From LAIKA’s 2009 landmark stop-motion feature Coraline comes this screen-used miniature of Coraline Jones herself, a rapid-prototyped (3D-printed) static puppet standing around four inches tall.
Unlike the fully articulated hero puppets built for close-up performance, tiny figures like this one were created for the film’s far and distance shots. The wide frames where Coraline is seen small, a simplified figure reads perfectly on screen. To create the illusion of movement, the animators used replacement animation: a whole series of these static puppets, each frozen in a slightly different pose, were swapped out frame by frame and photographed in sequence, so that on film Coraline appears to walk naturally off into the distance.
Coraline was a pioneer in bringing rapid prototyping to stop-motion and, like every piece used on the production, this miniature was finished entirely by hand. Her yellow raincoat and boots, her blue hair, and the fine detailing were all hand-painted by LAIKA’s artists, giving even a figure this small the time and dedication it deserves.
It stands as a small but remarkable artifact of the craftsmanship behind Coraline, part cutting-edge technology, part old-fashioned technic that helped make it become a stop-motion classic.
