Beef Roger Crummchuk and the Art of Designing Disney's "Hexed"

Before Billie Doe could cast her first spell in Hexe, she had to make it through rounds of sketches, color keys, and something Disney Animation dubbed “the cafe test.” At an early press day for Disney's Hexed, production designer Lorelay Bové, art director of characters Bill Schwab, and heads of animation Michael Franceschi and Louis Jones traced the film's characters from early sketches to final frames.

In Walt Disney Animation Studios' 65th animated feature, 16-year-old Billie (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld) learns that her magical abilities have been restrained since childhood and is swept out of suburbia into Hexe, a vast realm of witches, alongside her cautious mother, Alice (voiced by Rashida Jones).

Bové explained that Hexe's design language is built on stacked triangles inspired by the witch hat, with the point representing channeled power. Billie's hometown of Plainsville is its opposite: square, flat shapes, a cool and limited palette, and conventional lighting, versus Hexe's pointed forms, saturated colors, theatrical light, and nature.

Those contrasts carry the film's themes of limitation versus potential and suppression versus nurturing. Billie begins in a restrictive school uniform she has made her own, complete with combat boots. As she embraces her magical side, she gradually sheds her Plainsville layers and dons a cloak that evolves alongside her. The animators matched that progression in her performance so that she carries herself with more confidence by the end of the film. Their challenge was finding the specific pocket of a 16-year-old, often pulling the most pushed and silly expressions from reference footage of Steinfeld in the recording booth.

The team also revived a test it began using on Big Hero 6, dubbed the cafe test. Animators explored character traits by showing how each character would enter the Lucky Cat Café before the film got deep into production. For Hexed, characters were tasked with taking a seat at a table at an outdoor cafe, sitting down, and doing something unique with their magic. For Billie, the goal was to make her physically capable but not athletic, so she always feels like she could be in danger.

Alice, by contrast, is controlled but anxious, with perfectly cut bangs to Billie's choppier hair. Her design evolved through many artists, landing close to a final design with sketches by Meg Park. Early in production, her bangs were meant to be inspired by the bristles of a well-worn broom, a concept that was simplified when it proved distracting in 3D. Her pencil skirt became a creative constraint: Bové advised that the fabric wouldn't stretch, so Alice takes small, quick steps. The animators also gave both characters a trait they call channel switching, flipping between emotions on a dime, as a subtle way of showing that mother and daughter are more alike than they realize.

No character drew more questions during the press day than Beef Roger Crummchuk, the three-eyed recluse voiced by Walton Goggins. "You notice that Beef has a deep history with Alice," director Fawn Veerasunthorn shared. "So we thought, when you have to go find someone who can help you, what type of character would be the most fun, broken, drunken uncle you can hang out with that knows a bunch of secrets about your mom?"

"The very first day I started on this film, we started working on Beef Roger, and then that translated into his trailer and this idea that it can pack up by itself," director Jason Hand recalled. Animating him in CG, complete with extra arms that pop out, was a challenge the whole team wanted. "All the animators wanted Beef Roger scenes because he's so fun and pushed."

Producer Roy Conli praised Goggins' performance. "There's a spirit to Walton's humor, but also his soul, that kind of makes this character stand out as someone totally in the Disney canon," he said.

In the character breakout, the design team revealed that Beef's nicked ear and limp hint at a past the filmmakers deliberately never explain. Hand-drawn animator Tyler Pacana created early tests before a CG rig existed, and the team dropped some ideas for feeling too close to the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. The team settled on a mostly bipedal walk with subtle cat-like gestures, while an early test with Goggins' voice played Beef as a brighter, more energetic salesman than the more contained character in the finished film.

Pacana also led a Learn to Draw session during the press event, where we sketched a simplified Beef on the same easels Disney artists use in their drawing classes. Disney's Hexed opens exclusively in theaters on November 25th.