Tiny Toast: a Cute Toaster Animation

Meet Tiny Toast: a little slice of bread who lives in a mint green toaster and loves nothing more than being launched into the air. When the lever pops, Tiny Toast squashes down, rockets up, does a full flip with the biggest grin you have ever seen on a piece of bread, and lands back in the slot with a squishy wobble. The whole thing is a perfectly looping 5 second animation.

In this Instructable I will show every step of building the scene in Blender from an empty file: modelling the toaster, setting up the bread, painting a crust ring with a texture mask, giving the toast an animated 2D face, adding a jiggly butter pat, building the little kitchen set, lighting it, and animating the pop, flip and landing so it loops seamlessly. Every screenshot shows the full Blender window at that exact point in the build, so you can follow along click by click.

Level: beginner friendly if you know how to move around the Blender viewport. Every value I used is written in the steps.

1. Blender 3.6 (free, blender.org). Any 3.x version works, 4.x works with small menu differences.
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3. A computer with a GPU is helpful for Cycles rendering, but not required (CPU just takes longer).
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5. A low poly bread slice model (I used "Bread Slice" by Isa Lousberg, a free glTF model), and a cute butter pat model with a drip.
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7. A kawaii face expression sheet (six expressions from neutral to a big open smile) as a PNG with a transparent background.
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9. Optional: an image editor (Photopea, GIMP or Krita) for slicing the face sheet into separate frames.
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Start Blender and delete the default cube, light and camera (select all with A, then X to delete). We will add our own lights and camera later, placed exactly where we want them.

Open the Scene properties tab and set the units:

• Unit System: Metric, Unit Scale: 1.0, Length: Centimeters. Working at real world size (the toaster is 30 cm long) makes lighting, depth of field and bevels behave realistically.

In the Output tab set the resolution to 1920 x 1080 and 24 fps, and set the timeline End to 120 (5 seconds).

Finally, in the Outliner, create five collections to keep things tidy: Toaster, Toast, Props, Room and Lights & Camera. Save the file now (I called mine tiny_toast_final.blend) and save often.

Click the Toaster collection so new objects land in it. Add a cube (Shift A > Mesh > Cube) and rename it Toaster Body.

In the N panel set its Dimensions to 30 cm x 19 cm x 17 cm and its location to X 0, Y 0, Z 10.7 cm. That Z value lifts the body 2.2 cm off the ground to leave room for the little feet we add later. Apply the scale with Ctrl A > Scale so the bevel in the next step is even on every side.

It is just a box for now, but getting the proportions right first is the most important part of making it look cute: long, low and chunky.

With the body selected, go to the Modifier tab (blue wrench) and add a Bevel modifier:

• Width: 5 cm
• Segments: 16
• Limit Method: None

Then right click > Shade Smooth, and in Object Data > Normals turn on Auto Smooth.

A big bevel with lots of segments is the secret to the soft, toy-like look. Hard edges look like a real appliance, very round edges look like a cute character.

Add another cube named Top Plate: size 25 x 15 x 2 cm, placed at Z 18.6 cm so it sits just inside the top of the body. Give it a Bevel of 1.2 cm with 8 segments. This will become the shiny chrome top.

Now add two more cubes called Slot Cutter 1 and Slot Cutter 2, each 20.5 x 3.4 x 12 cm, at Y -3.5 cm and +3.5 cm, centred on the top of the toaster. Give them a 1 cm bevel so the slots get rounded ends.

In Object Properties > Viewport Display set the cutters to Display As: Wire, and turn off their camera icon in the Outliner so they never render. They are only tools for cutting.

Select the Toaster Body and add a Boolean modifier below the Bevel: Operation Difference, Object Slot Cutter 1, Solver Exact. Add a second Boolean for Slot Cutter 2. Do the same two Booleans on the Top Plate.

Hide both cutters (H). The toaster now has two real slots going down into it.

So you cannot see straight through the slots, add two thin dark boxes called Slot Floor 1 and 2 (20 x 3 x 0.4 cm) about 5 cm down inside each slot.

Keeping the Booleans as live modifiers (not applied) means you can still move the cutters later if you want wider slots.

Now the details that give the toaster its face.

