Stop Motion How-To: The Different Kinds of Stop-Motion Animation

Today, I'm going to talk about some of the different techniques that can be used in stop-motion animation.


Clay Animation

Clay animation (Which is personally my favorite type of Animation) involves sculpting and animating your model in mainly clay. Here's and example from the Cracking Contraptions Wallace and Gromit series:





Toy-Mation

Toy-mation uses a toy, such as an action figure or a Lego figure as the model used for animation. NathanWells made the following toy-mation/brick film clip for the 30th anniversay of the Lego mini figures:




2-D Clay Animation

In 2-D clay animation, a flat clay character is laid on a flat surface such as a table and made to look like he is standing. Here's an example from a short Marc Spess made using 2-D claymation.


Paper Animation

Paper animation utilizes the same concept as 2-D clay animation. The only difference is that the animator uses paper cutouts instead of a clay figure. Here is a great animation, made by Megan Brain for a United Airlines commerical during the Summer Olympics.




These are just a few examples of stop-motion animation. The limits to the models and settings are dependent only the animator's imagination.