Studio Ghibli still uses traditional animation techniques. You know, hand-drawn. And while it did loan out Totoro—well, a plush toy version—from My Neighbor Totoro to Pixar's computer boffins for Toy Story 3, don't look to Studio Ghibli to go all digital anytime soon.
But if Studio Ghibli does, its characters would probably look something like this.
This, of course, is the character Mei from My Neighbor Totoro. These computer generated images are not new and date from 2009 (so old!). But they're still fantastic. They were created by ZBrushCentral forum member d8Ds as part of a "hardcore modeling challenge".
Above are various expressions Mei makes in the original animated film. You can see how d8Ds brought them to life in highly expressive, totally adorable 3D digital models.
The character totally works in computer graphics. Here is an array of expressions:
And, yes, that's Mei drunk!
Mei, HMC 15 expressions [d8Ds@ZBrushCentral]
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