• Dial: a cylinder, radius 3.6 cm, depth 1.2 cm, rotated 90 degrees on X and pushed almost flush into the front (Y about -9.4 cm), at X -1.5 cm, Z 9.4 cm. Bevel 0.6 cm.


• Dial Pointer: a small rounded bar (0.8 x 0.6 x 4.2 cm) on the dial, rotated 38 degrees on Y like a clock hand.


• Indicator Dots: three small spheres (radius 0.85 cm) squashed to half depth, sunk into the front at X -5, -1.4 and 2.2 cm, Z 15.7 cm. Sinking them in so only a soft bump shows looks much nicer than buttons stuck on top.


• Lever Slot: a thin dark box on the right side (1 x 1.4 x 11 cm).


• Lever: a rounded cream block (4.5 x 3 x 2.4 cm, bevel 0.9 cm) sticking out of that slot. This is what will snap up in the animation.

Add four short cylinders called Foot 1 to Foot 4: radius 1.7 cm, height 3.2 cm, with a 0.5 cm bevel. Place them at X ±11 cm, Y ±6.2 cm, sitting on the ground.

Tiny chunky feet are a classic cute appliance detail. They also lift the toaster so a soft contact shadow can form underneath, which helps it feel grounded later.

Switch the viewport to Material Preview (Z > Material Preview) and create four materials using the Principled BSDF:

• Toaster Mint Enamel (body): Base Color hex 7ABA8C, Roughness 0.26, Clearcoat 0.6. The clearcoat gives that glossy enamel kitchen appliance shine.


• Chrome (top plate and feet): Base Color near white, Metallic 1.0, Roughness 0.1.


• Cream Plastic (dial, pointer, dots, lever): hex F3E4C4, Roughness 0.32, Clearcoat 0.3.


• Slot Shadow (slot floors, lever slot): almost black, Roughness 0.8.

Soft pastel colours with a little gloss are the core of the cute look.

Click the Toast collection, then File > Import > glTF and choose the bread slice model.

It comes in much bigger than our toaster (about 46 cm tall) and with its rotation mode set to Quaternion. That is normal for imported files, we will fix both in the next step. For now I moved it to the side so you can see the size difference.

Tip: in the Object properties, change the Rotation Mode to XYZ Euler straight away. Imported models use Quaternion rotation, and if you leave it that way the rotation values you type in later (and the flip animation) will not do what you expect.

Scale the slice so it is 18.5 cm tall, and scale its thickness (Y) down to 80 percent so it fits the slot. Move it to X 0, Y -3.5 cm (the front slot), with the bottom sitting about 13 cm up so a good chunk sticks out of the toaster.

Important: set the object origin to the centre of the slice (Object > Set Origin > Origin to Geometry). The flip in the animation spins around the origin, and a centred origin makes it flip on the spot.

Add a small Bevel (0.22 cm, 3 segments, Angle limit 40) and Shade Smooth with Auto Smooth 35 degrees. Then select the big flat front and back faces in Edit Mode and Shade Flat them, which removes a shading seam that otherwise shows across the face.

Create three materials and assign them in Edit Mode:

• Toast Crust (all the edge faces): hex A64614, Roughness 0.5, plus a Noise Texture into a Bump node for a slightly crusty surface.


• Toast Crumb (front face): hex F8983E, Subsurface 0.18 so light glows softly into the bread.


• Toast Crumb Back (back face): a slightly lighter version.

Real toast has a darker crust ring around the edge of the front face too, not just on the sides. Instead of changing the mesh, I made a simple black and white mask image: white in the middle, black in a thin band all around the outline of the slice.

In the Shading workspace, in the Toast Crumb material, add:

1. Texture Coordinate > Generated, into a Separate XYZ.


2. A Combine XYZ taking X into X and Z into Y. This lays the image flat across the front of the slice.


3. An Image Texture with the mask (Color Space: Non-Color, Extension: Extend).


4. A Map Range, then a MixRGB: Color1 = crust colour, Color2 = crumb colour, Fac = the mask.

Plug the Mix into Base Color. Do the same on the back material. Now the slice has a proper toasty rim on both sides, and the mesh was never touched.

This is my favourite part. The face is not modelled, it is a sequence of images painted onto the bread, so it can change expression every frame.

