DreamWorks animator and Animation Mentor alum Nicholas De Lotto walks through what “polish” actually means in a professional workflow and how to approach it without turning your shot into a floaty mess. He focuses on separating body and face, fixing technical issues, offsetting motion, and using squash and stretch and arc tracking in a way that supports appeal and show style.
Watch the full video above.
About Nicholas De Lotto
Nicholas De Lotto is an Animator at DreamWorks Animation. He started his animation journey in 2018 by attending Animation Mentor’s Character Animation Program and then started as an intern at Pixar where worked on Lightyear, Elemental, Inside Out 2, Elio and Toy Story 5. He has also worked on a few game titles, including Fortnite.
What Polish Is (and Why It Takes So Long)
Polish is the final detailed refinement stage after your idea, timing, and main performance have been approved. At this point the shot basically works, but still needs that last 10 percent that makes it feel organic, specific, and alive.
That “last 10 percent” can easily take as long as the first 60 percent of the shot. You are not reinventing the performance; instead you are tightening spacing, cleaning technical issues, and layering in subtle offsets, eye darts, and fleshy motion so the animation holds up on the big screen.
Handle Body and Face Separately
To avoid feeling overwhelmed, Nicholas treats body and face as two distinct passes, just as he does in blocking and spline.
- The body pass is about believable performance and grounded mechanics, usually tied closely to reference.
- The face pass is about bringing the character truly alive, since audiences spend most of their time looking at the head and eyes.
As long as the body is in a solid place, he prioritizes facial polish because that is where viewers read emotion and intent most directly.
First Priority: Fix the “This Is CG” Problems
When he starts polish, Nicholas immediately tackles anything that screams “computer”:
- Intersection and penetration of geometry
- Elbow and knee pops
- Broken vector poles and awkward IK behavior
- Obvious contact issues like sliding or half‑planted feet
These are non‑negotiable fixes and should be addressed before chasing more subtle nuances. Over time, he has learned not to obsess about them too early, instead waiting until the idea is approved so he does not waste time cleaning work that might be replaced.
Keep Adjusting Timing and Spacing
Even in polish, timing is not sacred. Nicholas still trims or adds frames when something feels floaty, mushy, or too abrupt.
He emphasizes:
- It is normal to tighten a step that still feels light by removing frames.
- You can sharpen a reaction by shaving a frame or two, or soften one by easing spacing.
- You should not be afraid to keep “carving the clay” even after a shot is in spline, as long as the core beats stay intact.
Polish is about going from broad to specific: blocking roughs in shapes, spline refines them, and polish chisels the fine details.
Add Keys in Polish, Don’t Delete Them
Earlier in his career, Nicholas tended to over‑key early and then spend polish deleting keys just to get decent curves. Now he tries to do the opposite.
His current philosophy:
- Block quickly and simply, with just enough keys to show the idea.
- Avoid getting too detailed too early.
- Use polish to add keys where needed, so curves do exactly what you want.
Thinking of polish as the “add keys” stage keeps your blocking nimble and makes final refinement more purposeful.
Offset Motion for Organic Feel
A big part of Nicholas’s polish pass is offsetting different parts of the body and face so they do not all move in unison.
For the body, he checks in the graph editor that:
- The head leads a turn, followed by the chest, then the root, each delayed by a frame or two.
- Shoulders, arms, and hands lag just slightly, creating overlap and believable inertia.
For the face, he wants an “accordion” type feel in quick looks and takes:
- Eyes lead.
- Lids follow closely behind.
- Brows move slightly after that.
- Mouth and jaw lag one more beat behind.
He often uses selection sets (for eyes, brows, mouth, shoulders, etc.) so he can quickly nudge timing or spacing on groups of controls without tedious manual selection each time.
Example: Breaking Up a Simple Reaction
In the demo shot, a character does a quick “Huh?” take. The idea works, but initially everything in the face moves at the same time. Nicholas uses polish to break it apart.
He:
- Moves the eye controls one frame earlier so the gaze shifts first.
- Adjusts lid spacing so they follow the eyes but do not feel locked.
- Tweaks the brow curves so they move in arcs, leading with vertical motion and bringing in the furrow slightly after, instead of everything dropping evenly.
- Offsets the mouth a frame so it reacts after the brows, reducing the “all at once” feeling.
Those changes are tiny in timing but make the reaction feel more like a living character processing a surprise rather than a rig being rotated.
Use Squash and Stretch as “Sweetener”
Polish is also when Nicholas starts using squash and stretch controls more aggressively, but still with restraint and show style in mind.
He treats them as “sweetener controls”:
- Head squash and stretch (upper head, lower head, jaw) to add compression and release in takes.
- Chest squash to subtly accent breathing or body accents.
- Cheek and lid fleshing for added organic feel around blinks and expressions.
He often follows existing timing with these controls, for example having head squash kick in just after the brows in a take, so the whole face feels like it compresses then rebounds. The goal is to feel the extra fleshiness more than seeing it overtly, unless the show style calls for extreme deformation.
Track Arcs, But Don’t Over‑Polish
Nicholas does track arcs in polish—usually on the nose, hands, and key facial movers—but warns that arc tracking can be dangerous if overdone.
If you smooth everything too much:
- Shots can lose the crispness and “grit” that came from reference and early spline.
- Motion may become swimmy or gooey, with everything drifting into everything else.
He keeps arc tracking focused and intentional, especially on quick, snappy moments where perfect Bezier curves are not the goal. Natural motion includes sharp corners and non‑perfect arcs, so he constantly checks the shot in motion rather than polishing curves in isolation.
Match the Style of the Show
Polish choices must fit the project. Nicholas contrasts two styles:
- In a more grounded feature like How to Train Your Dragon, squash and stretch should mostly be felt, not seen, and the motion remains closer to realistic.
- In a very pushed, cartoony film like Strange World, faces might squash and stretch dramatically on takes, and arcs can be much broader without breaking style.
Knowing where your show sits on that spectrum guides how far to push controls and how visible you let your polish become.
Keep Your Reference Visible
Even at the polish stage, Nicholas keeps his video reference up on screen. It reminds him of nuances he may have missed or lost, such as:
- Extra rotations in the head or shoulders.
- Tiny offsets between body parts.
- Subtle asymmetry in expressions.
Polish is a good moment to rediscover those details and bring them back into the shot in a controlled way.
Be Ready for Change (It’s Never Done Until It’s Done)
Nicholas stresses that a shot is not truly finished until it is finaled by the director or supervisor. Even work that is in spline and “almost there” can get radically changed if the story, audio, or cut shifts.
He has had shots in good shape flipped upside down late in the process, with chunks removed or beats re‑blocked. Staying open to feedback and ready to adjust—even during polish—is part of production reality.
Final Thoughts on Polish
Polish is long, detailed, and sometimes tedious, but it is where animation truly comes to life. For Nicholas, it is also one of the most enjoyable stages, because it is about playing with offsets, exploring sweetener controls, and giving a performance its final personality.
His main advice:
- Keep watching reference and stay ready for feedback.
- Fix technical issues early in polish.
- Separate body and face passes.
- Offset motion thoughtfully instead of moving everything together.
- Use squash, stretch, and arcs in service of style and clarity, not as an automatic smoothing pass.
The end!
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