Random Animation

Here's some of the random animation I did. It's not the best because I did two things that an animator shouldn't do. First of all, I used natural lighting, so the lighting changes because of clouds covering the sun. I also touched the camera to take each picture, so there's a considerable amount of shake. I mainly did it for the animation though, so it doesn't matter too much. Here's the video:



I found that I'm a little bit off with animating at 24 fps, so I set this at 20 fps. That's something I'll have to work on next time.

Here's a random tip that I'll leave you with. If you want to compress something fairly well without much quality loss, use Xvid. I got this video down from around 400mb to 8mb without much change.

Video: Become

Here's a cool animation done by Dan Mackenzie from Mack Productions. It shows the creation of a clay stop motion animate puppet.

Video: Tips from Javan Ivey

Here's a video done by Indy Mogul where they interviewed Javan Ivey (I've posted about him before) and asked him some easy tips for clay animation and stop motion animation. They're basic tips, but good ones nonetheless. Enjoy.

Videos: Meet the California Raisins

Here are some videos I watched a long time ago and then rediscovered. All three parts are part of one original production. They were made back in 1988 when the California Raisins were popular. It was done by Will Vinton's studio and runs around 30 minutes in total.

From Clay to Computer

Here's an article I found on TIME about Aardman's flushed away and the transition from clay to computer. Just thought that I'd share it.

From Clay to Computer

Best of Aardman

Like the stuff that you've seen from Aardman? Well, I found out that you can see a bunch of their stuff on AtomFilms. There's a collection there called the Best of Aardman and features a lot of the stuff they've made. I think there are around 45 right now (The number may change if more are added or some are taken away from some reason.). Here's the description of it given on the site:

From the Oscar-winning creators of Wallace & Gromit, Creature Comforts and the Angry Kid series, here's a library of top shelf Aardman classics.

So, if you want to sit back and watch some good animation, go check it out.

AtomFilms: The Best of Aardman

Videos: Claymation Documentary

Here's a neat documentary I found while browsing around You Tube one day. I never knew such a thing existed. It was done a while back(1978 to be exact) in the early days of Will Vinton Productions. The whole thing is a little under 20 minutes or so. If you have time, watch it now, if not, come back later.

Video: Throwing Ball Claymation

Here's another animation I did today. It's not quite to my satisfaction, but good enough. I may edit the wire out later, if I'm bored sometime, but not now. It's pretty crazy, I've done 7 animations in the past 2 weeks, that's 4 more than I completed in all of last year.

Video: Random Clay Animation

Here's the animation I did. It's pretty random, although you'll probably notice elements from some of the other "blob" animations I've done recently. Since it's just a test, I'm not bothering with editing out the wires.

Replacement Animation

Yesterday I messed around with the first animation I've done in a long while. It was a simple replacement animation. I had nothing else to do so I gave it a shot, following the template from "Creating 3D Animation". Since I don't have the proper equipment yet(still is being sent over from the US via shipment) I used my old Sony s60. As a result, I could not control the focus nor use a remote so there is some camera shake and flicker due to changes in focus. All in all I think it turned out pretty good. I may do some more practice animation tests if I feel like it and since I can't get the best quality, they truly will be tests. This is 12 fps by the way. If I took doubles, I could've played it back at 24. It took me a while to get it uploaded. Blogger doesn't take over a certain size videos and Youtube was having problems so I ended up using Google Video.

I used 6 different replacement parts in total, as seen above.

Clay Animation Tutorials

Majed Elass over at his site, Clay Animation Tutorials, has some nice video tutorials to learn from. So far he has three done: "How To Make Replacement Mouths", "How To Make A 6 Inch Armature Tutorial", and "How To Keep Your Puppets Standing With Out a Tie down Tutorial!" (These link directly to their video page and not to the site). They're pretty well done and are a good way to learn something new. The site also has a blog, photos, store, and a featured video page. They are updated from time to time, depending on how busy he is. I've linked to both the site and his Stop Motion Magic page below.

Clay Animation Tutorials
Stop Motion Magic Page

Animate Clay

Animate Clay is one of the most well known sites out there about clay animation, probably being that it's at the top of Google, but also because it has some good information. The site was created and is run by a man by the name of Marc Spess. It was one of the fist sites I ever visited and the articles there are a good place to learn. On the site is a blog where he shares different stop motion news from time to time, a forum, a store, links, a gallery, and more. One of the best resources on the site is the forum which I've been a part of since April 6, 2006. The message boards have helped me greatly in my journey of learning claymation in that I could ask questions, get feed back, and read about what others were doing. The links are also a nice resource as well as the articles.

In the store he runs, different materials are available as well as some video tutorials. I suggest purchasing the videos if you are serious about clay animation as they are a good way to learn about sculpting, animating, and other topics. Showing, as is done in the tutorials, is an easier way to learn than reading a book or online.

Anyways, go check out the site yourself if you haven't already seen it (you may have come to this blog from that site), and if you have, go reread and look through the forums to learn more about clay animation.

Animate Clay

Zombie Pirates

Zombie Pirates is probably one of the nicest clay animation blogs out there. It's done by Marc Spess, owner of Stop Motion Magic and Animate Clay, and is his project to make a quality series done in clay animation about Zombie Pirates. I believe he started the project in 2004. On the blog, he gives updates time to time as he has time to work on the project. There are also pages talking about the project, as well as lots of pictures and stuff. It's a good place to learn just by viewing images. While you're there, also make sure you check some of the older posts to see how the project has come over the years. I'll let you check out the rest yourself.

