archived-videos My First Stop Motion - Clay Animation

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VitriolMotion

Hey there,

I’m new to these Forums and Stop Motion in general.
Here to get some of your opinions, on a small test.

Basically i recently developed an interest in Stop Motion Animation, so i thought i’d try my hand at a Clay Animation.
It’s very short, being my first attempt i was mainly trying to get a bit of basic experience and feedback, before undertaking a larger project.
It took about 2 weeks from start to finish.

You can view it here;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnYPsbPoK-4

Hit me up on YouTube if you like it, or have something to say in general.
Much appreciated.
 
Upvote 0
OK, what I saw I basically liked. But I didn't see nearly enough. I saw a miniture set...and that's it. What else is there to grasp from this clip? The style of a potential future project? I don't get it.

I just think it's waaaaay too short to look for feedback on. I will say I liked the style, the set, and the inklings of tone...but I think it's too short to put up on a film site and look for feedback.

One thing I will say is...I like the company logo thing.
 
I appreciate your honest feedback.

I felt i didn't want to spend so much time to make a longer clip, at my current skill level (or lack of).

Making a shorter one then getting feedback to then spend time on a longer one, keeping peoples feedback in mind, made more sense to me.

Maybe this wasn't the right thing to do?
Cheers.
 
VitriolMotion said:
I appreciate your honest feedback.

I felt i didn't want to spend so much time to make a longer clip, at my current skill level (or lack of).

Making a shorter one then getting feedback to then spend time on a longer one, keeping peoples feedback in mind, made more sense to me.

Maybe this wasn't the right thing to do?
Cheers.
Click to expand...

No, I think it was OK. I think you could have posted something saying, 'what do you think of this style before I start the project?' You know, ask a question about something, and clearly state that this is a test...but you know what...I guess you DID do just that, and I glossed-over there...whoops.

Sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel unwelcome to post...post anything you want. It just seemed like you were firmly planted on a style, and jumped the gun on posting some footage. I would have created an actual short, with some semblance of a story first....

But hey, like I said, asking for advice on a 'test' is totally OK.
 
I think it's a great start. You should continue with motion studies to get a handle on figures moving in 3-d space. Good work!
 
That's pretty cool. I've always had a soft spot for stop motion. That's why I love the old school Jason and the Argonauts.

Good job dude, I'd like to see more if you got some?

did you build the miniature set as well?
 
Well that was my first, so i don't have anymore finished yet.

But i have begun building the set for my next Project, which will be allot longer and hopefully show improvement.
 
Keep the logo, it's the best of the sample you made.
The rest is too short to comment, but I like the figures, they have a lot of potential
 
I'm no expert in claymation but heres the best advice I can give. The set looked a little bare, Lot's of wall space, I didn't know exactly where to look. But that could be because I don't know where he is.

It relation to that, the actual composition is a little unbalanced...Perhaps that is for effect too.

Again, I'm not expert in claymation, but the actual claymation part was pretty well done.
 
You can build basic armatures out of bailing wire, toothpicks and a glue gun. You can make the entire skeliton from wire or just the joint. You'll use the tooth picks as bones, if you will. The glue gun is for attaching those bones. You can then wrap in plasticina (or whatever clay you like). You can find all of these supplies at any hobby store.
I also like to add good magnets to the feet. You can then make your floors out of sheet metal and this makes walking your armatures much easier. Just stack em under the feet as needed for steps. Once ya get into gear with this, you can start making some parts, like the torso, out of sculpy (again found at the hobby store). This way you don't have to batle fingerprints on anything you are not animating... usually just the limbs and neck. Also, I often now skip the mouth and add that in post, ala southpark. I'll add eye blinks in post as well. It just makes shooting quicker.
...which I do on video. I simply let the camera roll. I reach in every five seconds and manipulate models then reach out of frame. I then pull those frames in post. I've been working with camera moves and zooms lately and having a lot of fun working with my sons on this. They know more about stop motion at 12 and 9 than I did in my 20s. ;)
rock on, man. Looks awesome. Very "Tool"esque.
 
Thanks for the continual feedback.

I'm currently nearing completion of my 2nd Stop-Motion Animation. Which is already a vast improvement on my first.

I'll have it fully edited by a couple of weeks time, still need to take a few more photos.
(Have about 2,000+ so far, so it's already 10x longer than my first)

I hope you'll all be able to see improvement, as I took everything said here into consideration.

I tried to get more complex in both my Character Design and Set Design.

Here's a picture of a couple of the Characters I Animated and the Set I used, taken before I started Animating. So they did change a little.

 
I never get production credits that last for half the video length. Maybe next time, think of a good story first and then use stop motion as a media to tell your masterpiece.
 
Very cool. And I agree with the sentiment that you should keep the logo. Obviously, it'd be nice to have more than a couple seconds of a guy moving his head, but I know what you're doing is very time-consuming, and I think at the very least you should be encouraged by this first mini-screen-test. It looks good.

devhaven said:
It relation to that, the actual composition is a little unbalanced...Perhaps that is for effect too.
Click to expand...

I'm going to have to agree with this. What makes your task so difficult now is that you have to learn two crafts at once. You can't just have good-looking animation. The shots need to be composed well, and they need to cut together, so that means you also need to learn basic photography and filmmaking. Have fun with it, and good luck!
 
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