LAIKA Uses Cuttlefish 3D Printing for Wildwood
The studio's color 3D printer driver produced facial expressions for its newest stop-motion feature, released in U.S. theaters October 23.
Updated on Nov. 8, 2026 in Animation
LAIKA used the Cuttlefish full-color 3D printer driver to produce facial expressions for Wildwood, which opened in U.S. movie theaters on October 23. The film followed Missing Link, the first feature made with Cuttlefish.
Why it matters
Stop-motion animation has relied on physically sculpted and printed parts, and Cuttlefish lets the studio convert digital models into optimized print data at scale. The approach reflects LAIKA's search for better methods to improve its 3D printing and animation work.
Wildwood used 33 puppets and more than 1,000 artists, with over 142,000 printed facial expressions produced on Stratasys PolyJet J750 and J850 systems. The figures do not include a comparison to prior LAIKA films' output.
The players
LAIKA
LAIKA is a Portland-based stop-motion animation studio known for features such as Coraline, ParaNorman, and Kubo and the Two Strings.
Fraunhofer IGD
Fraunhofer IGD is a German research institute focused on computer graphics and visualization, which developed the methods underlying Cuttlefish.
The details
Cuttlefish, a software tool developed with Fraunhofer IGD, converts the studio's digital 3D models into optimized print data, using adaptive thickening, high-poly meshes with high-resolution textures, and surface dither. LAIKA animates characters' expressions using up to 24 different 3D printed faces per second.
Timeline
2016: LAIKA began using Cuttlefish.
2019: Missing Link released as the first Cuttlefish-produced film.
October 23, 2026: Wildwood released in U.S. movie theaters.
November 5, 2026: Wildwood released in Germany.
Culture Shift
Wildwood extends the Cuttlefish workflow that LAIKA first used on Missing Link in 2019. The studio's continued reliance on the approach shows how stop-motion production is absorbing digital print pipelines.
Wildwood is playing in U.S. movie theaters following its October 23 release, with a German opening scheduled for November 5. Viewers can see the film on the big screen in those markets.
The takeaway
LAIKA's use of Cuttlefish shows that stop-motion films can adopt digital print pipelines to produce large numbers of facial expressions. Viewers watching Wildwood can see the results in its characters' expressive faces.
What happens next
Wildwood opens in Germany on November 5, 2026.
Further reading
For more on stop-motion production methods, see our Animation coverage.
Source note: This article includes information reported by 3DPrint.com | Additive Manufacturing Business.
