Art by Leudjeu Contact

Francis Leudjeu · visual artist, Yaoundé

I create worlds, draw a method from them, teach it, and carry it to the screen.

Comic author and creator of series in development, art director of brand identities, web designer, teacher, producer of award-winning animated shorts. On this site, every work shows its method.

Work together Read the protocols

Samira, a #mayday character, facing the camera: ebony skin, purple face, black block nose, red braids, orange hoodie.
Plate 1. Samira, a character from #mayday (in development).

Mboa MatandaAnimated short, 17 min 33 s. Producer · Editor · Graphic artist

  • Official selection, TIFF 2023 (world premiere)
  • Best short film: LFC Awards 2023, FFAA 2024, FICIB 2024
  • TV5Monde Prize, FFAA 2024
  • Broadcast on TV5MONDE and TV5MONDEplus
Full record

Mboa MatandaSelections: Toronto International Film Festival 2023, Carthage Film Days 2023, Cairo International Animation Forum 2023. Nomination: Animation Tanzania Film Festival 2024. Admitted to the Cannes Film Festival Short Film Corner 2023 and invited to the Annecy Festival 2023.

Noël au ContinentSelections: Authentic Global Film Awards 2025, Abidjan Animation Film Festival 2025, First Short Film Festival 2024, Tanzanite International Animation Festival 2024. Honorable mention: Varsity Film Expo 2024.

Createmy worlds

Two worlds in development

I have been developing them for years. They changed a lot. Each has its own page: intent, synopsis, characters, status.

Gola, the first world of #mayday: a chained orange mask above running black silhouettes, in a film-strip frame.

Gola, the first world of Real

#mayday

Experimental film in seven short films. A 14-year-old boy and his 9-year-old sister enter a digital world, Real, to find their older sister, who took refuge there rather than face real life. They must resist the temptations of the game masters, who want them to give up the real world.

In development since 2018. Characters, first three worlds, script and storyboard of the first short film.I am looking for co-producers and patrons.

See the project →

Couso, a Ndamba character: a footballer with a turquoise face and red hair, yellow jersey, ball at his feet, and his close-up portrait.

Ndamba

Animated series, 12 episodes of 13 minutes. In a futuristic Cameroon where the sky has cracked, football has become an arena of supernatural powers. Couso wants to lift his family out of poverty; his rivalry with Magnan, an electric goalkeeper, redefines both their destinies. “Ndamba” is a feminine noun: the football, and football itself.

In development since 2019. Former titles: FootZone, SuperOnze. Presentation dossier, prologue script and eight characters designed.I am looking for co-producers and patrons.

See the project →

Createfor brands

Brand design & web

Visual identities, charters, campaigns and websites, since 2017. Since 2020 I direct the identities; before that I designed campaign materials as a subcontractor for advertising and communication agencies.

Visual identity board for Cameroon Hotels Corporation: HC logo, cover, banners and posters.

Cameroon Hotels Corporation

Logo redesign and rebranding, 2024. Art director

Three presentations of new routes, then the client’s instruction: stay as close to the original as possible. I measured the old logo, corrected its thicknesses and vanishing lines with geometry, and wrote a quantified charter.

Read the case study

Kiini · 2024
Bana Botanica · 2024
MMA Bantou · 2023
Festival Nshu shu’ · 2021
Festi7 · 2020

See all projects →

I also build websites as an extension of the identities: the logo, charter and visuals find their place on a site that I put online. See the websites →

Createon commission

2D animation on commission

I design the characters, direct and produce 2D animation sequences, from storyboard to editing and color grading. For a documentary, a film, a children’s program or a brand.

Animation sequences for documentaries and films
TV5Monde, Révolutionnaire(s) 2: la Genèse: historical sequences, storyboard, executive production, editing. Institut français du Cameroun, Ma passion, ma danse: character design, editing, color grading.

Interactive characters
Goethe-Institut, Zoukoulou: design, direction and 2D animation of characters who interact with the real presenter, compositing and editing.

An animated short, all the way to the festival
Production of Mboa Matanda (TIFF 2023, TV5Monde Prize in Abidjan 2024) and Noël au Continent. See the films

Request animation

Createmy images

Paintings and studies

A painting (L’innocence écrasée, 2017), comic pages, character studies and backdrops.

