Weirdhat is having a profound influence on me. I found a chunk of plasticine yesterday and made a plasticine dinosaur. I decided to use my logitech web cam and the stop motion feature in premiere to do a claymation stop motion animation. It includes audio so turn on your speakers and laugh your a off. It my first plasticine stopmotion. I did one with a goose neck lamp years ago. Enjoy
I need a better camera, lighting, special van Aker modeling plasticine, and special aluminium armature rigs before I can do anything major. Thanks, for the compliment, I’m glad you like my reptilian friend. Dunke.
You don’t need special rigs. here is what I do,…: make your basic skeleton out of wire. sure aluminum armature wire works well, but sometimes you just make do. take your wire and bend it up how you like it. now mix up some 2 part epoxy putty, and put it around the calves, thighs, ribs. wherever he doesn’t have to bend. It is a heck of a lot faster than building little ball and socket joints, but if you have to, here is a fast way: order a compound called friendly plastic from burman industries in van nuys california. weld a small ballbearing to a welding rod. take a little tube of some kind, pvc or whatever, prepare the friendly plastic, and shove the ball into the plastic, just deep enough so it stays in. the plastic shrinks just a touch as it cools, so you will always have a nice snug fit. Also, if you’re doing a person especially, you might want to consider using bits of foam and fabric to create his body. you won’t have to unsquish it every time you squish it. When shooting use a piece of software that does onion skinning. that way you have a refference from frame to frame.
And here’s a little tip on making things float and fly: Put a piece of verticle glass in your scene somewhere. That way, as long as you are careful with the lighting, and keep a small ammount of glass cleaner handy, you can make some really good floating/flying effects…also…
if a character has to talk alot, you can make a mold, and alter each casting slightly. the clay equivelent of rvk keyframing. This is a character I made for a claymation piece that is in the works. Unfortunately most of it was destroyed during to what I now refer to as ‘The great crash’. ==>
Wow. That is very helpful. Thanks for the information. Any tips on how to make molds and some recommendations on software? It would be appreciated Thanks
Sure, the first thing you have to do is get a clay that doesn’t contain sulphur. that means no plastecine. then you get another compound called baloon rubber, which is just runny latex, also obtainable from burman. coat your head, hand, whatever as if you are making a candle, letting it cure between layers. a few minutes usually. then, take a clay ‘worm’, and extrude it along where you want your mother mold (the white one) edge to be. mix some plaster with some cheese cloth and form it around the rubber mold on one side. when it dries, remove the clay worm, maybe clean up the plaster edge a bit, and apply some vaseline to the edge where it will meet the other half. then make the other half, take out the rubber mold, and split it down the back with a razor. pull out the head, put the rubber mold into the mother mold, strap them w a rubber band, melt down some plastecine on low heat ( somewhere well ventilated) and also using a heat gun if you have one, then when it’s runny, pour it in, and throw it into the fridge for a few. you may want to use a bowl full of sand to stabilizre it. Oh, and be sure to get all the air bubbles out of your first few layers of latex. and if you are worried about shrinkage be sure to get pre vulcanized mold making latex.
Hehe, Bitte (Well, “Danke” is written with an “a” but dont mind mate
with the hints of Modron, you can create some good stuff - if I’ll have some free time, I’ll try it out too But then with a green background to do some after effects and perhaps put in a nice background animation… lets see
Thanks for the tips, Modron. I hope you put your claymation here so we can all we see it. I am looking forward to seeing it.
Kniffo, I hope you do some as well. I look forward to seeing it as well. Thanks for the encouragement.
I found this piece of software that looks pretty interesting, it is called Anasazi Stop motion with onion skinning. It’s free as in free open source like blender.
Any tips on how to make molds and some recommendations on software? It would be appreciated Thanks 
(Well, “Danke” is written with an “a” but dont mind mate