Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and its painted look

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: How DreamWorks Got the Painted Look

We went back to Puss in Boots: The Last Wish to see how it looks like a painting while still being a CG film. DreamWorks didn’t use one trick. They changed the timing, the textures, the effects and the hair. Here is what we found.

First, some context. The film was directed by Joel Crawford. Mark Edwards was the visual effects supervisor, and production designer Nate Wragg led the look. The budget is listed at $90 to $110 million, and the film earned about $484 million worldwide.

1. Start from a painting, not a render

The look was inspired by the storybook feel of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Crawford has said that film gave the studio the confidence to push further. He also names The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as a template, and spaghetti westerns more broadly.

The goal was a balance. It should feel like a painting, but it should still be CG underneath.

2. Change the timing

Most CG films animate every frame. Here the action and fantasy sequences use stepped timing. Characters hold poses for two or four frames, which makes motion feel drawn. Quieter, emotional scenes keep smooth full-frame animation.

Sources differ on how much of the film is stepped, so we won’t give a number. The idea is clear though. The timing changes with the mood.

3. Stamp brushstrokes onto surfaces

A custom tool called Stamp Map projects brushstroke textures onto surfaces and onto effects like smoke. That way a surface reads as painted, not as a smooth render.

4. Draw over the simulation

The effects team still ran normal 3D simulations for fire and cloth. Then artists drew graphic shapes over them by hand. The Wolf’s poncho kept bold lines, while the motion underneath stayed believable. Another technique cut away parts of a volume to leave hard, graphic edges.

5. Make hair look like paint

Puss has about 1.2 million hairs. A custom groom tool called Willow added colour variation, clumping and transparency so the hair reads as brushstrokes. The team also replaced a standard blur with a custom glow made in Nuke.

6. Save colour for the story

Part of the film’s discipline is restraint. The monochrome colour-burst moments happen only five times.

What studios can take from this

You don’t need a $100 million budget to use these ideas:

  1. Choose a look early and test it before you build the pipeline.
  2. Change timing to match the mood of a scene.
  3. Mix hand-drawn work with simulation, so the result feels made by a person.
  4. Build small custom tools for the problems you keep hitting.

The film was nominated for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. It also won the VES award for Outstanding Effects Simulations in an Animated Feature.

If you have an animation or stylised project and want to talk through the look, see our work or get in touch. Happy to chat.

Which animated film would you want us to break down next? Let us know.

Sources and references

  1. Wikipedia: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.
  2. Cartoon Brew: interview with director Joel Crawford.
  3. Animation World Network: “Mark Edwards talks visual development on Puss in Boots: The Last Wish”.
  4. VFX Voice: “Wishing upon a star for Puss in Boots: The Last Wish”.