Making the frames: I sliced a six-face expression sheet into separate transparent PNGs (neutral, small smile, little open smile, open smile, bigger, biggest grin) and added soft pink blush under the eyes, getting rosier with each expression. Then I numbered them face_0001.png to face_0120.png so each animation frame has its own face: neutral while waiting, ramping up to the big grin as it launches, holding the grin through the flip, then easing back down to neutral after it lands.

Projecting it: add an Empty called Face Projector in front of the slice, rotated 90 degrees on X, scaled to 7.2 cm, and parent it to the toast (so the face flips with the bread). Hide it in the viewport.

In the Toast Crumb material add Texture Coordinate (Object = Face Projector) > Mapping (Location 0.5, 0.5, Scale 0.5, 0.5) > Image Texture. Open face_0001.png, set Source to Image Sequence, Frames 120, Start 1, and tick Cyclic and Auto Refresh. Extension: Clip.

Finally add a MixRGB: Color1 = the crust/crumb mix from the last step, Color2 = the face image Color, Fac = the face image Alpha. The face now sits on top of the bread like it was printed on.

Import the butter model and scale it to about 6.6 cm wide. Give it a Butter material: hex FCBE40, Roughness 0.16 (shiny and melty), Subsurface 0.35 so light glows through it.

Place it on top of the slice so the drip hangs down over the front face, just touching the crust.

Then parent it to the toast (select the butter, then Shift-select the toast, Ctrl P > Object, Keep Transform). Now it rides along through the whole flip.

Every cute kitchen needs a plant. Click the Props collection.

• Pot: a cylinder (radius 5 cm, height 7.5 cm) with a 1.6 cm, 10 segment bevel. I tapered the bottom in slightly so it is narrower at the base. Cream ceramic material with a little clearcoat.


• Soil: a thin dark disc just under the rim.


• Leaves: eleven squashed spheres (1.25 x 0.8 x 4.2 cm) arranged in a rosette: one straight up in the middle, then rings that tilt outwards more and more (5, 26 and 46 degrees). Rotating each leaf by the golden angle (about 137.5 degrees) around the centre makes them look naturally spaced. Bright green material with a bit of subsurface.

Place it to the left and slightly behind the toaster.

Click the Room collection and add two big planes (20 m) so the edges never show on camera, even when the camera tilts up during the flip.

Wood Counter: a procedural light oak material. Texture Coordinate (Object) > Mapping with Scale 1.2, 40, 1 > Noise Texture (Scale 2.5, Detail 10) > ColorRamp from hex C68C5C to E2AE7C > Base Color. Stretching the noise 40 times along one axis turns it into wood grain. Roughness 0.38 and a touch of clearcoat give it a soft varnished reflection.

Back Wall: stood upright 32 cm behind the toaster, with a matte peach material (hex DEA888, Roughness 0.9).

Click Lights & Camera. The goal is warm, soft morning light coming through a window.

• Key Window: Area light, size 60 cm, 75 W, warm colour (1.0, 0.84, 0.64), up and to the front left, pointing at the toaster.


• Fill: Area light, 1.6 m, 18 W, very slightly cool, front right, to soften the shadows.


• Rim: a Spot light, 45 W, spot size 55 degrees, Blend 1.0, Radius 20 cm, placed behind and to the right and aimed forward at the toast, to put a bright edge on the toast and toaster. I first used an Area light here, but because it sat right in front of the wall, its edge drew a hard bright line across the wall when the camera tilted up. A spot pointing away from the wall avoids that.


• Sun Beam: a Spot light, 1500 W, spot size 24 degrees, Blend 1.0, aimed at the wall upper left. This paints the soft patch of sunlight on the wall behind.

World colour: a warm beige at strength 0.07, just enough to lift the darkest shadows.

Colour Management: View Transform Filmic, Look High Contrast, Exposure -0.35. Switch to Rendered view to check the mood.

Add an Empty called Cam Target near the top of the toaster, then a Camera at about X 36, Y -112, Z 36 cm with a 58 mm lens.

• Give the camera a Track To constraint aimed at Cam Target (Track Axis -Z, Up Y), so it always looks at the target.


• Give Cam Target a Copy Location constraint that copies only Z from the Toast, with Influence 0.8. Now when the toast flies up, the camera tilts up to follow it, but not 100 percent, which feels more like a real camera operator.


