The critter has Angora-like fur that's photo real in texture and rendering so it resembles a cuddly rabbit, but not one you'll ever see in nature's food chain. It's that photo-real quality that intrigues viewers, and ultimately leads them to a surprising place.

"Initially I wanted the character's fur to be short, but The Mill convinced me longer was better," Troyan says. "I trusted their instincts and let them do their thing. It worked!"

"We did 12 different fur styles," says Robert Sethi, our Head of 3D. "For example, short, plush, furry, clumpy and dirty like he lived in the alley behind our office or something. When we animated, it was challenging to get a good performance. Making the fur move and grooming the fur to coincide with our character's movements and lighting was tricky. We also had to shade the fur. In the end we got the right balance between cartoony and real."

O'Hara says The Mill team played up the character's more endearing qualities such as being plump and slow, as well as more menacing qualities such as its mouth full of ragged tooth shark's teeth. This juxtaposition made the reveal of the character's true Ninja colors more jarring.

Troyan says he's always loved Japanese Anime and Japanese sensibility in art and visuals. He also finds it hard to resist Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns. "The rabbit is a distant cousin of Japanese Anime," Troyan offers. "So the film is like a Spaghetti Western with a cute manga and muscle car."