Animal Logic developed a team of heroes to bring The Legion of Super-Pets Comics to the silver screen, flying off to create an adventure like never before with the heartwarming and hilarious feature animation, DC League of Super-Pets. The project was developed with filmmakers Jared Stern, Sam Levine and Patty Hicks, and longstanding partners, Warner Animation Group.

The film follows the inseparable best friends, Krypto the Super-Dog and Superman. With matching superpowers and a little help from the Justice League, this crime fighting duo spend their days saving the residents of Metropolis from endless attacks from villains. When Superman and the rest of the Justice League are kidnapped by Lex Luthor’s Guinea pig, Lulu, Krypto must convince a rag-tag shelter pack—Ace the hound, PB the potbellied pig, Merton the turtle and Chip the squirrel—to master their own newfound powers and help him rescue the Super Heroes.

Across Animal Logic’s Sydney and Vancouver studios, 583 artists, technicians and support staff worked together on the animated film for 4 years, with pre-production kicking off in June 2018. The film embraces a hand-painted look that honours the golden age of DC Comics while incorporating modern filmmaking techniques. The goal was not for the film to look like a painting or cartoon but to be influenced by the direction and choices of more traditional art styles, such as Alex Ross. The end result is a blend of cutting-edge CG that feels handcrafted.

When it came to animating the characters, the idea was to have a classic hand-drawn performance with clean silhouettes. The animation team at Animal Logic pushed the squash and stretch so that it was felt by the audience but not overtly seen, which added an organic element to the performances of each character.

Animal Logic’s art team went through many iterations of Krypto the Super Dog before landing on the clean lines and heroic proportions needed for the lead character. The surfacing artists created an insane 2,675,496 hairs for the Krypto model.

Ace the Bat-Hound was Krypto’s foil and eventual best friend in the film, and he needed to contrast with Krypto’s shape and colour, which led to a much more stocky and thick-set bruiser. The team took a deep dive into dog breeds, researching a range of different options and going through hundreds of iterations before choosing the final look.

PB, the Potbelly Pig, needed to be able to shrink and grow from teeny tiny to skyscraper huge. Her size ranged from 0.022 times to 829.15 times her average size, nearly as tall as two stacked Empire State buildings!

Merton the Turtle needed to feel like she had seen and done it all, reflected in the various period stickers holding her shell together. Multiple legs were used in animating when she was running at her top super-speed, ten times the speed of sound! The team had a lot of fun creating the effects that trailed behind Merton as she sped away, using her superpowers. The effects team developed this and all effects not to look photoreal but to be more of an artist’s impression of fire, smoke, and lightning.

Chip the Squirrel was designed with the classic proportions of Bugs Bunny in mind. Even though he has a superpower, he needs to have the crazy energy and fluid movement we see in squirrels in the real world.

Lulu and the Guinea Pigs had to look cute and like funny little oddballs as they tried to take over the world.

The characters in the film were not only brought to life through the breathtaking animation, but by the voice actors, with Dwayne Johnson voicing Krypto, Kevin Hart as Ace, Natasha Lyonne as Merton the turtle, Vanessa Bayer as PB the pig, and Diego Luna as Chip the squirrel. The animators used videos shot during the voice recording to add the individual style of each actor’s performance to their CG character.

Congratulations to the team at Animal Logic for bringing this heartwarming tale to audiences across the globe!