Props & SFX Cinematography Film & Photography Lighting Costuming & Wardrobe Set Design Directing & Producing Acting Puppetry Sound Editing Film & Theater WonderHowTo

Active Stop Motion Posts

iOS 17 Tips, Tricks, How-Tos, News

Start Your Day Off Right: Beautiful Oscar Nominated Short "The Lost Thing"

The Lost Thing is a lovely short written by Shaun Tan and co-directed by Tan and Andrew Ruhemann (executive producer of the fantastic doc My Kid Could Paint That). Based on the award-winning children’s book of the same title (also by Tan), the piece was created over a span of eight years(!) using a mix of CGI and 2D handpainted elements. Tan, whose background is in painting, spent much of the duration "carefully building, texturing and lighting of digitial elements to create a unique aestheti...

How To: Create and animate a stop motion LEGO brickfilm

Create and animate a stop motion LEGO brickfilm! Yes, that's right... you can make your very own animated brickfilm, but wait... what exactly is a brickfilm? Brickfilms are animated films using LEGO, Mega Bloks, or other plastic construction building block toys. Most are stop motion, but some brickfilms are even made with CGI, traditional animation and live action.

How To: Make Lego figures fly using stop-motion animation

Stop-motion animation is somewhat out of favor in the digital age, but there will always be a demand for its timeless look. This video will teach you one important technique for making stop-motion animation out of Legos: how to make them fly. Or at least appear to by flying in your movie. It features detailed instructions on what to do in your digital photo editing software on each frame to erase the support structures you've used to elevate your Lego minifigures, leaving you with seamless im...

How To: Add sound to stop motion films with iKITMovie

iKITMovie is stop motion animation software for PC's running Windows XP or Vista. All you need is a computer and a USB webcam or USB streaming camcorder and you are ready to make your own brickfilms or clay animation (claymation) movies. If you wish, you can simply import your JPG images (640x480) that you have already taken with your camcorder or digital still camera for simple editing.

How To: Make a stop motion film

This is a sequence of videos which will provide a stop motion tutorial. It's an amateur one and not expected to be a definitive one. I do encourage others who make stop motion films to also make a few for aspiring film makers and those with some experience such as myself.

How To: Make your own animated flip book

Why make a flip book? Because all animation – even stick-figure Flash animation and multilayered, highly technical 3-D effects – is built on, and can benefit from, the basics of the craft first developed by artists working at the beginning of the last century. And while fancy computer programs are nice, you can teach yourself these basics using nothing more than a pad of paper and a pen, and replay them over and over without any extra technology needed.

HowTo: Create a Six-Frame Animation with a Single Sheet of Paper

Pioneered by Rufus Butler Seder in his popular children's picture book Gallop!, and ably demonstrated by WonderHowTo favorite brusspup in the video below, "scanimation" refers to a novel (but distinctly old-timey) technique for cramming multi-frame animations onto a single sheet of paper by a process of superimposition and selective interference. Interested in creating your own scanimations? It's easier than you'd think. In the following clip, Paul Overton of Dude Craft presents a complete ov...

News: Papermation to the Psychadelic Meditations of Dan Deacon

Construction paper animator Jen Stark teams up with electronic music composer/rabble-rousing party-demigod Dan Deacon in the video below, titled "Believer". The animation is fantastic—likely constructed in a process not entirely unlike animator Ryan Kothe's paper Waves and Weaves. The basic principle: stop motion animation; so if you're inspired, start schooling yourself here.

The Joy of Destruction: Smashing, Guillotining, Igniting & More

Why is it so satisfying to squash, snap, squeeze and splatter? You know, squashing a juicy grape, snapping a twig, squeezing ketchup out of a packet—perhaps with your fist—or splattering mud across a sidewalk. But all of these actions are child's play next to animators Laura Junger and Xaver Xylophon's Joy of Destruction. The real joy of destruction is illustrated below—we're talking sawing ladies in half, exploding corn into popcorn with dynamite, burning cities, and rolling over statues wit...

News: Zoetrope + Bicycle Wheel = Cyclotrope

Kudos to student Tim Wheatley, who came up with this incredibly nifty DIY animation using a bicycle wheel, cardboard cut-outs, and wire to create a magical reinvention of the classic zoetrope, Earth's earliest form of animation (it first surfaced in China around 180 AD!). Simply give it a spin, and the animation comes to life. Inspired to make your own? First, learn the basic principles of the zoetrope here or here. Next, take a little advice from Tim to add the "cyclo" element:

News: 8-Bit Your Desk

Well, you might need to take a few lessons in animation first. Another cool 8-Bit animation (previously, Evil Pixels Demolish New York City). This one is short and sweet. And especially beautiful.

How To: Create your own episode of South Park using Flash CS4

In this super cool tutorial, learn how to create your very own episode of South Park using Flash CS4 and a couple of images you can download on the web. This tutorial is for any super fans who wish to spend some extra quality time with their characters, or for anyone interested in animation. These famous, foul mouthed, 2D characters are fun to move around and will do anything you need them to do once you get started! Get your fan fiction minds turning with this video!

News: Welcome To My Nightmare

Cyriak's latest animation features '50s stock footage remixed into a horror show. Our dark and twisted animator keeps churning them out, each creepier than the last. Be warned: "a journey into horribleness, not recommended for the faint-hearted or fragile-minded..." More by Cyriak:

News: The History of Life (On Acid)

After enjoying the sweet, yummy holiday cheer of the world's beginnings explained with cookie dough, enter Cyriak Harris' delightfully nightmarish acid trip alternative: "The abridged story of life on earth, as told through the medium of walking fingers." Previously, How Did He Do That?

How To: Create a 3D cartoon character with Xtranormal

This video will show you how to create a 3D cartoon character using a website called Xtranormal. In the program, you should first pick the scene where you want your action to occur as well as the 3D character which you would like to be present in the scene. You can then type a script and choose a voice for the character to speak. The website will be able to read your script and your character will say whatever you have typed. Next, you can add additional sounds and add actions to the cartoons...

How To: Make video clips into animated gifs

In this video, we learn how to make video clips into animated gifts. First, open Windows Movie maker and import a video file. Now, shorten the video to four seconds or less and save it. Now, go to the website gif ninja. Once on this site, you will see a section that says "tools", then click the button to convert your image to GIF. Once on this, you can browse and upload the file that you just created. Next, click "make my gif!" and a status bar will load on the bottom. When this is done loadi...

How To: Make an armature out of clay and foil for stopmotion

This video demonstration series shows the process of creating an armature for stop motion animation, claymation specifically, out of aluminum foil and polymer clay. Armatures need to be flexible to withstand the positioning and repositioning required to make stop motion animation, but still secure enough so that the material won't break. For this reason, a tin foil skeleton provides a sound structure to the clay armature. Watch this video animation tutorial and learn how to sculpt an armature...

How To: Make eyes for clay animation puppets

In this tutorial, we learn how to make eyes for clay animation puppets. First, drill a hole inside of a block of wood, then insert a bull so it fits snug inside of the hole. After you have done this, use a drill to make a hole that goes half way down through the pupil. Now, use paint to fill in the hole where the pupil would be at. Push the balls into clay to hold them in place while painting. Make sure the dots you have on both eyes are even. When finished, paint a black circle around them, ...

Prev Page