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a coin, good luck on top and bad luck on the bottom," says Holmes. This idea of a "lucky penny" captured the indiscriminate nature of luck—anyone who has flipped a coin can attest to that fact. To create a world never seen before, Warter combined "the industrial nature of steampunk with the clean lines of mid-century modern. And then we also stumbled upon this thing called Voronoi diagrams, which are these mathematical constructs or patterns," says Holmes. The Land of Luck also needed to be populated with characters, based on lucky (and unlucky icons) from around the world. "My first assignment for the artists was to take all of that research and just go crazy for two days creating characters that would represent luck, good or bad," she says. The team came up with some obvious choices like leprechauns and rabbits, but also explored lesser- known symbols like unicorns, dragons, or pigs. Imbuing personality and movement into the characters required both real-life inspiration as well as creative and technical execution. Most of the animal characters exhibit humanistic traits in the Land of Luck. The six-legged dragon named Babe was a particularly interesting challenge for the animation team. Voiced by Jane Fonda, Babe's caring personality and graceful and elegant demeanor informed her movements. "We started from the character, her personality and her attitude," says Director of Animation Yuriko Senoo. But with six legs the team needed to determine how Babe used all of her appendages. "We figured out that she would be standing on two legs when she's talking, [and] that when she's running at full speed, she would use all six legs. But when she was more relaxed, she would use four. And then [the extra limbs] came in handy when she needed to get her inhaler from her pocket. She would use the middle arms to reach her pocket," says Senoo. In Scotland, black cats are considered lucky, and the feline charm became Bob, another one of the lead characters in the film. "Since he's a magical cat, his animation style is more graphic and cartoony than any other characters," says Senoo. "He defies gravity sometimes. We paid homage to Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. In one of the scenes, he walks in the air and then falls like the coyote." Approaches like this aided physical comedy which played an important role in this film. The animation team studied legendary comedians to mine their performances for inspiration. "We looked at Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton…because they can make us laugh with just their faces and bodies without saying anything," Senoo says, adding, "and their movement is so rhythmic." The animation team had to determine how Babe, the six-legged dragon, used each of her appendages. above: An illustration by Character Designer Massimiliano Narciso; below: Sam meets Babe in the Land of Luck. Photos courtesy of Apple