Coraline's Pink Palace Apartments

I'm working on some prototypes for Miss Spink and Miss Forcible. I'm using a combination of methods to experiment with customization, including waterslide decals, Bricklink's Part Designer, and sifting through my own parts and digital libraries of existing elements to try and find suitable pieces to represent these ladies.

The tricky part is choosing which version of the characters to recreate. The same rule applies as it did for the other characters; they should all belong in the "Other" version of the house. That eliminates the more endearing old lady versions from the real world, but they go through several transformations in the Other world, so there are still several versions from which to choose.

This is my favorite version; however, they don't belong in the "Other" world.


The actresses begin their performance as old ladies battling each other on stage for the spotlight.

Trying on different hairs and I liked the look of the Leia piece in red!


Things get a little twisted as the story progresses, and April and Miriam are no exception. They end up as a taffy-like mess towards the end. This is, by the way, *the* most terrifying part of the movie, but it's kind of genius that anyone managed to make colorful taffy into a thing of horror. Not exactly something I care to attempt in minifig form though.

I think the version they take on for the trapeze number is the most logical choice for this LEGO set. The colors are bright and fun like the house and the rest of the character lineup, and they're the most appealing (least disturbing) in this form. That's the direction I've generally taken with this project so that it appeals to a wider audience that may not be familiar with or as fond of the source material. Right now I have decals for the heads with the older faces on one side and younger faces on the other. But the wardrobe changes are so drastic that I'm not sure it's a viable solution for staying true to the film.

I found a better hair piece for Miriam (part#95326), but it wasn't in any of the digital parts libraries. I'm still struggling to find the perfect piece for April.


What do you guys think? Which figures would you want most? Did I miss any major details?

I realize it's been way too long since I've posted any updates. I had a very busy year that blew by way too quickly. I've been chewing on the concept of Miss Spink and Miss Forcible's basement ever since I started this project, and I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do; I just had trouble finding the time to do it. I had eliminated the basement due to the Modular standard with which I'd initially constrained myself. Before I decided to submit this concept to IDEAS, I had only wanted this building to add to a line-up of other Modulars, so the basement didn't seem at all necessary or practical. After showcasing the house on its own for a while, I realized there was a significant void without April and Miriam and their theatre. The build has never felt complete without them, so this has been at the top of my task list of things to finish.

First step: Acquire many little black LEGO dogs

I knew I was going to need to build out both the interior and exterior, and this presented some challenges. First of all, I'd already built a three story house, so adding a foundation after the fact is not simple. I had to remove the top floors (thankfully they were designed to do so easily), jack up the house on some temporary supports, and try to figure out how far out the base needed to extend. I unfortunately did not nail it on the first try, so it took a bit of undoing and redoing to get the right height, width, and depth all around. The exterior of the basement is ground, so I built up a hill around the outside. I had to keep in mind the hinged opening so the house could still open up wide without any of the exterior ground getting in the way. I was also mindful of the part count since adding on in this way was already putting me over the limit. A lot of the part count could be reduced by supplementing different parts, removing some detail, and thinning out the bases between floors (areas I've used to hide components like a gear box and battery compartment) so I tried not to stress the part limit too much. I'm aware that a lot of the things can get thrown out the window when LEGO designers get ahold of it, but I've decided the basement is indeed necessary for the concept, so some of the other details will likely have to be sacrificed.

Exterior basement entrance


With the expiration date for this campaign getting ever closer, our annual Bricks Cascade convention in Portland was the new deadline I set for myself to finally finish this concept. After having just moved, it was a daunting task to try and get a build space together and find all the parts I needed to continue building, plus also customize more minifigures. Determination paid off afterall and I came through with an updated build, just in time for last weekend's event!

Basement Interior


The figures are not yet done and I will post another update when those are more finished. Here are some photos of the continued work in progress and photos taken at Bricks Cascade in Portland.

Concept art for April and Miriam's faces, two-sided with young and old versions. Applied using waterslide decals.



