Stop Motion World

Created by: Roberto Peña De La Vega

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.

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'sJoy 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 with a...

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.

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 aesthetic...

Good morning. A little inspiration in the realm of stop-motion animation. By the talented Kirsten Lepore, something heartbreakingly sweet...

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..."

Beautiful animation with a sinister twist by Beijing Motion Graphics house, 39 Degrees North:

If you're not familiar with the animations of Jan Švankmajer, you're in for quite a trip. The Czech artist and filmmaker is known for his metaphorical, captivatingly surreal stop-motion and claymation films, and is God to many (including talents such as Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam and the Brothers Quay).

Artist Pahnl Whatnow has breathed life into spray paint with his trippy amoeba-esque animated images. Whatnow created his "Aerosol Amoeba" by dripping spray paint on acetate for a total of 144 hours, and then condensed the motion down to four minutes.

In this tutorial, we learn how to create stop motion light painting for animation First, you need to be outdoors in the dark or in a very dark room. Then, grab a still camera that can open a shutter for a long amount of time to capture the lighting. Next, lock the camera down on a tripod. From here, get some light into your scene by using an LED light that can be place inside the image. Watch for light bouncing and then change your camera setting. When finished, you can edit on your software...

Shot with a Nokia N8 cell phone equipped with a 50x CellScope microscope, Dot is the world's smallest stop motion animated film. Created by the makers of the Wallace & Gromit series, the figures were made with a 3D printer, each hand-painted with the aid of a microscope. Watch as the heroine hops from scene to scene, Mario style:

Dentsu London collaborates with BERG to create this futuristic stop motion animation. Made with light drawings on the iPad, the result is beautiful. The first 1:40 of the video describes the creative process. Enjoy: "Making Future Magic".

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....

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...

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.

If you have yet to see the work of famed graffiti artist/filmmakerBlu, you're in for a real treat. Blu creates films with painted still images (graffiti style), installed in various public spaces. He photographs the paintings, and then assembles them into a stop motion animation.

Toy Story 3 has received rave reviews across the board. Curious, a couple of us here at WonderHowTo went to see it last night. We found it to be decent. Not fabulous. The opening was exhilarating. Full of action and humor and a thoroughly dynamic use of 3D, but the rest of the movie didn't exude the same energy. The story was sweet and touching, and the characters were as lovable as ever. However, I was looking for a little more action.

Does that (hopefully somewhat correct) tune ring any bells? Here's a reminder:

Loving Breakbot's newest single, Baby I'm Yours, featuring Irfane. But I'm even more impressed by the music video. Created by Irina Dakeva (of Wizz Design), the rotoscope animation was tediously made with over 2,000 watercolor paintings. Check out motionographer's interview with Irina on her process.

Man, I'm kinda jealous of this car's hair. It's blowing in the wind so nicely (mine just doesn't flow like that)!

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...

Well, you might need to take a few lessons in animation first.

French Canadian filmmaker Patrick Boivin's Iron Man parody, featuring his own baby daughter, is absolutely impeccably done. The special effects look FANTASTIC.

Far-out animation entitled "Love and Theft" by Andreas Hykade of Germany. Careful - there's some slightly risqué imagery in there (depending on how liberal-minded your boss is).

In this tutorial, from Zappos, learn how to make a simple stop motion video. This process is a lot easier than you would expect and this video is here to give you a step by step.You Will Need:*a constant light source that won't change*a remote trigger for your camera so your shots never move*props

This incredible brick film titled "Trinity Help" is a frame-accurate stop-frame animation of the famous bullet-dodge scene from The Matrix.

Brickfilms. Michel Gondry brought LEGOmation into the spotlight with his "Fell in Love With a Girl" music video (White Stripes). However, LEGOmation has been around since the late 80's, the first known brickfilm being Lindsay Fleay's The Magic Portal.

Fun little animation from Honest Directors, in which Google Maps hi-res satellite footage of New York is used to create a faux car chase through the streets of Brooklyn.

Amazing animation by Patrick Jean. NYC is destroyed by 8-bit evil forces from 70s and 80s video games such as Space Invaders, Pacman and Donkey Kong.

In this Film and Theater video tutorial you will learn how to make a claymation animation video. This is a Zappos how to video. The equipments that you will need for this are a camera on a tripod, a trigger so that your camera stays steady, constant source of light and clay. Make some animation characters with the clay. Start moving your characters around and take a picture of the movement. When you are editing, each picture will take up two frames. If you want to be in slow motion, then put...

This video will show you how to make a stop motion film using an editing program called Windows Movie Maker. Find a place to film your stop motion movie. Preferably a well lit area where the light source is constant. Set your camera on a tripod and position at the angle you prefer. Place the object you want to use in your film outside of the camera's view, and take a picture. Move your object slightly into the camera's view and take another picture. Repeat this many times, until your...

This clever stop motion film by comedy duo Rhet and Link uses 222 t-shirts and few special effects. To learn more about the process, check out the second video in the gallery below.

The first thing you have to do make a movie is to click on Start and go to windows Movie Maker. And then click on Import media to edit the video which you want. And then drag the selected video to Time line at the bottom. If you want to make your movie for less than a five seconds or so click on the Trim and drag it to your left hand side. When your done with that click on file menu and click on publish movie. You can name your file and can also choose the destination you want and then click on...

There's a HowTo behind everything, including the astounding, just released 3-D Avatar. Reviews across the board agree with one thing: the film is visually breathtaking. PopSci explains the technology behind the filmmaking.

There's something magical about stop-motion animation made with clay, it's an ideal medium for depicting strange transformations. In this short tutorial you'll learn how to make a simple claymation movie of your own. The video introduces you to some of the materials you'll need, shows you a little about animating and takes you through some of the steps to upload your animation onto your computer for editing.

You don't want to miss this animation. The overall concept -particularly the color, movement and sound- is beautiful. The piece is entitled "Box Animation, performed by Mike Edel, and created by Jordan Clarke.

VIDEOGIOCO, an insane animation by Donato Sanson and Enrico Ascoli. Careful. Definitely NSFW, particularly in the 0:30 range.

One great, award winning How-to. Produced 20 year ago.

If you're planning on being the next Ridley Scott of brickfilms, then maybe you need to start off with a few basics, like in this video tutorial about how to make a Lego man walking animation. Creating a world of moving legos for your "legomation" masterpiece starts with the simplest things... walking.