Claymation?

Question

I am trying to make claymations to post on the internet. I need some tips from any serious clay animators. Like what stuff to use, how to make the figures, and how to film it and stuff.

Answer 1

Hey Kimberly,

The internet is full of lessons in claymation. Here are some samples of text found on the internet, and some additional sites that will help you. The more you read on this topic, the more you will see ideas you can pick up on and learn.

* Develop a concept that lends itself to a short story or simple morphing of an object/figure
* Delineate the story in individual action frames by using a storyboard

- Each frame represents a different pose of the clay object/figure
- Each frame represents one digital photo taken of the pose
- A collection of frames represents a story

* Create a simple armature that will support your clay object/figure
* Apply clay to the armature to create the object/figure
* Pose the object/figure on a set
* Take digital photos of each pose

Answer 2

I am not doing claymation but I do figure modeling.
So I can tell you that if you want to do good claymation you have to first practice your modeling skills a lot. Like everything the more you do it the easier and faster it will go. For claymation use oil based clay (e.g. plasticine as it will stay workable.
You have to consider what kind of figures you want to make - cartoony ones or very realistic ones? As you will want to express emotion in your models you should study facial expression - what features make a figure appear sad, happy?
A book you can read is by charles Darwin"the expression of emotion in man and animals" another by Gary Fagin: "The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expression". Also check out books which teach drawings of cartoons.
In addition to practicing your modeling skill you should start to think about the story. A good claymation movie has both. Once you got your modeling skills down, and have a good story worked out, then come back and ask about filming it. There is not much use filming if you haven't gotten those two things worked out first, and if you are just starting it probably will take you a while.
And watch claymation movies for inspiration while you are at it and learn from them. Mike and Spikes festival of animation used the have a couple every time. Look at the simple ones, you don't want to start out with Wallace and Grommit immediately...though if you watch a DVD of wallace and grommit, I know at least the last one has a sequence on it which shows how they make the animations.

Answer 3

Claymation is a tedious process and the scale you work at will enforce the detail you can work with: facial expression that is realistic in some way will require figures bigger than Barbie dolls while an animated duck with an opening mouth and moving feathers might be a few inches tall. You may have to make figures in different scales: perhaps some big heads for closeup detail, smaller bodies for walking.
You will be using any materials that work - heads might be molded of polyclay if all the animation is to be on the surface. Plasticine is the most common material and is available in colors but not as many as polyclay.
You will be making molds, of plaster or metal so fhat you can make dozens of heads, hands, arms, etc. because they have to be positioned and break. Depending on what you do with the body, it can be stiffer material and last longer or need to be molded for repeated copies.
To "film", you must have a rigidly mounted camera that can take one picture at a time and have a method to merge the images. You must have controlled lighting so it does not flicker lighter and darker for the successive images.