The early stages of my set for my Animation finale this semester! The bricks were made with foam board from the Dollar Tree and cheap acrylic paint from Walmart. I can’t say I came up with this on my own as I followed a tutorial by @righteousrobot on Instagram, an artist who also happens to work with stop motion. The bench is comprised of a mix of popsicle sticks, paper straws, paper, the plastic from a sushi box, and also cheap acrylic paint from Walmart. Fortunately, I can say that the idea is solely mine!  

Here’s two of the puppets for my animation! You can see them in the opening scene. The process of creating the illusion of them walking upright on their own was a major hurdle to overcome. 

I initially thought pipe cleaners taped to the back and wrapped to the top of the kitchen rack would work. It proved to be very flimsy as the puppets were too heavy and would fall. I then tried using paper straws and that also proved to have the same problems. Like with most of my work, I have no idea how I came to my conclusion but I decided “Why not use LEGOS?” 

I created these sort of fishing rods and I would tape each leg to the ends of the “rods.” Each leg would be slid through its own hole in the kitchen rack with the bent part acting as a stopper. It wasn’t too perfect of a solution as I would sometimes hold the legs in a certain position with my hands, but that’s why it’s called movie magic. 

A simple BTS shot of my animation process! It acted as a sort of teaser for my followers. I also wanted my process to be accessible in case anyone wanted some ideas or inspiration for their own stop motion animations.