Creating That ‘Chunky Cute’

“One of the biggest parts of the challenge for us was that the inspiration for the film was coming from a very 2D place with graphic references like anime. The first visual goal we dove into was less about the 2D versus 3D and more about the overall style of the shapes of the world, which emphasized the ‘chunky cute’ visual language. But by its nature, the chunky cute doesn’t include little fine details and some of the intricacies of other films. And with the inspirations from anime being more 2D and graphic, it felt like we were missing some of the richness and detail.

“So, the question became how to add that back in without just pulling the movie back to a more standard place. One of the first areas we found some really successful ways to do that was in the materials that our objects were made out of. One of the cool things that we added was something called ‘pooling’, or the idea that if you had painted these models, the paint would gather in spots and go darker and a little more colorful. So, with all these elements, we go from that flat color, we add the color variation and textures, and then we add the staining and pooling, followed by shading details like grout lines and shine and roughness styled in, and some shadows to show it off better.”