To embody Wonderlands’ Tiny Tina, motion capture actor had to become a gremlin

digitaltrends.com:

Released in March 2022 (and finally available on Steam this week), Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands serves as a long-awaited successor to Borderlands 2: Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep. In a similar vein to that DLC, the larger story of Wonderlands takes place during a game of Bunkers & Badasses that is run by Tiny Tina as she sets up and guides player’s characters through the fantasy landscape.

And while Tiny Tina has been voiced by Ashly Burch (also known for her voice work as Aloy in the Horizon series and Chloe Price in Life is Strange) since her initial introduction in Borderlands 2, the fan-favorite character truly came to life in Wonderlands thanks to the art of motion capture.

Rachel Martin, senior motion capture technician at Gearbox Software, is the human behind Tina’s eclectic movements in Wonderlands. In a conversation with Martin, Digital Trends learned about her motion capture work, how she prepared for her role as Tiny Tina, and about the unique challenges that presented themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic for the motion capture team.

(Interview responses have been lightly edited for clarity.)

Martin initially started working in motion capture at Ubisoft Toronto in 2017, when she worked on the stage (where sensors, cameras, and the use of other technology are utilized to capture an actor’s movements and facial expressions) and helped to create the face motion capture pipeline for Watch Dogs Legion. Her work on the face motion capture pipeline and the detail she brings to Tiny Tina is unsurprising — Martin has a real love for bringing realism to the face through her work.

“What originally drew me towards motion capture was the ability to capture actors’ mannerisms and apply them to animation. I loved being