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Movie Magic

How Alonso Martinez helped bring the characters in Coco to life

May/June 2018
By Jeanette Ferrara

Twelve-year-old Miguel lives in Mexico. One night, he’s celebrating the Day of the Dead, a holiday that honors deceased relatives. Suddenly, a gust of wind whisks him off to the underworld. He must find a way to return to the land of the living before it’s too late!

Miguel’s fictional journey is the focus of last fall’s hit Pixar film, Coco. It took a team of writers, artists, animators, and actors more than five years to make the movie. Every detail—from the wrinkles on Miguel’s great-grandmother’s face to the dancing skeletons in the Land of the Dead—was animated entirely on computers.

Alonso Martinez is a digital artist at Pixar. He used computers to build the characters in Coco and help them move on the big screen.

Twelve-year-old Miguel lives in Mexico. He’s celebrating the Day of the Dead one night. This holiday honors dead relatives. Suddenly, a gust of wind blows him away. It takes him to the underworld. He must return to the land of the living before it’s too late!

Miguel’s trip is a made-up story. It’s the focus of last fall’s hit Pixar film, Coco. Writers, artists, animators, and actors worked on the movie. It took them more than five years to finish. Everything was created on computers. That includes details like the wrinkles on Miguel’s great-grandmother’s face. It also includes the dancing skeletons in the Land of the Dead.

Alonso Martinez is a digital artist at Pixar. He used computers to build the characters in Coco. Then he helped them move on the big screen.

Constructing Characters

©2017 Disney•Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

Models help transform a  character from a sketch (top) to a moving image (below).

All Pixar characters begin as drawings on paper. Illustrators give Martinez sketches of each character from different angles. It’s his job to transform these sketches into digital models—3-D versions of the characters that animators can move. 

Martinez uses a computer design program to build each character. He begins with basic shapes. A character might start with a sphere for a head and a cube for a body, for example. Then Martinez uses digital tools to gradually add more detail. “It’s like sculpting with digital clay,” he says. 

Each finished model is called a puppet. Martinez then decides how the puppet should move on screen. He programs up to 30,000 movable parts into each character. It’s as if you could control each muscle in a person’s body by turning a different knob, he explains. One knob might make a jaw drop. Another could raise an eyebrow. Martinez builds a digital control panel that activates each movement.

Next, animators test the digital puppets. They might ask Martinez to give a character a wider grin or a bouncier walk. Then it’s showtime! Animators use the control panel to move characters through the story.

All Pixar characters begin as drawings on paper. Artists give Martinez sketches of every character. Each one is drawn from many angles. It’s Martinez’s job to turn these sketches into digital models. Digital models are 3-D versions of the characters. Animators can move them.

Martinez builds each character with a computer program. He begins with basic shapes. A character might start with a sphere for a head. It could have a cube for a body. Then Martinez uses digital tools to slowly add more detail. “It’s like sculpting with digital clay,” he says.

Each finished model is called a puppet. Martinez decides how the puppet should move. He programs up to 30,000 movable body parts for each character! It’s like controlling each muscle in a person’s body by turning a different knob, he explains. One knob might make a jaw drop. Another could raise an eyebrow. Martinez builds a digital control panel. It’s used to control each movement.

Animators test the digital puppets next. They might ask Martinez to make changes. He might give a character a wider grin, for example. Or he might give it a bouncier walk. Then it’s showtime! Animators use the control panel. They move characters through the story.

Deborah Coleman/©2017 Disney•Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

Martinez works on a model of Pepita, a mythical creature in Coco.

Tongue Twister

Martinez has built characters for five Pixar films, including Up and Inside Out. But one of his hardest projects was a single body part in Coco: the floppy tongue of Miguel’s dog, Dante. 

“A tongue is like a rope,” says Martinez. “You can twist it and  wrap it around things. Creating a puppet for it was really hard!”

Martinez spent six months working on the model for Dante. He didn’t see the final animation of the dog until more than a year later, when he attended the film’s premiere.

Watching a finished film is satisfying for Martinez. But the best part of his job comes even later, he says. “Seeing a kid with a toy of one of my characters, making up their own stories—that really brings these characters to life.”  

Martinez has built characters for five Pixar films. They include Up and Inside Out. But one of his hardest projects was a single body part in Coco. It was the floppy tongue of Miguel’s dog, Dante.

“A tongue is like a rope,” says Martinez. “You can twist it and wrap it around things. Creating a puppet for it was really hard!”

Martinez spent six months working on Dante’s model. He didn’t see the dog’s final animation until more than a year later. That was at the film’s opening night.

Martinez likes watching a finished film. But the best part of his job comes even later, he says. “Seeing a kid with a toy of one of my characters, making up their own stories—that really brings these characters to life.”  

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