You’ll Never Believe How the Filmmakers at Laika Made These ‘Kubo’ Puppets

Famous for their unique style displayed in ‘Coraline,’ ‘ParaNorman’ and ‘The Boxtrolls,’ the filmmakers at Laika studios do whatever it takes to get the right look. Their latest, ‘Kubo and the Two Strings,’ tells the story of a boy battling gods and monsters. We visited the studio in Portland, Oregon, to find out just how they created its fantastic animation.

By Jenna Milly

Each Laika film takes roughly five years to create. Each puppet is handcrafted of the finest – and sometimes most bizarre – materials and then, each second of story is filmed in stop-motion animation at a rate of 4.3 seconds a week. 

‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ is a story of one boy’s journey into manhood. He meets several friends along the way, and one of them is Beetle, voiced by Matthew McConaughey. Beetle was one of the most difficult puppets to make, said puppet fabrication supervisor Georgina Hayns. His fully suited armor was something they’d never attempted before.

The concept art featured behind the puppet shows Beetle’s initial design. But after fabricating the armature (left) and creating the suit to go over him, the final look is far more advanced than the original drawing. “Every part of the costume is engineered,” said Hayns, who supervises 65 artists and craftspeople. Beetle has 85 external parts that were 3D printed, molded and textured, and painted and assembled to create one puppet. 

Beetle’s face (lower two rows), which pops into his armored body, sits on a tray with the jaws of another character, Monkey. Laika laser prints its puppet faces and sometimes breaks them into multiple parts to create thousands of possibilities that the animators use to get the expressions they need for each shot. 

During a journey through snowy lands, Kubo spends time with another friend, Monkey, voiced by Charlize Theron. This puppet was also a big challenge for the design team at Laika, said Hayns, because the studio had never attempted a fully furred animal before. In fact, she said when puppeteers hear the words “fully furred,” they often want to run, because of the complexity of creating such an animal. 

Concept artists have one of the best jobs, said Hayns, because they can begin with almost any idea. Then, it’s her job to try to bring that vision to life in 3D. 

Laika is famous when it comes to advances in 3D printing. For Monkey’s body, designers created a muscle suit to go over the armature. They needed fur that would be strong enough to withstand being touched and manipulated repeatedly, but they also wanted something to match the graphic look of the film. 

Kubo is the main character in this samurai film. The design team constructed his wig first out of human hair and then combed silicone through it to give it a stylized look. The Kubo puppet uses several different wigs throughout the movie. 

The animators asked for specific expressions that matched moments in the film, but the design team also creates a library of faces for everyday use. The team used a 3D printer to create 66,000 faces for Kubo alone, said rapid prototype supervisor Brian McLean. That means with the split jaw and forehead faces, there are 48 million possible expressions. 

Kubo’s costume included a black beetle on his back. This panel shows the design team’s attempt to research and develop several different ways the beetle could be painted, screen-printed or etched into the fabric before choosing a final look. 

Kubo’s mother’s kimono was based on a historical design that uses 50 layers of silk. While the design team didn’t actually use 50 layers of silk, they wanted to create the same look by layering fabric to give it texture. 

The challenge of the villainous Sister, voiced by Rooney Mara, was her feathered cape. Hayns said designers had to create something that could open up to become wings when Sister goes into battle. The end result: 183 individual feathers glued onto plastic, laser-etched and cut, then woven together with piano wire. 

Standing 20-25 feet tall, the skeleton is just one of many beasts Kubo must battle in the film. Production manager Dan Pascall said it was such a beast (literally) to create that when he agreed to tackle the project he wasn’t exactly sure how to get it done. He relied heavily on his production team for creative ideas involving several pulley systems and moving platforms. 

Laika uses smaller lighting rigs with their tiny sets, all designed to be the perfect height for animators to stand and move the puppets without having to hunch over for several weeks or months at a time. Comfort is key when you’re shooting 4.3 seconds a week. 

“You can put as much detail as you want into it, and you’ll see it. That’s the great thing,” said Hayns about all the hard work that goes into creating the puppets and then seeing them on film. Here, Monkey grabs a sword as Sister approaches from behind. 

“The fun of it is when we’re given a challenge at the beginning,” said Hayns. “It’s terrifying, but it’s also the reason we’re in it. How are we going to make a fully armored beetle? And then the day that we actually see that beetle animating on set, and it’s fully armored and it’s believable… it’s what it’s all about.”

Here, Kubo manipulates origami shapes when he plays his instrument, one of many fantastical moments in 'Kubo and the Two Strings.'

'Kubo and the Two Strings' opens in theaters August 19.