A pretty pink house on a freshly built hill (front and back)

Miss April Spink's Opening Act

Miss Miriam Forcible on the trapeze

I recorded a timelapse video while building the Pink Palace Apartments and met with Coraline's art director, Phil Brotherton, at LAIKA Studios to talk about my LEGO replica of the Pink Palace. Phil and I got to discuss a few things about the making of Coraline and the fabrication of the house. He confirmed the information I'd heard many times before, that director Henry Selick was not particularly concerned with continuity from shot to shot, so the layout of the house did indeed change a bit throughout the film. We discussed the challenge of translating the design to LEGO and the layout I used to stay true to the film while also inviting play. I was asked typical questions, like "what compelled you to do this" and "where do you find the time". They seem like silly questions to me now, but ones I might have asked any other builder just a few years ago. What compels us is basically the same as what compels anyone to create anything, and finding the time is a matter of prioritizing. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices when inspiration hits; for me that usually means sacrificing a lot of sleep. It's a fairly abstract concept and difficult to explain to some people, but I feel like if anyone gets it, it's the folks at LAIKA. The creative pulse beats loudly and the crew is eager to accept any challenge. I spoke a bit about how both LAIKA and LEGO artists use their imagination to create worlds, and community is also a huge aspect in keeping us inspired and motivated. Aritsts need other artists to thrive. There's a diverse community of LEGO enthusiasts of which I grossly underestimated until fairly recently, and I'm so happy and honored to be a part of it now, sharing my story with others who might find this medium equally as fascinating.

Check out the "We LAIKA Pink Palace" video on LAIKA's YouTube channel for the interview and timelapse; and while you're there, I highly recommend subscribing to their channel and pouring through some of the jaw-dropping and awe-inspiring footage. If you're unfamiliar with LAIKA and their films, watching the behind-the-scenes footage of their film-making process will give you a better understanding of what inspires me.

This holiday season I was invited by PortLUG to display Coraline's house at the Festival of Trees, a local exhibition and charity fundraiser for Providence Children's Health. Coraline decorated the house for the season and it was quite the crowd pleaser. I was honored to be a part of such a good cause.

More photos from the event: https://www.flickr.com/photos/50502540@N08/albums/72157701096558882

I was interviewed by Beyond the Brick at Bricks by the Bay and at San Diego ComiCon (back to back events); this has recently been published so you can now watch to find out more about this project and to see some great footage from the LAIKA Live event, including the actual house from the movie "Coraline"! Thanks so much to Josh and John for checking it out and I'm so glad they enjoyed it. I had a great time showing these guys around!

Another article just landed on Brick Architect as well with more interview questions and an image from BrickCon in Seattle.

Skærbæk and Brickcon were also back to back events, and on opposite sides of the globe. I wasn't sure I could manage attending both, but I'm glad I did. I met some great fans in Seattle!

Summer has come to an end, and with it the end of an extensive season of traveling, exhibiting, and meeting fans. I just finished displaying at my sixth convention this year. The Pink Palace has now made appearances up and down the US west coast, from San Diego, CA to Vancouver, B.C., through Chicago, IL, and even made a trip to Denmark!

One major event worth mentioning was Comic-Con International, commonly known as San Diego Comic-Con. It's the largest comic and entertainment convention in the world with hundreds of thousands of fans gathering there. LAIKA setup a pop-up exhibition they called "LAIKA Live" that was open during the week of Comic-Con, a kind of museum where they gave guided tours showing off several puppets, props, and sets from their films. A few of the studio artists and animators were on-site to demonstrate their process and answer questions. Admission is free to the public, no Comic-Con pass required. The catch is that the lines were crazy long; but the fans claimed it was worth it. LAIKA invited me to display my LEGO house there in the courtyard where they had reserved an area for "fan art". Of course I accepted the offer, but I had already scheduled to exhibit at another convention in the Bay Area that same weekend. This required building another house and figuring out how to transport and setup both of them within a day of each other! After some scrambling and a good bit of assistance, we just barely managed to pull off having a house, as well as a whole set of custom minifigs, for the LAIKA Live event. It was very well received, most notably by LAIKA's CEO, Travis Knight, Coraline's director, Henry Selick, and famed author of Coraline, Neil Gaiman! I had the opportunity to meet with each of them independently and they expressed much admiration for my LEGO model. Neil graciously shared the IDEAS project with his fans via Twitter and Tumblr, which gave this a pretty big boost.

The event was covered by BrickNerd which you can read about here.



Not too long after SDCC, I found myself in Denmark for Skærbæk Fan Weekend. This event is all about the worldwide AFOL community. It's a weekend of extraordinary exhibitons and social gatherings, and it was a blast! With each event, I'm always a little anxious anticipating how much of a LAIKA fanbase there might be. Going overseas exacerbated this anxiety. LAIKA is a small, independent studio and I'm aware that not everyone has seen our films. I've been pleasantly surprised to find more fans present at these events than I could have ever expected, and I love seeing how excited they are for this project; it's been a wonderful experience.

