Hi, Im Ariana Ehuan, and this is my thesis on anthropomorphic animated

animals. What I mean by that is I studied how animated animals in popular

movies look and behave like humans, and what that indicates about us that
we prefer them that way.

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My project sought to understand the basis of anthropomorphism, both

throughout the human history of ancient oral traditions and in recent
animated films by Disney and Pixar. I examined anthropomorphism through
the lens of biological accuracy by measuring and comparing live animals with
animals as metaphors in story and oral tradition and animals in film.
My goal was to determine why humans desire anthropomorphism, and why
we resultantly find animals so attractive. I wanted to understand
anthropomorphism, so that I better understand the benefitsand limitsof
anthropomorphism in my own animation.

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Methods

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For my literature review, I read 37 pieces of literature, including books and

journal articles. I also watched 6 films and attended 4 lectures.

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To understand the goals and focus of my research, I watched a selection of

representative animations. The movies I studied were Pixars Up, Pixars
Ratatouille, and Disneys Zootopia, as well as some related films. I chose
these movies for the following reasons: all have mammal characters playing
significant roles while behaving in humanoid ways, all grossed over $500
million in worldwide box office revenue, all are 3D computer animated films,
and all have been made in the last decade. Of particular interest were the
four main dogs from Up, the two main rats from Ratatouille, and the rabbit
and fox from Zootopia.

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I analyzed behavior and measured the faces of those characters to

determine how behavior and proportions indicated anthropomorphism.

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Finally, I created my own anthropomorphic animated character to
demonstrate my findings.

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This project is important because animated movies are a high-grossing

business. For example, Disney, one of the most well-known media and
entertainment companies, was number eleven on Forbes list of the worlds
most valuable brands in 2015, and Pixar, a company that Disney owns and a
very prolific animation company, has made billions of dollars worldwide.
Animated movies are seeing no shortage of viewers.
Furthermore, I am (to my knowledge) the first to try this animation
experiment utilizing specific, detailed data from real animals, humans, and
their animated counterparts. Given the popularity of animated films and
television shows, this surprised me. However, as there is sometimes a
perception that animation is for children, I suppose I can see why there have
not been serious studies into the art form. All good science has an element
of art to it. Likewise, all good art has an element of science to it. Even if
animators are not measuring the faces of the creatures they create, they still
know how the animals should look.
I learned that eyes are an important component, if not the most important
component, of facial proportions. This is in part because larger eyes inspire
empathy due to a feeling in viewers of neoteny.
According to research, good anthropomorphic characters arouse empathy
due to mirror neurons that fire in the human brain when a character reminds
us enough of ourselves to cause us relate to them. The goal of media is to
provoke that same empathy when the actor is not another human, but a
digital character. This leads audience members to react to animals in Disney
movies as if these characters were human.
That reaction is why intentional anthropomorphism by the creators of an
animation (in the case of my thesis) is important. Creators physically
anthropomorphize so that viewers will continue the process by mentally
anthropomorphizing those characters. I was interested in examining what
biological aspects of Disney and Disney-Pixars main characterswho are
often animalshave been changed to make the characters more appealing
to human audiences.

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My thesis committee consisted of

Doctor Joni Adamson, who studies topics like environmental literature and
film, folklore, and oral traditions
Professor Meredith Drum, who creates videos and animations as single-
screen shorts and multi-screen installations
and Doctor Rebecca Fisher, who studies functional anatomy and evolution of
the musculoskeletal system in animals
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For reference, I looked at an actual cat just to make sure that animated
characters didnt already look like him.

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Here is my real cat and a sculpture I did of his head. As you can see, not the
cutest animated creature when I use his proportions. No offense, cat.

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I graphed all the animal values individually by character, with the animated
values as a proportion of the real animal values for that species. 5 real
animals were measured for each value.

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The dashed black line represents the average value proportions. The
horizontal black line at 1 represents if the animated animal proportions were
equal to those in the real world.
I concluded that animated animal eye width was generally approximately
proportionate to eye height, as compared to real animal measurements.
Basically, animal eyes kept the same shape, whether digital or real, they just
got bigger. Most values on the graph were below 1, meaning that animated
eyes tended to be proportionately larger than those of real animals. As a
result of the proportionately oversized eyes, the distance between the
bottom of the eyes to the top of the nose and between the eyes was notably
less than that of real animals.

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These graphs compare animal to human measurements on front and side

views, respectively, including the means of values for the animated animals
and both animated and real humans.
The green line represents animated animals, the orange line is real human
babies, the pink line is real human adult females, the blue line shows real
human adult males, the light purple line is animated female humans, and the
light blue line is animated male humans.

