How Pixar created Luca’s adorable, transforming sea monsters

HyPixar’s next feature film is the upcoming story about a pair of young boys who are actually sea monsters. Luca and Alberto appear as humans on land, where they explore a quaint Italian seaside village. Generally, however, they are marine organisms such as iguana that are covered in scales. For the team at Pixar, a key question was figuring out what exactly led to that change. And instead of relying on a magical or emotional catalyst, they chose something more fundamental: water.

That was just the beginning. Sorting out the change also meant that both versions of the characters were somehow connected, as well as ensuring that the process carried some kind of emotional weight. With all these ideas in mind, water turned out to be an ideal fit.

“Because sea monsters are underwater, and humans are on land, there must be some component about water,” Beth Albright, a character observer Hy, Tells The Reporter Door. “So it just became: ‘Is this really water? Or is there something more magical going on?’ And for our story, I think it’s important that Luca is liking. He’s choosing to stay on the ground , He is choosing to go back into the water. And those things are changing him. The choices he is making are changing who he is. “

Focusing on natural elements is a key element Hy. The film has a unique art style that looks almost like stop-motion, and helps set it apart from other CG animated art. According to character supervisor Sajan Skaria, the goal was to get away from the cool and more technical elements in art and animation. “It was important for us to give our modelers and our artists complete freedom to hit appeal and charm.”

Photo: Pixar Animation Studio

That part meant taking inspiration from nature. For example, sea monsters’ underwater moves were partially based on the iguana’s way of swimming, while the team looked to the chameleon for clues to deal with the transformation from human to monster. “We saw a lot of references about what our options are,” says Skeria. “Especially with nature, it’s such a great place to go in search of things because it’s organic. We wanted to get as far away from the mechanical as possible.”

One of the biggest challenges was to make sure that the two versions of each character still felt like the same person, despite being essentially a completely different species. There are some major differences: A sea monster does not have a single nose, for example, and they only have four fingers. That said, there are some facial spaces that remain consistent. In Luca’s case, his big eyes were designed to be familiar with any matter whether it was a human or a sea creature.

In order to have some similarity, the models of both versions of each character were controlled by the same 3D modeler. But it was also important that they were not just one-on-one entertainment from each other. “We don’t have to worry that ‘this point should match this point,” Scarea explains. “It would have been more mechanical and more logical. But we were going to feel more. “

That process of change was particularly important, not only from a visual standpoint, but also in terms of character development. I was able to watch the first 30 minutes or so of the film, and watching Luca and Alberto shift from human to sea monster, or vice versa, was key in many scenes. Sceria says that this was done intentionally. “We could hide it, we could do it off-screen,” he explains. “But we really wanted to show it in slow motion, on camera, because that’s the core of the film. It is a thematic center. We did not want to hide it at all.

Challenges of making Hy And its sizing artists were only compounded by the epidemic, as the production team was forced to work from home rather than in the studio. (Epidemic is also the reason on which the film will stream Disney plus When it debuts on June 18.) As an observer, Albright says his main job was to make sure everyone had enough room to breathe and take care of themselves while working in the film .

“We had to find a way to give context to everyone, but also to give space to everyone,” she says. “We can’t trust everyone well to come to a meeting at the moment, and then do that,” because there’s a lot of stuff going on right now. This was really important to Sajan and I said that we gave everyone a place to do their work when they could do their work, and take care of their family and their lives. “

“One of the things that we realized early on is that even though we were physically separated, mentally and emotionally everyone was in a shared experience,” says Scaria. I think there is a lot of meaning to the film because suddenly we were gaining insight into people’s lives, and it really brought everyone closer, and the team bonded a lot better. “