This project has recently been featured in two major LEGO publications, Blocks Issue #45 (sold out) and, as of this writing, the current issue of Brick Journal #53, along with interviews and more detailed information worth checking out. There's a preview of the Brick Journal issue here 





I'd also like to credit Archbrick for being the first to pick up and publicize the project; they blogged about it again after seeing it at BrickWorld Chicago.

There are a few details throughout the house that could only be achieved by creating printed elements. I was able to get the original art for the "Boring Blue Boy" painting, but had to recreate from scratch the artwork for the apartment mailboxes, Mr. Bobinksy's flag, and the Pink Palace Apartments signage and design them to scale for LEGO parts. I was able to take some high resolution photos of the house while it was on display at the Portland Art Museum and use those as a base for creating the line art. I then printed the artwork on waterslide decals and sticker paper and transferred them to the LEGO parts. I'd thought about redesigning the Boring Blue Boy as a minifigure, but haven't had time to execute that one just yet. Consider this a placeholder. I also need to add a printed element inside the snowglobe. It's another small detail that no one else would really notice anyway, but it would be fun to create the artwork for that as well. Hopefully these will make it to a future update.

Apartment mailboxes:

Bobinsky's flag:


 

One painfully boring painting of a boring blue boy:

Pink Palace Apartments Signage:



Outlines of my line art:

Making a mess, as usual. Holepunchers can be a pretty handy tool for cutting circular shapes:

As if all this wasn't enough to keep me busy, what would Coraline be without buttons? I created some button tiles as well as some logo tiles as sort of a promotional bonus. These had to be screenprinted as I unfortunately don't have any other way of printing white on black. While not without its challenges and flaws, I think this worked pretty well for the first batch and everyone who’s been lucky enough to receive them has been pretty thrilled.

Creating the screen:

Baseplates make registration fairly simple:

Final result: perfectly imperfect LEGO Buttons!

It's the moment of truth, time to see how my Lego re-creation of the Pink Palace Apartments holds up to the original set from the movie "Coraline". After all the tedious research required to figure out all the angles, dimensions, and details of the house in the movie, they recently put the original set on display at the Portland Art Museum as part of the current "Animating Life, The Art, Science, and Wonder of Laika" exhibit (that exhibit is ending this month, by the way; if it's at all possible to go, I highly recommend it!). It would have been much easier if I'd had access to that all this time. Oh well, by that point my design was already near completion, but of course I went to the museum to get some more reference images before finishing the phyisical Lego build. This was particularly useful when trying to figure out all the complicated roof angles.

I had the opportunity this week to place my finished MOC next to the original and see how it compares. The first thing you might notice is how huge that house is! The original house was created at 1/6 scale, large enough to accomodate the 9"+ tall puppets, compared to the approximately 1/48 scale Lego model. Otherwise, it was pretty satisfying seeing them next to each other. I'm pretty pleased with the result.

Here's an example of a sketch I made while referencing the film:


Some images of the Lego house next to the original set from "Coraline":

If you're a Lego builder like me, you know that nothing ever feels finished. Creating with Lego parts makes it especially tempting to continue building, tweaking, trying different techniques, rearranging things, or adding details. You can see from a previous update that I've already added lights. I first displayed this model at the Bricks Cascade exhibition in Portland, OR about a month ago; I had initially decided to add those to help illuminate the interior details for people to more easily view, and then it just didn't seem quite the same without them. I was running the lights through until the very last minute of setting up for that show. I had just a few weeks before the next convention, BrickCan in Vancouver, British Columbia. About a week before the show, I dissected Other Father's study and performed minor surgery to add some gears and power functions to make the piano spin around, like it does in the film. Adding power functions is something Lego advertises with only a few of its sets, but the possiblities are endless! I don't imagine that this is something many people would care to add to this sort of set, but I just wanted to show off another film reference feature made possible by this magical medium.

Here's the video of the piano in motion: 

I've been inspired over the years by the Advanced Modular theme of buildings. I've always loved the aesthetics and clever details. I wanted to be able to nestle my house in along the row of modulars I'd collected over the years, so I made the effort to keep the dimensions constrained to the same footprint and to make sure the interiors were accessible even if the house was sandwhiched between other buildings (see earlier update for interior photos). While not so much relevant to the film, I placed the house onto a 32x32 base and added the tiled sidewalk and lampost so it would conform to the modular neighborhood standard. Voila, this little street now has a beautiful Bed and Breakfast.