Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1058642
e d i t i o n 4 , 2 0 1 8 | c g w 1 5 "[The characters] should be able to emote and support an emotional idea from any pose we put them in," adds Cheney. "At the same time, we are doing a Seuss film with a very elegant, stylized feel that permeates everything. To do that, you cannot take control away from the animator. You actually have to give them more control over the silhouette. Some- times you need to bend things that don't naturally bend in order to have a line on a silhouette be elegant." The silhouette of Grinch in the movie is the same as it is in the book and the TV special. In traditional animation, this is easy to do by drawing lines and poses that aren't necessarily realistic in order to con- vey a certain attitude or emotion. But in 3D, that's more difficult, since CGI follows certain rules. "For this film, more than others, we need the artistry that goes into the pos- es," adds Cheney. THE GRINCH GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA! I know just what to do!" The Grinch laughed in his throat. And he made a quick Santy Claus hat and a coat. In Cheney's opinion, Grinch was the most technically challenging character in the film. Moreover, he has a number of costumes, but the Santa-disguised Grinch required some complex simulations to make sure his beard behaved realistically through extreme deformations. In addition, his telescopic shoes had to expand to huge proportions, deform extensively, and then fit back into his shoes within a single shot. Moreover, Grinch has the biggest role, experiences just about every emotion, and is covered head to toe in fur that had to feel like a Dr. Seuss drawing. "There's a style Dr. Seuss used in his illustrations that we tried to incorporate into the shapes of the fur as well as his overall design and his face," Cheney says. "The artists had to make the fur on his face fall downward to look natural, but the tu at the top of his head… it has a very iconic shape; it points up and out. And, it had to look and react naturally in the wind and snow." Once the artists captured the silhouette for Grinch and the other characters, it became a matter of defining the details, which are a little bit different in CGI, espe- cially the fur, Mosier points out. According to Chauffard, the group used numerous texture maps to precisely drive every attribute of the studio's hair systems (length, density, clumping, noise, curli- ness). For Grinch, they mixed as many as a dozen types of hair for the final result. To make it Seuss-like, the artists GRINCH WITH HIS LOOT AFTER MAKING HIS ROUNDS IN TOWN. GRINCH AND HIS REINDEER.