Animating With CLAY!

Clay as in "the material"... not as in "a guy named Clay".

Many people are introduced to animation (and stop motion in particular) through clay, or plasticine, or even Play-Doh.  The material is readily available, and is easy to work with.

There's some real advantages to working strictly with clay. First of all you don't need an armature! The clay itself is all you need. The trick is that the clay can't stand up on its own (if you try to make too tall of a character), but if you can work within those constraints, you're in for a good time.

Another advantage is how incredibly animate-able it is. If you are up for it, you can sink whole days and weeks in carefully sculpting and re-sculpting every tiny piece of material. The results can be astounding. Growing out of this is another fun thing- if you love to sculpt and craft, it's a chance to do just that,  a LOT.

Another good thing- the material (as mentioned earlier) is cheap, and easy to find.

We like it so much at Mad Lab, we just had to create a little something out of clay!

Go ahead- let 'er rip!

Just click HERE.

EXCLUSIVE Frankenweenie Promo Pics

Lots of pictures at the bottom of this posting!

Mad Lab was strolling the aisles of Fan Expo yesterday, and one of the classiest and neatest things we found was a promo display for Tim Burton's upcoming stop motion feature, Frankenweenie.

There was around 4 sets on display, encased in glass, and on those sets were a variety of posed puppets. The displays allowed interaction. For example, in the lab set, you could turn switches to activate elements within the set.

Now having seen more of the character designs in person, and more of the set pieces and art direction, there's a true warmth and humour to the project that might see the film really succeed. It shares a visual style with The Corpse Bride, to be sure, but with a readily accessible sense of humour. The project feels FUN, and truly charming, as opposed to ultra slick, and cold. I think the pic of the
"Sea Monkeys science project" (very bottom) says a lot. That visual gag is funny, evocative, and intensely charming.

And the homage to Vincent Price in the teacher (?) puppet is wonderful.

This display was a real hit- tonnes of crowds, all peering in, taking snapshots. Very classy, with helpful Frankenweenie reps on hand to answer questions and to keep things fun. Very impressive. Surprisingly WARM and full of heart, for something that a first glance seems cold. Sort of like a resurrected family pet?!

Will Frankenweenie win hearts more effectively than Paranorman, the other "creepy but fun stop motion feature" of Summer 2012? Guess we'll see!

How To Make A Miniature Severed Arm

1. Find a very tiny person. Rip his or her arm off. VOILA! Or- get some armature wire from an art supply store. Craft a simple arm with fingers. This will be like the skeleton for the arm, on to which you will add "flesh" and "skin". And since the wire is soft but strong, it will allow you to pose the arm when you are done.

2. Glue foam (even a kitchen sponge works) on to the arm in the shape of a long tube. This is the "flesh". Trim the foam down till it's "arm-like" in its proportion and shape.

 3. Tint liquid latex (available at art stores- get Burma brand, it's the only kind widely available that works). Tint the latex with acrylic paint till it's the colour of the skin you want (careful- it dries much darker, so do a test).

 4. Paint the latex on to the arm. This latex is the "skin" that is on top of the "flesh" (sponge). Keep applying coats to the arm and fingers, allowing it to dry between coats.

 5. Add little weird bits of latex on the end of the arm, or anywhere you want a "wound". Tint some more latex blood colour, and use that to glue to the bits on, and to give it a nice gory look.

6. Sculpt some bone bits for the end from Sculpy, and attach it with hot glue. Add some gory bits of latex around the seam, so it hides any mess from the hot glue.

 You now are the proud owner of an awesome severed arm that is capable of being posed however you want. Animate it! Scare your sister (or brother, or dog).

When the therapist asks you why you spent a week making a tiny severed arm, mutter something about "the voices told me to". The additional therapy sessions will be a great way to get out of school/work.

Alexander Gorelick- Stop Motion Maestro

 This pic is from Alex's website, and features non-Mad Lab work he has done (just to be clear).

We have a larger stop motion project that we are developing, that is full of spooky goodness. We've been working very hard on it, to say the least.

Essentially, we're getting a promo package together that we hope will WOW everyone, and give the world complete assurance that this project is going to be a wonderful thing to behold.

Part of that promo package is a piece of promo animation, that shows off a central character, the tone of the project (funny and spooky), and the overall production value we are capable of achieving.

To that end, we reached out to a remarkable stop motion animation talent, Alexander Gorelick, to tackle the actual animation of the promo piece.

Alex is, in the truest sense of the word, a maestro. The life he can bring to a puppet borders on the uncanny. We're beyond excited to have him bringing our creation to life.

IT'S ALIVE!!!!

If you are a stop motion fan, you MUST check out his website, and his demo reel.

You can watch check it all out, here.

Directing The Eye of The Audience

DIRECTING THE EYE OF THE AUDIENCE is a very important aspect of animation. In brief, if something is moving (and other things are not), the eye is going to focus on what is moving. It probably all goes back to having to watch for predators and prey when we were hunting (and hunted) creatures. In other words "if it moves, it's worth paying attention to, because I can either eat it or be eaten by it".

Animators use this constantly. So if you watch this clip a few times, you'll see what we mean. In the background, first Fitness Class Zombie moves, and growls, while looking in (and down) at Living Corpse Zombie. Next, Living Corpse Zombie moves, and reacts, and then- BOTH zombies look towards Springtime Zombie in the foreground. With this, the audience is not only having its eye directed by what is moving, it is having its eye directed by the eyes of the zombies! What are they looking at?

With that, the foreground zombie comes to life, and lifts up the Mad Lab logo, and has his acting moment.

So the end result is a movement of the audience's eye from screen left (in the background) to screen right in the foreground! Like reading a book (if you come from a country that reads from left to right, that is). And that controlled movement across the frame (and in depth) is fun and dynamic to watch.

Cause at a basic level, the pleasure of watching animation is the pleasure of simply watching things move! It's up to the animation team to cater to that pleasure, and manage (direct) the eye of the audience- within the shot, as well as across shots (through editing).

AIN'T ANIMATION FUN?!!!!!

Little Aluminum Pieces

Aluminum is a great material. It's basically like a really, REALLY hard wood. You can work it with basic hand tools, and basic power tools, into custom shapes that are very strong. Then you can "tap" it, which means "put screw threads into it", so that you can connect puppet parts. Now, if a puppet part breaks, you can replace just that ONE broken part.

For anyone serious about making their own armatures, aluminum is a good material to focus on. You can get very good, durable, effective armatures (the block kind), but you don't need massive equipment or super specialized training.

These are bits for our current stop motion project. They came out pretty sweet.

We'll be posting in more detail about the project as time goes on, so be sure to check back.

New Production Begins

We've started work on a new stop motion project. Today was spent getting the crew together, getting storyboards up, and generally game planning. It's a small project, but with a bigger crew than we've used before, so that's exciting.

We'll reveal more as time goes on. And we'll be posting photos and update blurbs here (and on FB, Twitter, and YouTube) as time goes on.

Check back soon for more updates...