L’innocence écrasée · 2017
Celle qui protège · 2016
Thanae
Mbombo · page 1

See all works

Theorize

Three protocols

What I do repeats. I write it down so I can reproduce it, justify it and teach it, even when it is unfinished.

Common denominator

I set three or four core ideas for a brand. For each, I draw shapes and pick colors and typefaces. What recurs across the most ideas becomes the sign: a symbolic minimum that holds everything else. Rarer shapes then steer the meaning.

See it applied: CHC

Mask-face grammar

Eight rules hold my characters together: ebony skin, only the face colored, symbolic colors, articulated sculptures, ears, eyes, nose, hair and eyebrows. The plate above shows them on one character.

Back to the plate

Production under constraint

Mboa Matanda taught me that strong design and sustained animation are expensive. I explore the opposite: black faceless characters, a fixed shot, pared-down animation, inspired by cave painting and shadow theatre. This is the path of #mayday.

Thinking drawn from my Master Pro Cinéma thesis, Yaoundé I

Teach

I have taught since 2018

Always find practical ways to apply concepts that look theoretical.

Drawing and graphic design workshop for children in the Abyl studio room: tables, computers, a “Conquérons le monde” poster.
Vacances Utiles program, Abyl studio. Faces blurred out of respect for the children.

College of Art & Design
Graphic design and digital art

since 2026

ENSPY, Yaoundé
Digital animation and concept art

since 2018

IFCPA-CRTV
Audiovisual production and 2D animation

2021

IUES / INSAM
Graphic design and image editing

2020–2023

Primetech Academy
Photoshop and photo compositing

Griotys Academy
Video editing and post-production

Teaching and workshops in detail →

Orchestrate

Carry a film to the festival

My role is written on every card. I produce, edit and finish. I do not claim the drawing of what I did not draw.

Mboa Matanda poster, with the TIFF laurel.

Mboa Matanda

Producer · Editor · Graphic artist

Animated short by Jules Kalla Eyango, 17 min 33 s. Produced from April 2022 to May 2023 after three years of development, with Abyl, Rozifilms (Madagascar) and Tara (Cameroon).

Detailed roles

Executive and line producer, graphic artist, communications lead. Post-production: editing, color grading and finishing.

Watch the film on TV5MONDEplus

Noël au Continent poster, FESTICO.

Noël au Continent

Executive producer · Compositing · Editing

Animated short written and directed by Jules Kalla Eyango for Abyl studio, produced from October 2023 to June 2024.

Detailed roles

Executive producer, production manager, compositing, editing, writing and voice-over.

Watch the film on YouTube

About

Visual artist, creative director, producer, teacher

Portrait of Francis Leudjeu.

I studied drawing and painting in Foumban, then cartoon animation at IFCPA-CRTV. I founded Abyl Studio in 2018 and Group LEUD in 2024. What I learn on each project, I write down, teach and carry to the screen.

2018

Abyl Studio and first classes

6

institutions where I have taught

12+

brand design and web projects, since 2017

2

animated shorts produced, in festivals

Read the full bio

Say how

What AI does in my work, and what it does not

I hand AI the brainstorming, concept art and mock-up bases, presentation documents and software coaching. I keep the framing, the finishing, the production of deliverables and the animation of main characters. Each work will say which applies:

Hand-drawnGenerated base, repaintedDesigned with AI

This site itself came out of a dialogue with an AI. The decisions are mine.

Journal

Practice notes

One article a month: a stage of work, a refined rule, a question about AI.

Read the journal

Contact

Get in touch

For a teaching post, a co-production, patronage, a brand identity, a website, an animation commission or a workshop. Write to me in three lines: your organization, what you are looking for, your deadline.

Email

  • Francis LeudjeuTeaching, workshops, co-production, patronagefrancis.leudjeu@yahoo.comWrite
  • Abyl StudioBrand identity, commissions, productionstudio.abyl@gmail.comWrite

Phone

  • YaoundéCalls and messages+237 695 74 26 05Call

Based in Yaoundé, Cameroon · Abyl Studio (2018) · Group LEUD (2024)