Check out this amazing animation. This video took over 1500 hours of animating to complete! I am very impressed with the great job done on this. Inspiring!

Hope everyone enjoyed it!

See ya,

Ryan

Recently I’ve been discovering the uses of double sided tape when animating Stikfas. Double sided tape doesn’t show as much as blu tack and it’s a lot less bother. Check out some of the ways I’ve used tape in the following pictures.

Just your friendly neighborhood Stikfa.

You can animate your Stikfa running!

Or climbing!

Or sticking to the side of a coffee mug.

Just get yourself a handy dandy roll of double sided tape today! You won’t be disappointed.

See? It’ll hardly show at all while you’re animating.

Hope this tip is useful for you animators out there. Have fun animating!

Merry Christmas!

~Ryan

Check out these really cool sculptures from Zoho International Artforms. At 17 inches high and with over 500 parts, these guys are probably one of the most flexible armatures you’ll ever see. They’re constructed out of brass and steel and weigh 16 pounds. They also come with a magnetic base so you put them in all kinds of cool poses. Only 25 were made and you have to call to get the price. If you have to ask, you know it’s too much. But still, if anyone gets one be sure to tell me how they work out.

For more info check out their website: http://www.zohoartforms.com/index.htm

See ya,

Ryan

Macro photography shows the subject large as, or larger than actual life. It allows you to capture intricate details of tiny objects, which is especially useful in stopmotion animation.

To focus on subjects like this, twist the camera focus ring all the way to the left, and place the subject very close to the lens.

Bringing the camera close to your stopmotion actors helps the audience connect with them.

Arrow graphic credit goes to dragonartz.net

Here is a really cool example of a stop motion skateboarding movie. However, this movie was done a bit differently than normal. Watch the movie and then watch the making of clip.

As you can see, the animator shot all of his background footage live. He then animated the character in front of a green screen doing all the flips and jump. Afterwords he cleaned up the footage and composited the character onto the background footage. A program like Adobe After Effects enables you to do stuff like this. The animator, Patrick Boivin, is a French Canadian filmmaker.

Hope you enjoyed!
Ryan

Cast your votes in the Timberdoodle Video Contest! There’s not a few stopmotion entries from your fellow animators. Check these out!

• Pirates steal Blockus with help from giant hand.
• Family receives Timberdoodle catalog and places order. Moving lips.
• Block tower is built with paperclip crane.
• Animated writing (very cool) and animated origami sculpture (extremely cool).
• Stikfas battle over a motorcycle until it morphs into a giant robot.
• Well-animated Stikfa host introduces the Stikfa lineup.
• Personable stikfas introduce Timeberdoodle product lineup, do math, re-score “Jack Spelt” (with epic results) and have way too much fun with the animation kit sound effects.
• Hannibal seeks Timberdoodle, “the source of all things fun and educational”. Great example of papercraft animation with pivot points.

This contest made our day. Vote before Tuesday for a $5 Timberdoodle coupon.

This is Ryan here. I’ve been away for awhile but now I’m back and looking forward to making some neat posts on this blog. I’m excited about the movies that people are making so keep up the good work!

I know a lot of people are interested in improving their animation, especially Stikfas which are a lot more difficult to animate. This is one of the coolest Stikfa animations I’ve ever seen – so make sure to check it out. This short was not made by us but I’m highlighting it as an example of some very creative animating and cinematography.

We really like the techniques that were used in the making of this movie. These include using LEGO pieces to clamp the Stikfas to the baseplate to keep them from moving during the filming.

It took quite awhile to make this short. Some of the shots are very complex and took a long time to animate just a few seconds. Patience and attention to details are the key to making an animation realistic.

If you want to see how it was made, check out Errol’s blog. There are some very interesting techniques and tools that he covers. http://errolsmovies.blogspot.com/

Hope everyone enjoys!

The results played back at a stunning 4-5 frames per second, and there wasn’t any sound. But our movies looked awesome, and we were hooked.

One memorable birthday, we were given a capture card. This let us plug the camera’s video cable – the yellow one that plugs into the VCR – into the computer. Finally we had a way to animate with live video using framegrabber software!

This was before digital camcorders were common. Nowadays, most camcorders plug into your computer using a Firewire cable, and record to the MiniDV format instead of VHS tapes. Firewire cables look like this:

This cable sends a video signal to your computer. The image quality from a typical digital camcorder is usually very good. With a resolution of 720×480, and the camera’s high(er) quality optics, you’ll get great pictures.

