He served as the lead animator for Ariel in The Little Mermaid (1989), Belle in Beauty and the Beast (1991), Jasmine in Aladdin (1992), Young Simba in The Lion King (1994), the title character in Mulan (1998), and Tiana in The Princess and the Frog (2009).
He next attended Bowling Green State University and sent an animation portfolio to the Disney studios, but did not accept it though they recognized his potential.
[3] In 1980, Henn was hired by Walt Disney Productions and entered the animation training program where he was mentored by Eric Larson.
[6] In 1988, Henn was selected by directors John Musker and Ron Clements as one of the two supervising animators for the character Ariel in The Little Mermaid (1989), alongside Glen Keane.
[8] For the mice characters, Henn studied the mannerisms of Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor during voice recording sessions, and looked to George C. Scott's performance in Dr. Strangelove (1964) for inspiration while animating McLeach.
[8] For Beauty and the Beast (1991), Henn was next assigned as the supervisor animator for Belle, sharing the role with James Baxter.
[9][10] For character reference, Henn decorated his studio with photographs of famous women, specifically Hollywood actresses Natalie Wood, Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, and Audrey Hepburn.
[11][12] However, Henn hardly met the character's voice actress Paige O'Hara apart from rare occasions when he would travel to California for production meetings.
Regardless, he incorporated O'Hara's mannerisms during the recording sessions into the animation, including her pushing a lock of hair off her forehead.
[13] Having animated two previous Disney heroines—Ariel from The Little Mermaid and Belle from Beauty and the Beast, respectively—Henn was afraid he had been typecast when he was assigned his third heroine, Jasmine.
I looked at it, and at the time her hair was a roundish haircut shape that surrounded her face, and we were playing with things like that, so I essentially modeled Jasmine on my younger sister Beth.
"[15] Linda Larkin was hired to provide Jasmine's speaking voice and discussed the role with Henn during a dinner meeting at the Disney-MGM studios.
Henn remembered Max Howard, then the head of the Feature Animation Florida studio, called him into his office and asked if he was willing to appear in the episode.
[16] When he became involved with The Lion King (1994), Henn initially expressed interest in animating the film's villain, Scar, because he wanted to do "something different.
[9] Before the film's release, during the summer of 1994, Henn was slated to work on Mulan (1998), in which he accompanied Pam Coats, Barry Cook, Ric Sluiter, and Robert Walker on a research trip to China.
Despite this, Henn was asked to animate female hula dancers during the opening scene, in which he returned to Orlando.
The short implemented a paperless technique by using Harmony and Wacom Cintiq pressure-sensitive tablets, but Henn found the approach too difficult and resumed using pencil and paper.
On Moana (2016), Henn animated Maui's tattoos, as well the prologue and the stylized visuals on the tapa cloth for several sequences.
The actresses who played the five Disney Princesses for whom he had served as the supervising animator―Jodi Benson, Paige O'Hara, Anika Noni Rose, Linda Larkin, and Ming-Na Wen―appeared together on stage to express their gratitude to Henn for creating such memorable animated characters.