Wildwood art director Matthew Maldonado on building 136 sets by hand, ahead of LAIKA's Design Museum exhibition

In a Creative Boom interview (Tom May, 28 September 2026), Wildwood art director Matthew Maldonado describes five years, from 2021, designing and building the film's sets. He calls the storyboards and concept art the production's "North Star": the art department breaks each environment down and builds what the shot needs in camera, rather than a complete location.

He gives several concrete examples. The Pittock Mansion set, based on the real Portland landmark, stands almost 13 feet tall. For Portland's Waterfront Park, the team built the path the heroine cycles along at puppet scale and made the surrounding buildings at a smaller scale, to be scanned for the visual-effects team. One cherry-blossom tree was built practically; VFX scanned it and used it as the reference for the rest of the trees. LAIKA's rapid-prototyping department, best known for its printed replacement faces, also helped animate Portland's Benson Bubbler drinking fountains, cycling the water frame by frame with replacement parts.

The interview coincides with LAIKA presents Wildwood: The Exhibition at the Design Museum on Kensington High Street, London (15 October 2026 to 10 January 2027, curated by Hadeel Eltayeb). It shows around seven of the film's 136 sets, alongside puppets, armatures, costumes, props, tools and concept art, and follows the film from visual research through costume, fabrication, rapid prototyping, miniature set building, animation and cinematography. A free mezzanine display covers LAIKA's 20 years of films. Wildwood opens in UK and Irish cinemas on 23 October 2026. The durable set facts are folded into the Wiki pages on real-location-to-miniature adaptation and practical-reference digital extension.