This past December, Pixar debuted their second 30-minute television special, Toy Story That Time Forgot and it captivated us from the very beginning. The entire team behind the film did a phenomenal job, from the new character designs to the camera angles – oh, and don’t forget the amazing storytelling capabilities from the lighting department! Though there has yet to be an official Blu-ray/digital release date to view behind-the-scenes bonus features, thanks to the passionate Pixarians who share their early concept/design work we are all in for a special treat.
This past week, Pixarian Grant Alexander (UPDATED: The link to Grant’s personal site has been removed as it is no longer active – linked to his Instagram now), released some incredible photos of a Dream Elder sculpt that he created to help ‘mold’ the character from the film. While Grant is a sketch artist at the studio he stated, “Sometimes it easier to figure something out in 3-dimensions than sketching on paper” (making the Dream Elder sculpt one of few that he has created at Pixar).
As you can see in the photo below, Grant captured the details of the Dream Elder Tower perfectly. It takes great skill, hard work, and imagination to come up with and sketch out a functioning toy, in saying that, Grant explains that it was a team effort in creating the design for the character. Often with every department, teamwork is key and as we complete our Pixar Pipeline Project we have learned just how important that theme is throughout the studio.
Wow! I loved Grant's designs in the short and have checked his great blog every once in a while. What a great design!
I know – I love being able to see these great designs and how they came to life!