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STOP MOTION ANIMATION - Limitless creativity

Stop Motion Animation is the art and craft of taking a series of images and then splicing them together in a series. Think of it as flipping through a picture book. Have you ever taken a series of pages or cards and drew a different image on each one and then flipped through the card rapidly? It creates a moving picture. This is the theory that all movies are made on too! A movie is just a series of pictures that are played so fast that the eye and mind are tricked into believing it is real.

 

(Above is a screen shot of a soldier animation I made. It took me about 30 minutes to do the whole thing and it was my first animation. Just to see how it is done. )

Here is the series of pictures I took to make this animation of the soldier. I took a picture, moved the model a little bit then took another picture. I did this until the whole motion of the model bringing up the knife was complete. After this I imported all the pictures into Movie Maker and turned them into an animation. It is really an easy process.

 

 

(New Jan 30, 08) A Paper Knight A video tutorial that shows you how to do an animation using a simple drawing. This stop motion work uses a drawing of a knight. It uses 114 images, took me 90 minutes to do and the animation lasts 28 seconds. See the Tutorial here

 

 

The Magic Egg Animation Project

I am currently working on this new animation where I built a little booth for the egg to grow in. Chec out the project and see how I did it here - The magic egg animation project

 

Making a Stop Motion Animation Jig - Here is a video that shows you a jig I made to do a stop motion animation project. A jig is very important, particularly if you need to take a picture every day over the course of months like I did for this project. See the Animation Jig Video

 

 

Stop Motion Animation Used to be a rather tedious task that required sophisticated equipment and a lot of time. But todays technology has changed that. If you have a cheap digital camera and a computer with Windows XP you have everything you need to make your own stop motion animations. Of course you also need creativity!

I have plenty more animations that you can watch and I have some tutorials that show you exactly how to make your own. With this type of animation the sky is the limit! You can really fire up your imagination and do some amazing things - and all you need is a digital camera and a computer!

The Creativity of Stop Motion Animation

The sky truly is the limit with this craft! Let me explain. Almost anything at all can be brought to life with this technique. I poured a pile of sand onto a piece of paper and turned it into an animation (The Sand Whirlpool) The picture on the left is of the animation I made. It starts out as a pile of sand it then grows arms and spins like a galaxy. Easy to do and fun. You see, you don't need anything fancy to make an animation. You just need a bit of creativity.

 

 

Here is another animation I made from a piece of wire. The little wireman pokes his head into the picture in several different places, waves then leaves.

 

 

 

Want to try some stop motion animation yourself? I have a tutorial

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