Zombie Pirates

CG Clay

Today on Animate Clay's forums, I became aware of a man who has tried to recreate some clay stuff into CG. His name is Javier Leon and according to his Flickr personal page, he is a computer graphics artist, and runs a very small visual effects company. He loves animation and especially stop motion films. So below, I've posted some of his stuff that he's made using 3dsMax. I'm sure you'll recognize some stuff from Wallace and Gromit. If you would like see see a little more, please click on the link below to go to his Flickr page, where I got the images. There are options there to see larger images as well. You may need an account to see them however.





Javier Leon's Flickr Photostream

Aardman Ident

Here's an interesting animation done by Aardman called Ident. It's more of an animation that makes you think rather than for comedy purposes. Check it out below. If you want to learn a tiny but more about it, click here.

Aardman Commercials

Think you've seen all the Wallace and Gromit there is to see? Well, you may have missed some Wallace and Gromit commercials that Aardman has done for different companies. You can view those below. Also, even further down, you'll find some other commercials Aardman has done, but not with Wallace and Gromit as spokespeople. These are some ways to see how stop motion is used in advertising as well as some more great animation.





Other Aardman Commercials





I've actually seen that last commercial on cable, in Taiwan, but it was translated into Chinese so that the people there could understand it. I had wondered if Aardman actually had made that or not after seeing it a couple times.

New Purchase Pictures

Here are the pictures that I said I would post. The internet was down for a day so I couldn't get them up. I also added in a little carrot I made to test out the clay and the pastel. Sorry that they aren't the best quality, there wasn't enough light and I wasn't using a tripod.

College Visit and Stocking Up

Today I skipped school and went to visit a possible college choice in my future. Although I didn't go mainly to see their Digital Art Media department, I did get a chance to see it while in a tour. It was pretty neat because as one of the teachers for the department was explaining different things, I kept thinking to myself, yah, I know that. There were also a couple of times I noticed things before he explained them like them using a blue screen in one of their sets. It was also cool seeing the different facilities and things they were working on like their puppets, sets, and their technology and equipment looked pretty cool. They also seemed to have lots of space for what they were doing. He also mentioned some CG stuff a couple of times, and I knew what he was talking about. A lot of terms he used were pretty familiar.

One the way home I also was able to stop at Michaels and stock up on some Sculpey Premo Clay to use for props. I got it because it was on sale(only 99 cents a block), I had a gift card to use up, and since I'm going to be leaving the country, it'll be hard to get my hands on them. I'm going to be trying out some of the techniques shown in the book I just displayed recently, Making Doll's House Miniatures with Polymer Clay. To add a more realistic touch to the things I make, I also picked up some soft artist's pastels that will add shading to the sculpting things. I'll get some pictures up later.

Space Intruder Animation

Here's a neat animation on you tube called Space Intruder by Sander79. Although simple, it has a nice set as well as good animation. He tells how he created it in his description:

This animation was made for a yearly art festival in my hometown Maastricht (kunsttour.com). Showing all my old stuff wasn't an option. So I started building a set and tried to come up with a story with two characters and a lot of violence : ) Filming took six full days in a period of three weeks. I only had the chance to animate when I had a day off from work. But sculpting, storyboarding and setting up scenes where done every evening.
A very talented Dutch musician (dob Audio) gave me the opportunity to use his music. Here's a website with a few tunes by dob Audio http://www.ser1.nl/dob
Hope you all like it!!

No clay was harmed during the production of this animation : )

---------------------------------------- ---------------------

Here some more details for other filmmakers and people who are interested:

The set was build with a soft wooden floor, styrofoam, montage kit, paint and a little fake plant. The frame rate is mostly 12 fps, but some parts where increased up to 24 fps. Exactly 2532 pictures where taken to complete the animation. The UFO part was shot real time with wires. But you probably saw that already (wires are clearly visible).
All movements of the little blob character where done with replacements. Meaning that every frame has another ready sculpted replacement character. Almost 100 replacements where sculpted for all the
blobs movements in the animation. It's a very quick way to animate : )
The shots where a character comes out of the ground were filmed backwards, because it's easier to slice the character with fishing wire than to rebuild it.
The clay I used is found in almost every toy store. It's modelling clay in a few different colors which stays soft. You can mix colors together to get the color you desire.
Nails with both ends sharp where used to let the humanoid character stand in any position. The nails are hammered in the soft wooden floor and fit in holes under feet that reach a few centimeters up the legs for stability. The characters armature holds up to 30 individual small metal wires in each body part. It's impossible for a limb to break off even if you try. Metal strips are twisted around the metal wires to prevent bending on unwanted places (bones). Check our armature building tutorial:
http://s235.photobucket.com/albums/ee...

The puppet is made using the buildup technique. Applying layers of cotton wool soaked in liquid rubber directly onto the armature. Acrylic paint is added to the liquid rubber to get the right color.
I used a Canon MVX20i DV-cam and Stopmotion Pro Version 4. The blur effects where made with the character/object hanging on a wire and then moved the object/character while the frame was averaged. Magix Video Deluxx was used for editing. I used a picture from the moon of my previous animation (Misplaced) in the background.

Here's the animation:

The Windmill Boy

Here's an animation, I'm not sure whether it's a short or a movie, but I thought it looked pretty interesting. I don't think they have either finished yet or they just aren't giving out the final product to the public so I haven't had the chance to see it. What I have seen looks promising however. It seems that the production crew is made up of a non-professional group of people and yet the quality they have is quite good. I'd say it's probably only a couple notches down from Wallace and Gromit. If you want to watch a couple clips on their production and everything as well as a trailer on Youtube, just visit the links below. I also listed the official site.

The Tale of The Windmill Boy- Documentary
The Tale of The Windmill Boy- Documentary Part 2
The Windmill Boy Trailer
Official Site