Baby Steps

christopher townsend on the sentient wooden character, baby groot

After Groot sacrificed himself to save his friends, Rocket brought him back to life by planting a twig that displayed some serious dance moves. Baby Groot features in several scenes, which posed many creative and technical challenges.

“How do you make a young sapling look in character relative to the old tree Groot from the first film?” asks Marvel Studios VFX supervisor Christopher Townsend. “How do you make him move and animate in a way where it doesn’t look like stretchy wood? We found after extensive testing that keeping things simple was the best and least creepy way. Baby Groot was inspired by a two or three-year-old toddler but he is an alien wooden character. I was always pushing against anything where we went too anthropomorphic. I was always saying, ‘We’ve got too much lower lip. He’s too thin in the waist. Narrow him up. His butt is too cute. Keep him straighter and the wood grain going down. We don’t want to disrupt that. We want him to be able to emote with subtle eyebrows and eye movements.’

“We didn’t want him to look plastic but like a little wooden creature,” remarks Christopher. “One of the inspirations for me specifically was Aardman Animation from early Wallace and Gromit to Creature Comforts. Looking at how little Claymation characters were able to emote with the minimal of movement. You never over animate him. James would often say, ‘Make him Buster Keaton. He should be flat and neutral. He doesn’t have to react to everything because he’s in his own little world.’ Often Baby Groot is doing things in the background where he has nothing to do with what’s going on.”