Some adjustments will be required before using a camcorder to animate. If you encounter a term here, like “manual focus”, look it up in your camcorder’s manual.

• Plug the camcorder into the wall. Animating on battery power will last just long enough to frustrate you.
• Take the tape out of the camcorder. You won’t be using it.
• The camera must have manual focus. Flip the “manual focus” switch, or dig through the camera’s menus and turn it on.
• Turn off auto-exposure. Again, flip the switch, or dig through the menus.
• Finally, use a tripod, adjusted to the height of your table. Or come up with a creative way to fasten the camera to your animating surface.

All set? Now you’ll need a driver for the computer so the animation software recognizes your camera. If you are animating with our kit, use this driver

Panasonic VFW DV Codec (75 KB)

Unzip this file on your computer, right-click “PANADV.INF” and select “Install”. Done!

Now connect the camcorder to your computer with a firewire cable. Sometimes you’ll need a 4-to-6 pin cable. Sometimes a 4-to-4 pin cable. It depends on your camera and computer ports. We have a little 4-to-6 pin adapter, so we can convert cables in a pinch.

Start your animation program. You should see a live image from the camera. If not, check to make sure the DV camera is selected as the camera “source”.

From here, you’re free to animate using the camcorder like any normal camera. Since you’re using manual focus, adjust the focus with the camera’s focus ring, or through the camera menus. You should also be able to zoom in and out using the camera’s zoom buttons, and adjust the exposure – again using the menus. All other actions, changing framerate, grabbing frames, and such can be done in the animating software.

While we were at the Arlington Book Fair, we met Blake Roberson. Blake gave us a CD of movies of he’s made, including this re-creation of troops invading Normandy on D-Day. He gave us an inside scoop on the making of this film. Check it out!

Q: Why did you decide to make a D-Day movie?
Blake: Well, I’ve always loved WWII. The history, the stories, the valor of the men. So I wanted to show my thanks by making a video to give an example of what they did, even if it wasn’t very scary in Lego.

Q: Tell me about your LEGO collection. What themes do you like?
Blake: I enjoy making movies that tell of war and courage on the battlefield.

Q: Some of the LEGO parts are pretty cool. Where did the helmets come from? The guns? What sets were used?
Blake: The sets and the ship were all made from scratch, and my imagination. The helmets are from brickarms.com I love the weapons that they make. They bring sets to life.

Q: How long did it take you to make this movie?
Blake: Relatively, not that long. I’d say about maybe an hour to get all set up.

Q: We’re often asked how to make water and explosions. You did both in your movie. How did you do this?
Blake: The water explosions were easy, simply take a 2×4 blue brick and two 1×2 blue bricks and make a semi-circle by placing the 1×2s against the long end of the 2×4. Keep adding on to that after every frame. The waves were made by taking like many 4×8 plates and laying them out on the base board. Then just move them up a little at a time.

Q: Do you have any favorite video editing or animation software?
Blake: My favorite animation software would have to be SMA =). As for editing software, Windows Movie Maker is fine, but I also enjoy using Video Works 6 because it has certain features that WMM doesn’t.

Q: Do you have any favorite Brickfilms?
Blake: Well, I love some of the stuff that Nathan Wells does, like Flashbacks, and I love watching the stuff that ZachMG does, they are my inspiration.

Q: What advice would you give to a beginning animator?
Blake: Keep practicing and don’t lose your edge. If you lose your edge, then you lose your urge to animate!

Q: Looking ahead, what will your next movie be?
Blake: Well I have a lot of ideas, I eventually plan on making another Lego WWII movie, but this time about paratroopers. My current project is hopefully going to be a series based off of the game Half-Life 2, but I’ll be adding a spin to the story such as a protagonist who isn’t silent, a plot with a Christian theme, and a tale of redemption. For all you Half-Life lovers out there, you will see things that don’t appear in the game, but it’s my interpretation of the story. I’ll keep you posted.

Thanks Blake! We love fan movies. If you have a film to share with the world, send it in! We’d like to see it.

I noticed this today among my YouTube subscriptions. This is a fast way to make something “fly” through the air. Take your character or object, stick it to to your background, and grab some frames of the character moving, either up or down. Some camera shake helps too.

And thanks calebrockinout123 for noticing the UP poster kinda looks like DOWN…