I made this cake, and I’ll tell you why…

Living in Portland Oregon has it’s many perks. Great food, amazing people, beautiful cityscapes and lots and lots of creativity! It is also home to (in my opinion) the most talented and creative animation studio known to man, Laika. They hand craft all their characters piece by pieces and animate them old school style via stop-animation. SO amazing! Check out this photo they posted to their twitter. You should definitely follow them and get all the cool behind the scenes updates.

Excerpt from their site:
LAIKA is an animation studio that produces features and shorts. From scratch.

Our first stop-motion movie, Coraline, was released to critical acclaim on February 6, 2009. Our second feature, ParaNorman, will premiere on August 17, 2012.

The short Moongirl (2005) was our first all-CG-animated film.

We’re a community of artists and technicians who create original animated content. We handcraft and transform everyday materials into living creatures infused with dimension and soul.

As a maker of “things” myself, I have DEEP respect for the stuff that Laika creates. The work is so amazingly flawless, it’s hard to believe sometimes that it is all made by hand. Each and every last piece. Even the skeletons are amazing! I always wondered how they moved those figures into the perfect position before snapping a shot.

Recently Laika posed this creative challenge to their followers!

CREATIVE CHALLENGE!
Using any medium, create something undead – zombie food cart, zombie copywriter, zombie attack kitten – and submit your creation into our Zombageddon competition. All entries will be posted on the LAIKA/house’s Facebook page where peers and fans will vote for their favorites.

Prizes: ParaNorman/LAIKA collection of exclusive custom memorabilia currently only available to LAIKA crew. You WANT this stuff!

Deadline: Friday, Aug 17 at 10 am (PT)

I HAD to do something! I whipped out my fondant and my buttercream and made this cake for the challenge. Since I live here in PDX, I was even able to bring the cake to their location and hopefully some of the people who work so hard on this film got to get a slice. I hope zombies like Red Velvet Cream Cheese.

I made all the pieces out of my yummy marshmallow fondant and paid close attention to this photo of Norman to get the figure just right. I even used a little petal dust for his cheeks and eyes.

I am especially fond of that royal icing “spittle”

I really really hope I get a cool figurine! I would put it on my desk and stare at it’s awesomeness all damn day!

ParaNorman is the first stop-motion movie to use a 3-D color printer to create its puppets’ faces. It’s also the first feature from Laika Entertainment since its Oscar-nominated 2009 hit Coraline. With tens of thousands of printed parts, millions of hours of work, and billions of pixels invested, the project represents unparalleled innovation in handmade storytelling—and a new future for a 100-year-old art form. That is amazing!!!

I am so stoked to see the movie when it comes out August 17th! You should go see it too and don’t forget to pick your chin up off the floor after you see the mind blowing details in this movie! Check out more fun movie stuff like animation tools and a zombie translator on the paranorman movie website!