Deborah Cook on engineering Kubo and the Two Strings' costumes down to the millimeter

LAIKA costume designer Deborah Cook (Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings, Missing Link) described stop-motion costuming as an engineering discipline rather than a sewing one: "It's different in scale. We use engineering under the costumes... we have to engineer that whole movement. We use wires, weighted linings, flexible fabrics," and material choice has to satisfy both constraints at once -- "not only do we have to find material that will work in our scale, they have to look fabulous." Kubo's principal characters each needed 25 to 30 duplicate costumes so no single puppet was visually distinguishable on camera, with construction instructions held to a tolerance Cook describes as matching "right down to the millimeter on each version." She also described engineering wear into the costumes deliberately -- building in the fold lines a real garment develops with age -- an approach she has credited partly to studying how fabric contours the body in Issey Miyake's designs. The durable engineering and continuity facts are folded into a new Wiki page on puppet paint and costume finishing.