 Recruiting animators for Toy Story was brisk ; the magnet for talent was not the pay , generally mediocre , but rather the allure of taking part in the first computer @-@ animated feature . Lasseter said that on the challenges of the computer animation in the film " We had to make things look more organic . Every leaf and blade of grass had to be created . We had to give the world a sense of history . So the doors are banged up , the floors have scuffs . " The film began with animated storyboards to guide the animators in developing the characters . 27 animators worked on the film , using 400 computer models to animate the characters . Each character was either created out of clay or was first modeled off of a computer @-@ drawn diagram before reaching the computer animated design . Once the animators had a model , articulation and motion controls were coded ; this would allow each character to move in a variety of ways , such as talking , walking , or jumping . Out of all the characters , Woody was the most complex , as he required 723 motion controls , including 212 for his face and 58 for his mouth . The first piece of animation , a 30 @-@ second test , was delivered to Disney in June 1992 , when the company requested a sample of what the film would look like . Lasseter wanted to impress Disney with a number of things in the test that could not be done in traditional , hand @-@ drawn animation , such as Woody 's yellow plaid shirt with red stripes , the reflections in Buzz 's helmet and the decals on his space suit , or venetian blind shadows falling across Andy 's room . 