• Turn on Depth of Field with Focus Object = Cam Target and F-stop 3.2 for a soft, miniature look.

To make the jump feel real, the height has to follow a true parabola, like anything thrown in the air: fastest when it leaves the slot, slowing down to the very top, then speeding up on the way down. If you only set three keys (bottom, top, bottom) with default easing, it looks like it floats up, stops, spins and drops, which feels fake.

So I keyed the toast on every frame with Linear interpolation, using height = 4 x H x t x (1 - t), where t goes from 0 at launch (frame 21) to 1 at landing (frame 66) and H is 44 cm. The Graph Editor screenshot shows the Z Location curve: a perfect arch.

• Wind up (frames 12 to 19): the toast sinks 2.2 cm and squashes (scale X 1.06, Z 0.92), like it is crouching.


• Launch (19 to 21): it springs up and stretches (X 0.93, Z 1.1).


• Flight (21 to 66): the parabola, with a gentle stretch that is strongest when it is moving fastest and back to normal at the top. Rotation Y goes from 0 to -360 degrees at a constant speed, because a spinning object in the air does not speed up or slow down its spin.


• Landing (66 onwards): a squash that bounces back in smaller and smaller wobbles (a damped spring), then settles.

Frames 1 and 120 are identical, so the animation loops perfectly.

Secondary motion is what makes it feel alive:

• Butter: rotation and scale keys so it squishes (scale Z 0.82) and wobbles forward and back (-10, +7, -4, 0 degrees) right after launch, and again on landing.


• Lever: sits down while the toast is "toasting", snaps up on frame 21 with a tiny overshoot, stays up while the toast is in the air, then slides back down by frame 114 so the loop starts again.


• Camera: keys at frames 1, 18, 43, 70 and 120. At the peak (43) it rises and swings slightly right and widens to 50 mm, then returns to exactly the starting position and lens at 120.

Use the Dope Sheet with "Only Show Selected" to see all of these keys together and check that every one starts and ends on the same values for a clean loop.

Because the face is an image sequence, timing the expressions is just a matter of which picture goes on which frame:

• Frames 1 to 19: neutral (waiting in the toaster).


• Frames 20 to 27: ramps through the small smiles to the big grin, two frames each, as the lever pops.


• Frames 28 to 65: the biggest grin for the whole flight and flip.


• Frames 66 to 78: eases back down through the smiles as it lands.


• Frame 79 onwards: back to neutral, ready to loop.

Scrub the timeline in the Shading workspace to check it. This screenshot is near the end of the flight, still grinning.

Render tab:

• Engine: Cycles, Device: GPU Compute (Metal on a Mac, CUDA or OptiX on Nvidia).


• Samples: 384 for the still images and 128 for the animation frames, with Denoise on (OpenImageDenoise).


• Motion Blur on, Shutter 0.5. This makes the fast launch and spin look smooth and real.


• Frame range 1 to 119. Frame 120 is the same as frame 1, so leaving it out makes the loop seamless with no stutter.


• Output: PNG image sequence. Rendering to separate images means that if anything crashes, you do not lose the frames already done.

Then Render > Render Animation, and go make some toast while it works.

Here is Tiny Toast in action! The GIF shows the full loop, and the two stills capture the key moments: waiting patiently in the toaster, and launching into the air with a big grin.

What started as a simple idea, a happy little slice of bread popping out of a toaster, turned into a project that touched almost every part of Blender: modelling with bevels and booleans, texturing with masks and image sequences, lighting a tiny set, and animating with real physics. The biggest surprise was how much the motion mattered. My first version eased up, paused at the top and drifted back down, and it felt lifeless. Once the jump followed a true arc and the spin kept a steady speed, the toast suddenly felt like it had weight and personality, even though nothing about the model had changed.

The part I am proudest of is the face. Painting the expressions onto the bread as an image sequence, instead of rigging a 3D face, made it easy to give the toast a whole little emotional journey in five seconds, from calm, to thrilled, and back again. It is a simple trick, and it would work just as well on a waffle, a bagel, a mug, or anything else you want to bring to life.

If you make your own cute breakfast character, I would love to see it, so please share a picture in the comments. Thanks for reading, and happy toasting!