the UK in 1997 to work as a 2D Animator for King Rollo Films in Devon.
In 1998 Sylvia moved to Bristol to work as a Storyboard Artist on the Aardman Animations feature film ‘Chicken Run’, and has worked as a Character designer and Story Artist on a variety of Aardman projects since then.
In 2004-2006 she designed characters for the ITV series ‘Creature Comforts’ (series one and two), working with director Richard Starzak. During this time she also began an Illustration MA course at Anglia Ruskin University under the tutorage of Martin Salisbury and John Lawrence. She took a year out to have her son Joseph, and graduated in 2008 with a group exhibition at a London gallery.
In 2005 Sylvia worked on the pilot episode for the BBC television series ‘Shaun the Sheep’, and was instrumental in developing the characters and the look of the show. The pilot proved to be a huge success and soon Sylvia was working on the first series as a Storyboard Artist. Series two and three followed, and in early 2013 she returned to Aardman to work on the fourth series ‘Shaun the Sheep’.
In September 2013 Aardman Animations announced that the world’s most famous sheep was going to star in his own full-length movie, (written and directed by Richard Starzak and Mark Burton) with a release date in the UK of 20th March 2015. They also announced a ‘Shaun the Sheep’ book series called ‘Mossy Bottom Farm’ to be published by Walker Books Ltd in Spring 2014.
In June 2012 she started on the daily ‘Wallace and Gromit’ comic strip in The Sun newspaper for Aardman Animation and Titan publishing.
Sylvia lives in Bristol with her husband and three children.
