Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1490572
—the village, the carnival, the Fascists and the otherworld. We were able to use the changes in architecture at that time in history to support and differentiate our story with the duality of tradition and modernism. We selectively used detail in almost a fractal manner to give history and gravitas to the worlds while not slavishly putting detail everywhere. This helps us deal as well with the uncanny valley of stop-motion when things can start to look a little too much like a dollhouse. While we wanted it to feel like stop motion, the stylization and simplification, omitting of some detail helps remove the comparison to the real world. As we went about finding the look of our world, our design rules emerged from the successes of the fabrication team as they resonated with the words of our artistic leader. Guillermo used the term "perfectly imperfect" to describe the characters in the story, as well as the special feel of a fabricated stop-motion world. Mackinnon & Saunders developed fabric samples for the pants of Spazzatura, the sidekick and henchperson of carnival owner Volpe. There were painted stripes, printed stripes, stitched stripes, but everyone on the team immediately gravitated toward one sample that seemed "perfectly imperfect." And so Art Director Rob DeSue unpacked what it was about this sample that hit those marks. It became a benchmark of the design and something we referred to for pattern and rhythm, lean and placement of buildings and trees, and any parallel line in general. Another area that we wanted to acknowledge was the rich cinematic history of Guillermo. There is a design language that has evolved—recesses, arched windows, demilunes, colorways—that we wanted to celebrate and honour. An example is the use of a few of Guillermo's other monsters in the stained-glass windows of the church. Looking at historic Romanesque windows, the precedent for this emerged. Demons and monsters were a frequent visual part of the religious story, so it didn't seem to be that much of a leap to include this iconography. A. THE WOOD SPRITE FROM CONCEPT, SCULPT AND FINAL PUPPET FABRICATION. B. THE DOGFISH WAS ONE OF THE EARLIER DESIGNS THAT CARRIED OVER CLOSELY TO THE FINAL PUPPET. C. SOME EARLY FABRIC AND DETAIL SAMPLES OF SPAZZATURA (BEFORE THEY BECAME AN ALBINO MISFIT) WITH GUY DAVIS' SKETCH ABOVE AND AN EARLIER GRIS GRIMLEY SKETCH BELOW. SAMPLE 17 WAS AN IMMEDIATE HIT WITH THE TEAM AND BECAME THE BASIS FOR OUR INTERPRETATION OF GUILLERMO'S DESIGN GUIDANCE "PERFECTLY IMPERFECT." A B C