How do I begin to teach myself "real" stop-motion animation?

June 24, 2007 1:38 AM

After years of saggy play-doh models, Legos, dolls kidnapped from young cousins, cardboard sets, and detailing the play-doh with the tip of a dried-out ball point pen ... I'm interested in taking the next step in stop motion animation. Changing facial expressions! Custom colors not available in Crayola's play-doh catalog! Sophisticated sets! All this and more at 24 frames per second! But - how do I equip myself? Which books should I read, the really useful ones that'll be worth their price? Which materials (clay, armatures, etc) are best, and which ones to avoid? What sort of tools? A couple more questions inside.

I'm completely clueless about the "real" stop-motion animation process. I've been doing this for a while now, but on a very primitive level - as described above.

I don't have a fancy oven to fire clay - so I'll have to work with air-dry clay. I assume that coloring the clay involves mixing it with some sort of coloring agent, or painting it with a certain kind of paint. What is it? Some sort of color powder? Acrylic paint? Watercolors? Oil-based?

Rest assured that I'll be signing up for sculpture classes at the local community college this fall, but that's such a long time away. I'd like to start this summer, when I'm free of other classes and papers.

posted by Xere to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (13 answers total)

Here is a substantial tutorial blog post made by a friend. He started doing stopmo about two and a half years ago and there's a lot of progress-report stuff on his weblog about it, as well as tons of links to the resources he's found most helpful. If I were serious about doing stopmo, I would go to him first, partly because he's my friend, but also because his generosity and willingness to help others make things and do things are nearly unbounded. If you write to him, he'll certainly write back with helpful advice and encouragement. Have fun, Xere.
posted by cgc373 at 1:58 AM on June 24, 2007

I don't think animators use the sort of clay that you would fire, or even air-dry -- dried-out clay is sort of the opposite of what an animator wants, namely a substance that stays pliable for a very long time. I believe the most popular stuff for this purpose is Plasticine, which comes in a million colors that blend together nicely.

Also, you don't have to worry about 24 frames per second -- most animators get by comfortably with 12-15.
posted by jjg at 2:12 AM on June 24, 2007

I dont know about the other stuff but you can mix play doh like paint to make whatever colours you want... or at least you could in my day. I dont see why they would change that.
posted by missmagenta at 2:53 AM on June 24, 2007

You might find this forum useful.
posted by Tenuki at 3:40 AM on June 24, 2007

I highly recommend The Complete Animation Course. It has a chapter on stop motion animation, but it also contains a wealth of knowledge regarding animation itself - the principles, case studies, etc. If you're looking to take your animating to the next step, it makes sense to revisit the tried and true principles of animation; even if your models are still the same old ones, your work will just be better, more funnier. And the book's cheap!
And as mentioned by jjg, doing 24 frames per second will kill you and is unneeded. In fact it may look kind of weird, TOO smooth, because most stop ani is done at 12-15. Plus you effectively cut your work in half, thus allowing you to create 50% more story! Try using Plasticine, it's what I used when doing my stop ani commercials back in high school.
posted by Meagan at 4:19 AM on June 24, 2007

You want the clay soft, so you can 'move' it. That's why Plasticine is mentioned

For 'figures' (like people, animals...) you create a wire structure that you put the clay around (the wire helps keep the figure in place.)

You'll work @ 12 frames per second (not 24). The cheapest way into this (with film) is with a 16mm bolex (under $1k.) For video (at 15fps), there are stop animation software/controls (like Boinx iStopMotion - for the mac, I'm not sure about the pc).

The reason you go at 1/2 speed...well, frankly the audience doesn't really notice the difference, and it cuts your work in 1/2.
posted by filmgeek at 5:12 AM on June 24, 2007

If you do want to use some hardened clay for small non-moving parts & props, try fimo or sculpey, which bake in your oven. It comes in assorted colors and you can mix new colors together with good old color theory and some patient kneading.
posted by waterlily at 6:04 AM on June 24, 2007

The folks at Aardman wrote a great book about animation. They confusingly call it 3D animation, but it is a stop-motion book.
posted by O9scar at 9:03 AM on June 24, 2007

If you can get your hands on the vhs copy of Frog and Toad are friends from 1993 (listed on Amazon for around 30 dollars) you will be rewarded with a lovely "making of" bonus feature. We had it on tape when my son was little and he watched it over and over again and then I accidentally recorded over it! I remember lots of close ups of the work and some very informative descriptions.
posted by jvilter at 9:39 AM on June 24, 2007

I'll second the Aardman book as a great overview to give you the basic idea of how high quality stop motion work is done. It will give you the foundation to get started playing around with stuff and really, so much of the art form is derived from playing around with stuff and trying to make it do what you want.
posted by teishu at 9:50 AM on June 24, 2007

Third the Aardman book. It covers pretty much every aspect of production of stop motion animation. It's fabulous - especially the section on how to do lip synch. I used that as a basis for a project in which I had 9th graders create 30 seconds of lip synch done to 15 fps animation.

After a certain point, you're going to start to want to use armatures for your characters - they make animating a whole lot easier as you don't get the bottom heavy weeble look that you usually get in pure clay/fimo characters. If you start going into that realm, you'll want to get a catalog from Small Parts.
posted by plinth at 5:31 PM on June 24, 2007

Seconding Sculpey. The packages say that it air-dries, but in my experience, that literally takes years. It has a great consistency for sculpting, even very small things.
posted by zebra3 at 6:20 AM on June 25, 2007

If you want a really good introduction and grounding in how to do this right, consider Susannah Shaw's book, Stop Motion: Craft Skills for Model Animation.. It covers everything from equipment and materials, concept and practice, planning and technique, lighting and sound, special effects, post production, business issues, etc.

If you want to get into some serious armature work, consider Tom Brierton's Stop-Motion Armature Machining: A Construction Manual.
posted by kookoobirdz at 12:23 AM on November 4, 2007