How Netflix's Love, Death & Robots Created That Eye-Popping Animation

Love, Death & Robots transcends genres. It doesn’t want to be categorized, or appeal to niche markets. Instead, the broad appeal of Netflix’s animated anthology series ensures that there’s something for everyone. (Read our Love, Death & Robots review.)

For Tim Miller, creator and executive producer on Love, Death & Robots, this approach was a key aspect of the series’ development. It’s a vow that the show retains, and sits perfectly with the punchy, unconnected stories that Love, Death & Robots has brought to a wider audience.

“It really was designed to be something for everyone,” Miller told IGN, “which means a pretty broad spectrum of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and fantastic fiction. I think I chose a few more sci-fi ones because that’s where I lean a little more heavily, but we tried very hard to balance it.”

That balance is what makes Love, Death & Robots a unique Netflix property. Taking inspiration from other anthologies, such as the iconic comic book series Heavy Metal, the show is a celebration of various short stories by acclaimed authors like Alastair Reynolds, Joe Lansdale, and John Scalzi.

Led by Miller’s own animation studio Blur, the production involved 13 studios and animators from nine countries. Tasked with bringing Miller’s handpicked stories - 16 pre-existing ones, and two original tales that were written for the series - to life, each studio’s drive and love for their craft is evident in the sheer diversity of animation styles and art forms on display.

The popularity of 3D computer-generated animation ensured that a number of the short films were represented using this technique. Photorealistic CG animation, in particular, formed the cornerstone of Sony Pictures Imageworks’ reimagining of Marko Kloos’ sci-fi story “Lucky 13.” With only the story’s outline to go on, the creative freedom afforded to Sony - and the rest of the studios - allowed them to design the world, characters, and starships as they liked.

“Early on, we discussed the option of a stylized look, but quickly decided a project like this demanded a photoreal treatment,” VFX Supervisor Chris Waegner said. “I think this project gave all of us on the team the visual freedom to explore our animation medium in a unique way that differed from previous animated projects here. We wanted to create the most photorealistic CG characters while establishing an animation style that looked as if it had been shot on film.”

Hungarian-based studio Digic Pictures also applied a photorealistic aesthetic to David W. Amendola’s fantasy horror tale “Secret War.” Telling the story of a Red Army contingent of soldiers tasked with holding back an unrelenting tide of demonic creatures required such an approach, according to producer Alex Rabb... with a couple of unique twists.

“The visuals might look realistic, but we were aiming at stylizing it as well,” he said. “We created a ‘distorted reality,’ which can be recognized in the over-exaggerated facial features of the characters and other elements, like how the trees are twisted due to the presence of evil. The fact that we’ve always leaned towards the rather realistic CG style was a great help that allowed us to concentrate on the movie.”

Studio collaborations on singular episodes could have been difficult due to creative differences and a potential lack of communication. But for Digic, who were also tasked with creating CG elements for the live-action “Ice Age” episode that Tim Miller directed, working alongside Blur and Atomic Fiction on the same story didn’t cause any major problems.

“Everybody knew what their job was and how to coordinate their parts to be a whole at the end,” Rabb said. “The three studios worked independently, while the producers determined what each studio should do by taking into account each of our strengths. Digic is good with CG, hence our piece in the project.”

Not every studio opted for 3D or photoreal aesthetics. Passion Pictures, the team behind “Zima Blue,” felt that a 2D, TV Paint art style was in keeping with the tone of Alastair Reynolds’ philosophical sci-fi tale.

“I was looking at what the other shorts were bringing to the table, and I felt like, stylistically, I wanted to go off in as different a direction as possible,” director Robert Valley explained. “We went for a crunchier graphic styling on the backgrounds, and we didn’t have a lot of CG in there, but there’s a bit of it. The team were all on the same tip, in terms of pushing the TV Paint animation methodology in certain directions, so I was super happy with the way that it went.”

Inspired by non-animation subjects such as legendary jazz musician Miles Davis and Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos TV series for the looks of the characters and locations respectively, Passion Pictures designed “Zima Blue” with a unique appeal. Part of this distinctive flavor was also thanks to French artist Daniel Cacouault, who produced the paintings that Zima creates in the story.

“We just gave Daniel free rein to do whatever,” Valley said. “He started coming back with some paintings, and we started to put them in the edit and then put the geometric shapes – that are getting larger and larger – on the canvasses. You can mix two different art styles in the same composition, and it would read as if there’s a piece of art within the artwork that you’re doing, so it stood out from the rest of the backgrounds.”

Some animation methods simply didn’t make the cut based on the show’s finite run. Stop-motion animation, in particular, was a method that Miller had hoped to use, but it fell by the wayside to make room for other styles.

One such approach, developed for “The Witness,” has perhaps sparked the most discussion online. Spanish artist and animator Alberto Mielgo created a never-before-seen aesthetic that has generated plenty of debate on social media. Some viewers have been at odds over an apparent use of motion capture to create the realistic vibe, and yet Mielgo says that mocap was in fact not used.

“It’s real hand animation called keyframing,” Mielgo revealed. “We were very much doing what you can see in Snow White and 101 Dalmatians. It’s very difficult to do, but it’s basically moving the characters [around the frames] from scratch.”

Part of the confusion over the gorgeous-looking visuals of “The Witness” is the way that the characters’ clothes move naturally in each scene. To create this organic look, Mielgo took a novel approach to fabric and, alongside his animation team, used software that hadn’t been applied in such a way previously.

“The characters were animated naked, and then we started putting clothes on top,” he said. “We used a software called Marvellous Designer. It’s a fashion software that was originally created to help designers to create their clothes, but it has a brilliant way of simulating clothes. However, the program is not ready for a pipeline inside of it, so it’s not the main program that people use. It’s my favorite for the look of it, and I pushed my team to use it. We created a pipeline that doesn’t actually exist, and that’s why people are in shock because they’ve never seen clothes move that well.”

Combining this new animation method with the help of fashion stylist Lucia Michalikova, Mielgo and his team produced a short that has left many viewers, including Miller, spellbound.

“I think people are impressed by the animation and what it brings, up to a point where people think that we were shooting real actors and then doing some sort of treatment on top,” Mielgo said. “Something that’s very important is the freedom that keyframe animation gives you. You don’t have restrictions, so you can be more flexible and have more expressions in the characters. You can do that with other techniques, but there are limitations in human movement that aren’t that exaggerated. With keyframe, you may have an arm that’s in an impossible position, but it was better for the action.”

Love, Death & Robots is a celebration of animation as an art form. Each short has been crafted with the care and attention that’s befitting of each studio’s determination to do them justice. Their charm lies in the stunning visuals on display, and the animation techniques used. They are love letters to the plethora of styles developed over the past century. For Miller, the appreciation for this type of art is what continues to inspire him, and keeps his own love affair with animation alive.

“I’m fortunate that all of the stuff that I get to do is things that I love,” Miller said. “And so Love, Death & Robots combined so many things that I love in one little package. I love working with [fellow executive producer] David Fincher, other filmmakers and animators and animation companies. I love the stories, and I love the art above all things. It couldn’t be better for us really, and the fact that people like it is really the cherry on the sundae.”