Character Design: The Characters of Inside Out

Pixar are renowned for their character designs. Unlike most other large animation studios, a lot of their human characters resemble real human beings with physical flaws and imperfections that move and behave realistically. While this is still true with the human characters of Inside Out, the characters which represent the emotions of our main character Riley are extremely simplified and exaggerated design-wise compared to their other Pixar counterparts.

Joy, Anger, Sadness, Fear and Disgust make up the main cast of Riley's brain and are in charge of her emotions. Each represents a different emotion, with a design and colour scheme that reflects this colour. For example, the character of Anger is short and stocky with a distinctive brow which highlights the eyes which are the primary way of conveying emotion for this character. The silhouette of the character is also made up of sharp angles, in stark contrast to the character of Joy, who the animators purposefully made have no right angles to express her more upbeat, happy personality. Joy's colours are also yellow and blue, with a constant blue glowing aura, which when combined give off happy connotations suggesting a bubbly personality, whereas Anger is a deep red, which combined with his design creates a angry, threatening aura.

This stylisation extends beyond the design of the characters to the movement of the characters. Inside Out's characters follows more of the conventions of tradition 2D animation, such as the work of animators such as Chuck Jones. The proportion of characters squash and stretch, more reminiscent of classic Looney Tunes characters than the more conventional techniques used in 3D animation and exaggerated gestures are punctuated with follow through and overlapping actions. The result is an aesthetic that is less realistic, more in keeping with a cartoon, but thematically appropriate.