Intelligent Creatures replaced Rorschach's head through motion tracking, then used a match animation process. Courtesy of Intelligent Creatures. 

Giving Rorschach an Inky Face
Meanwhile, Intelligent Creatures (under the supervision of CEO Lon Molnar), was given the responsibility of creating the dynamic and continuously changing inkblot concealing the face of vigilante hero, Rorschach. This included animating his inkblot movement to reflect the mood and emotion of the actor.

One of Intelligent Creature's first assignments was replacing the character's live-action head through complex cranial and facial-motion tracking, which was seamlessly positioned between the live-action scarf and fedora.

To duplicate the mouth and facial movements produced by the mask when the actor (Jackie Earle Haley) spoke or moved, Intelligent Creatures used a match animation process. The development of an elaborate animation rig driven by the facial tracking markers formed the foundation of this movement.

To keep the pipeline flexible, they created pose-to-pose animation on a 2D plane for an entire sequence, which was then wrapped around the 3D model of the mask. 

Intelligent Creatures' look development team reconstructed the cloth fabric of the practical mask right down to the cross-hatching and hair-like fibers. These details were created through the use of complex shaders (including fur and cloth) and 2D workflows to emulate the rim lighting captured in the live-action plates.

Molnar says it was critical that the inkblot animation pipeline retain flexibility and speed to promptly address any changes required by Snyder and DesJardin. For this task, they enlisted seven classically-trained animators to facilitate the "pencil drawing approach," which was achieved by creating pose-to-pose animation on a 2D plane for an entire sequence, then that surface was wrapped around the 3D model of the mask. This process preserved the continuity of the inkblot within the entire sequence and allowed the lighting team to pre-light each shot prior to applying the inkblot treatment.

Lighting the CG head and mask was also a challenge. In order to sell the mask as a non-CG element, the studio had to re-produce all the shadows created from the source lights by the fedora and other objects. Together with the shadow creation, the off-white fabric produced a curious palette of subtle variations and layering of colors that needed to be captured in every frame, and then blended into the final shot.