Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546606
T O Y S T O R Y 5 | P E R S P E C T I V E 1 5 Back in the Art Department, we amassed our own collection of plastic toy horse brands and went deep into the details. It was research into objects, but also into why people form emotional connections with toys. That is useful territory on a Toy Story film. Throughout much of production, the Art Department met twice weekly with the directors for art reviews, exploring character and environment designs. Artists specialized across characters, sets, shaders, graphics and color. Our core Art Department grew from around five people to about nine when fully staffed, which still feels small. On the first Toy Story, the Art Department was astonishingly small: Ralph Eggleston leading the artistic direction, Tia Kratter focusing on paint and textures, Bill Cone on environments and me on characters. Back then, the whole company was essentially working on the same film. Today, several movies can be in different stages of production at once, each with its own Art Department. Of course, it is never just a few of us in art. We collaborate with artists across every department. Animation is very much a team sport. With the story moving at full speed, we initially focused on relatively safe sequences, including the High- Tech Buzz material. Those sequences gave us a deserted island, a shipping terminal with a giant crane, a hiking trail, campsite and other environments that were a blast to design. Layout takes those environments and begins blocking action, checking scale and finding the camera. As scenes evolve, sets evolve with them. A barn designed with two doors may suddenly need another one to support the staging. So, you add a door. Design has to remain flexible. It's about what's good for the movie. One of the advantages of working digitally is that those adjustments can continue relatively late. That same flexibility applies to what disappears. Sequences change. Sets leave the story. Characters leave the story. An articulated bus interior and Charlie's house were developed and eventually removed. So were characters, including Calamity Cow, Pirate Polly and Magic Hair Doll. That's a normal part of the process. Better for those decisions to happen before the work travels farther downstream and affects more departments. While the environments establish the physical world, color helps establish the emotional one. The Toy Story films already have a history of using color this way. Andy's bedroom was bathed in golden light bouncing off the wood floors, reinforcing that all was right with play. At the beginning of Toy Story 3, Andy is preparing to leave D. BLAZE'S BED DESIGN. DIGITAL CONCEPT ART BY KRISTIAN NORELIUS. E. BLAZE'S DESK DESIGN. DIGITAL CONCEPT ART BY KRISTIAN NORELIUS. F. BLAZE ON HER LAPTOP IN HER BEDROOM. FINAL FRAME. ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF PIXAR. © 2026 DISNEY/PIXAR. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. F E D