Klassen's Coraline


You all may recognize Jon Klassen's work from his design on greeting cards, such as those that can be found on Red Cap Cards, or from his cover work and illustrations for The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place.  However, what I didn't know was that Klassen worked on the visual development and drawings for sets and props for Coraline, the stop-motion movie by Laika Inc. and based on the novel by Neil Gaiman.  This is one of my favourite movies, particularly because I think the 3-D effects are especially powerful when paired with the stop-motion quality of the film.  And as for the story, you all know that I'm a huge nerd for Neil Gaiman material.

On Klassen's website Burst of Beeden (clever), he's included some of the materials that he created for the film and these drawings are quite amazing.  I love looking at how the sets were composed, down to the specific detail of the "props" in the kitchen and the colour themes used in each scene.  If you've seen this film (and if you haven't, I highly encourage you to), you'll appreciate the contrast of the bare and stark "real" world to the rich tones and embellishments of the "Other" World.  It's not hard to understand why Coraline would escape to the Other World night after night.

All pictures are copyright Jon Klassen.  You can buy his prints and artwork here on Gallery Nucleus.






Comments

  1. WOWZA....must really see this film. I really wanted to read the book first, but I think I'll go see the movie now. We were gonna take the kids to see it when it came out, but we thought it might be a bit too scary then....sigh....

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  2. And here I was thinking Coraline was just another TIm Burton movie. You learn something new every day! And now I have a newfound appreciation for the art behind the film.

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  3. he worked on coraline? that's so awesome...i loved that movie.

    xo erica

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  4. I loooved Coraline. And there's something so addicting about the eeriness of the pictures. Huge fan!

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  5. Beautiful. Now I'm curious about the movie...

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  6. I haven't seen Coraline yet . . . though I love Neil Gaiman and Jon Klassen. Travisity, really . . .

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  7. I love these illustrations. Something about them makes me think of Madeleine. Right? Or is that just me?

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  8. These illustrations are actually very charming! (I loved Coraline. ) :)

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  9. He also wrote and illustrated I Want My Hat Back, which the boys loooooved.

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  10. I'm seriously in love with his style. The amount of work to create a movie set (even an animated one!) is always just mind boggling to me

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  11. These are brilliant! I'm a HUGE Neil Gaiman fan as well! He's amazing! And so are these prints!

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  12. Stunning, stunning illustrations. Coraline is amazing.

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  13. he's so talented...they are so fun to just look at!

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  14. These are so stunning! I can't draw worth anything but I sure can appreciate when others are visually artistic.

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  15. Can you believe I've never seen Coraline? Which will be even more unbelievable once I tell you that I love illustrations. I also love Red Cap Cards and Carrie Gifford's work. She is an amazing illustrator. Klassen's work is also amazing, so thank you for the introduction.

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