Third Video

Finally got some time to play and animate the bear. It's another short video.
In the first part, the bear jumps off the chair and bumps into it after he lands.
In the seconds part, I just move the bear around a bit.
The timing here is approx 15 fps.

Bear Test

Second Video

Trying my hand at moving the camera. Most shots I see are with the camera in a fixed position, which is probably what I would do normally, but I thought I would give this a go and see what kind of result I got (and learn some things in the process)

Test Subject

I went and bought some modeling clay for the kids, and some for me too. I'm using Claytoons brand which seems to be pretty good.

I wanted to play around with a simple character, so I stole a chair from my daughter's play house and built a little bear out of clay

I have a set of eyes and noses, but don't change them as clay is definitely a challenge to work with. I've been reading some blogs and finding tips/tricks for various things.

Here's a couple of shots of the test subject, my cardboard set and my camera. I'm using a Canon FS100 video camera hooked up to my Canopus ADVC 110. I really like the ADVC 110, but the FS100 really is not a good camcorder as you hit its limits really quickly even when just shooting normal video. For this purpose, it's just fine though.

First Claymation Video

A year or two ago my brother bought me a birthday gift; Honestech Claymation Studio 1.0. It sat on a shelf in my office for a long time, but with a small renaissance in stop motion animation occurring, I decided to take it down and look at it.

Once I started, Caleb saw what I was doing and decided he wanted to give it a go. I set up a little green screen using some fluorescent foam core and Caleb built the puppet. We had a good time making him move around. Took us about 30 minutes to shoot and then another 20 or so to get it edited.

We're using Honestech Claymation Studio 1.0 as a frame grabber/onion-skinner and Canopus Let's Edit 2.0 for the chromakeying.