Anim8 Stop Motion

Here's a stop motion animation social community called Anim8 Stop Motion. On the site it gives this description of what it's about:

In our opinion stop motion is a way in which to explore and push your imagination to the limits. It doesn’t matter if you use clay, puppets, toys or what ever objects affection you can conjure up to animate. Stop Motion is a great way to tell a story or to just have some fun be you young, old, professional or amateur.

With Anim8 Stop Motion we wanted to create a place where everyone interested in this timeless art could come learn, aspire, showcase and meet other like-minded people. More than anything else we just wanted you to have some good old-fashioned fun.

With this in mind we hope you all enjoy the site and can’t wait to see what you and your imagination can create.

Best wishes

The Anim8 Team

That pretty much sums it up, if you would like to view it or join, just click the link below.

Anim8 Stop Motion

Stop Motion Magic

Stop Motion Magic is a Social Networking site created by Marc Spess (the owner of Animate Clay and creator of Zombie Pirates) and was created to bring different animators together and to just share and help each other learn more about the art. On his About Us page, he says:

Hey, I'm Marc Spess. There's a chance you heard of me - as I also run AnimateClay.com for about eight years now. StopMotionMagic.com is a site I decided to created to be the ultimate place for stop motion animators to network and share their art. So what you see here today is the final site which took months of planning - money and hard work.

If you want to check it out and join, check out the link below. I'm on the site under the user name of kramerklaymation so feel free to add me as a friend if you do join. Have fun!

Stop Motion Magic

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.

Haven't Been Doing Much

I haven't been doing much in the past few days. Been too distracted by other things or not had enough motive to work on the animatic. I probably should soon though, summer vacation is coming to an end. Today I did twist about 20 feet of wire using a drill however.

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

Promised Pictures

Here are the promised pictures I was telling you about.

Possible Lighting

Plumber's Epoxy Putty?

Vince Backeberg's FAQ on Claymation

Here's a nice FAQ done by Vince Backeberg about clay animation. It's got some nice information on it. The link is below.

Vince Backeberg Claymation FAQ