Inspiration Artefact and Forefront: Week 32 Stop-motion & 3D printing

One very interesting trend in 3D world is the mixture of traditional animation, stop-motion and 3D printing. In this particular movie of Boxtrolls produced by Laika they used stop motion to make most of the movie but used VFX to make more complex animations and environments. I think this kind of interesting techniques where 3D is used also as a support to traditional gives to the production new perspectives. It makes some processes easier and faster however keeping the charming of traditional stop-motion features. The main characters are Trollbox which are part box, part troll and live in the fictional town of Cheesebridge. This funny creatures are hunted in its fictional town for being evel by a wolf vigilante. In the middle of this background the Boxtrolls raised a child which they saved from the street.

The making of the movie involved the building of Cheesebridge in a very small stage and the citizens were hand-made puppets controlled by actors. The faces changes all the time which involved near 400 stuff in Laika Studio. The movie keeped the same traditional stop-motion however 3D printing was introduced to help in the creation of every possible expression, first modelled in computer and the printed out. This was a very complex process but it achieved a outstanding level of perfection in the mechanical of the faces. In this way, Laika pushed the boundaries of animation and innovate to be in the forefront.