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From the front, animated animals have proportions that are most similar to
animated male humans and real human babies. From the side, animated
animals have similar proportions to animated female humans and animated
male humans, with the exception of face width.
Real human males share little proportional similarity to animals. Animated
animals are anthropomorphic, but in that they closely resemble animated
humans and to a lesser extent, real babies, but not adult humans. And
animated humans and real humans are proportionately different. This
proves that neoteny is coming into effect here as well.

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The argument can be made that animated animals are not truly
anthropomorphic if they share similarities to animated humans but not to
real adult humans. However, I feel that their resemblance to some sort of
human is enough to judge them as anthropomorphic enough. Especially as
babies are people.

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To demonstrate what I had learned about effective anthropomorphic animals,

I wrapped up my research with a short animation featuring my own
character. I planned to use the average measurements for animated animals
to determine the proportions of my character, who would be a cat, but found
that my data was flawed. When I averaged the values from Up, Ratatouille,
and Zootopia, I ended up with an unattractive cat. The main issue appeared
to be that his nose was too large for his face.

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As the dogs from Up, especially Dug, have massive noses, I hypothesized
that I would get a cuter cat if I removed at least Dugs data from my
calculations, as cats tend to have small noses in real life. However, the
measurements without Dug were not significantly different that those with
him.

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I tried again, this time just using the data from Ratatouille and Zootopia. I
found these measurements to be very appealing as a character. However,
only 4 animals data was used, due to the removal of Up.

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To balance that and avoid skewed data, I averaged the animal data without
Up with the measurements from my hypothesized anthropomorphic animal
and the average measurements of a baby.
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I gave this ideal round eyes, although I think the fact that my hypothesis
had vertical eyes added to the roundness by balancing the horizontal aspects
of the other two.

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I would defend this choice to keep the hypothesis averaged in because it

meant a compromise between my developing art style and the more
accepted art style. My individuality is maintained without deriving
uncomfortably far from the norm.

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This is the final version of my animated cat. I kept the vertical eyes here due
to time constraints and issues in translating the ideal 2D cat into a cohesive
3D cat, which will be shown on the next slide. However, he has been
adjusted to otherwise follow the ideal presented on the previous slide as
much as possible. I am happy with this end result.
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(video)

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This shows the models of 4 different versions of a cat. The first two cats
come from an online model that I modified for my own use, while the latter
two are both entirely mine.
The normal cat is approximately proportionate to what a cat looks like.
The fat cat is the same model, but with a tummy and hips added. It
represents a real world cat who could stand to lose a few pounds.
The third cat is my idea model. Although the eyes work well in 2D, there
were some issues translating them to 3D.
The last cat is my final model, shown here in comparison to his predecessors.

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(video)

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This is a motion study I did featuring my cat to better understand how cats
move for my own animation. Some things I noticed were that fat animals
sway their bulk side-to-side as they walk and the importance of tails in
animal communication.

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(video)

The movement of the tail is a distinctly animal trait. As anthropomorphic

animals tend to have eyebrowsa distinctly human traitto indicate
emotion, the use of eyebrows versus tails in animation is a behavior that I
will need to study further in future projects.

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This is my final animation featuring the cat I created. I put him through a
walk cycle with tail movements, based on the motion study shown
previously. All his joints are rigged to move, and I added a bone in his
stomach to better give it the shifting of weight that is visible in a real-world
fat cat. His movements are exaggerated to create a more cartoon element.
I think this matches his appearance.

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(video)

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As motioned previously, I want to study the usage of tails versus eyebrows to

communicate emotion in anthropomorphic animals.

I plan to do that with a film analysis of animated movies and videos of

animals, which I expect I can find a quantity of via YouTube. I will figure out a
way to measure and quantify tail movement, as well as comparing
anthropomorphic animal eyebrows to those of humans. As there is a fair bit
of research into the place of human eyebrows in forming facial expressions, I
expect this to be a reasonably possible task to achieve.

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I hope to continue this project after graduating college, either in graduate

school or on my own time.

I also plan to develop this into an animated series.

Sidekick Cat will be a mixture of 2D and 3D animation. The main character
will be in 3D, as will objects and people of interest to him. Backgrounds and
action that do not interest him enough will be in 2D. Often, the action
occurring in the background will be of interest to the viewers, leading to a
comedic theme of the cat not reacting to things. Most people will not have
real names or genders, because he does not care enough. This show is
intended to be broadcast online for college students and people in their early
to mid twenties, due to occasional adult themes and language. The first
season will feature around ten five- to ten-minute-long episodes. I will make
my series free to view online, with bonus features and perhaps a second
season being for pay, once people have been drawn in by the first season.
This show will expand upon and further implement my research.
Along with experimenting with anthropomorphism, I want to apply a mixture
of 2D and 3D animation in new ways. I hope to make innovations that others
can learn from on mixing animation styles in the most effective and
appealing way.

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Thank you.