noob question.

ok i’m wanting to do an animation that has a block of clay become a creature. I’m not sure how to animate this process though. When I make a change to the block of clay in later frames the change is reflected all the way back to frame 0. What am i doing wrong?

Use shapekeys. For example http://www.blendercookie.com/2010/10/29/creating-a-werewolf-part-1/