Nick Park & Aardman Documentary

I found this on Youtube by mistake, and seeing that it was a documentary about Nick Park and Aardman, I had to watch it. It's a pretty interesting documentary, some of the stuff in it was old to me(I've read too many books and articles/watched too many clips I guess), but there still was quite a bit of fresh stuff. It was just a way to learn a little bit more about Nick Park and behind his success and Walace and Gromit. I suggest you watch if if you have the time. It comes in 5 parts, each is about 10 minutes long. I'll embed the first video, but I'll link to the rest. Embedding too many videos on one post makes the page lag a little when loading. Enjoy!



Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Book Suggestion - Creating 3-D Animation

If you have been paying attention to my blog posts, not too long ago I purchased the book Creating 3D Animation. It's a book done by Peter Lord and Brian Sibley about exactly what the title implies. The book is mainly done by an Aardman(The folks who brought us Wallace and Gromit) point of view, but it does show a couple of other examples of stop motion when it is explaining the history aspect of the subject.

Overall, I think that this book is one of the best claymation books out there(I haven't read very many, but this one I'd think is near the top of the list). It is very nicely made, well designed, has nice and large pictures to show the reader, and comes in a nice length of 224 pages. The book covers a number of different topics relating to 3D animation. If you take a look at the table of contents some of the topics you'll see are basic needs, simple techniques, models and model making set, design and making, animation and performance, making a film, and more.

So, why would you want to read this book? Well, I think that this book would be good for anybody who is remotely interested in stop motion animation whether you purchase it or get it from a local Library. It tells about some of the techniques and processes that go into making an animation. If you know nothing about the topic, this would be a very good place to start.

If you would like to view more reviews or maybe even purchase the book, go visit Amazon.com, where I purchased mine used(almost perfect condition, a lot cheaper). I've placed a link below for easy access.

Creating 3D Animation Amazon.com

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 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.

Wallace & Gromit Tribute Video

Here's a well done animated tribute to Wallace and Gromit that I found on Youtube. It's pretty interesting and funny so check it out. If you go to the actual Youtube page, make sure you read some of the comments too, the creator explains how they did things a little when answering other people's questions.

Here's what the creator said about the video:

A claymation assignament I did with my classmate Sen Wong, and partially Paul Lalo. First stop-motion assignment, and the 2nd stop motion i have ever made.

THe assignment brief was: Have a white clay ball roll in from the side, do something, then roll out again. We decided to take the opportunity of this assignment to learn a little bit more, and make a tribute to Wallace and Gromit at the same time, they're the greatest.

Making an Army of Gromits

Keeping with the theme of Wallace and Gromit, here's a tutorial type thing that you can find on Instructables.com on how to make an army of Gromits using molds. It's a good place to learn how to make replicas of your own puppets by following step by step instructions how how to do it. A nice list of resources are also given for materials and other things. So check it out by clicking on the link below.

Making an Army of Gromits

Wallace and Gromit Website

After the last post, think I'll stay on the theme of Wallace and Gromit for at least a couple more blog posts. Hopefully you won't mind.

If you want to learn about Wallace and Gromit, the best place to probably go is to the official website. Over the past few months (perhaps longer), the site has gotten a redesign and new elements have been added to it. They've created more of a community atmosphere by adding a forum, a gallery, and contests, as well as other things to the site. Of course there's some clips from some of the Wallace and Gromit shorts and the movie as well as a little info about it. So if you want to soak up some information about Wallace and Gromit or just join in a chat on the forums, go visit the site.

Wallace and Gromit Official Website

The Wallace and Gromit stuff, by the way, I think would probably be my favorite in terms of animated films(The movie ranks pretty high in favorite movies as well). The stories are great and funny, the animation is superb, the character design is original and unique, and the set work is awesome. If you want to learn a little about claymation, just watch some of the stuff Nick Park along with Aardman have created. You can even see how they've improved over the years with quality. If you've never watched any of them, you definitely should get your hands on a copy of some of their work or check out their stuff on the web site.

Interesting Article - Cracking Clay

If you don't already know, over the last few months I've become more and more interested in digital effects, editing, and that kind of stuff (probably because of my use of Blender3D). Yesterday I found an interesting article talking about some of the digital stuff done on Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Since that movie is probably my favorite animated movie, it furthered the interest. Previously I had known that they had used certain digital effects like fog, rain, color grading, CG rabbits, and a few other ones, but this article went more into depth on the effects used in the movie, telling me some other things they also did. I didn't know the extent of computer editing that they had actually used. They also erased rigs(I knew a little about this), used green screen, and composited different shots together. So if you want to check out a neat article about some of the digital editing behind Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, check out the link below.

Click here to go to the article