I feel a bit bad just calling him the “weird boy”, but I’m terrible at coming up with decent names for my doodles and blog posts. I really like to try and come up with something imaginative and different to “doodle number 3″, so maybe someone can help me come up with a few ideas for interesting naming conventions..?
This is now my second attempt at a doodle using my new method of scanning in a drawing and colouring it using photoshop. My first picture was just done on plain white paper with a pencil, but for this one I used canvas and went over the pencil with a pen. I think the natural grainy texture of the canvas really suits this image (although I imagine it could still be easily achieved with a photoshop filter).
It seems this experimentation has paid off as I’m quite pleased with the finished result. I think next time I will try and attempt something a little darker and more complicated using a similar style. In the meantime, please feel free to submit your own experiments in drawing and/or photoshop in the “Gallery” section of our forum.
PS. If you think you have an interesting name for this little character, please share your ideas in the comments section
I had originally planned to start animating this week. However, I have spent most of my time sketching out ideas, reading tutorials, and watching videos for some inspiration. As all of my previous animation has been purely experimental, I really wanted to make my next stop-motion video a little more meaningful or entertaining.
As part of my research, I’ve decided to buy a book. I used to think that all the information you could ever want was freely available on the Internet, but it seems that claymation and stop-motion animation might be a bit of a small niche, even for the word wide web. Sites like animateclay.com are good, but they just don’t seem to go into enough depth, or suggest alternative ways of doing things beyond the scope of products they sell in their e-shops.
The book I purchased (and will be eagerly awaiting for in the post) is called Stop Motion: Craft Skills for Model Animation. There are a few others that I’d like to get my hands on, but I’ll try reading this one first and pass on any good tips I find.
This has been my first doodle in a while. I spent quite a lot of time today experimenting with different art and colouring styles. In the end what I have uploaded here is quite basic, but I hope to add some more images once I’ve finished the colouring stage of each picture.
To view some of my “work in progress” artwork, check out my twitter page or the forum for regular updates.
It’s taken a lot of time and effort to try and bring some sort of focus to the Noddegamra website. As something that just started out as a bit of fun and a way to communicate with friends, time has definitely brought about a need for change. With the community thinning out a bit due to other competitive sites (such as facebook, cracked, digg, etc) there has been a real need to find something unique in order to offer something fresh here. The main focus of Noddegamra now is on creativity as well as the community.
I finally did it. I tried out a lip-synced claymation (stop-motion) video!
It’s not quite perfect, but not bad for a first attempt. I’m quite pleased with it!
It took ages! The whole process of preparation, creating the model, setting up, shooting, creating the video and then editing it took just over 2 hours! At first I was a little bit disappointed of how the mouth didn’t quite match the words very well, but then I thought it would be better to create something than to throw it all away. My old art teacher used to go mental if I threw anything in the bin, so if you ever stumble onto this site I hope your happy! lol.
Another claymation video, another original name and.. er.. script!?
“The Blue Blob” is my second attempt at stop-motion. Whilst in my previous blog post I said I would try out new software, I was riddled with technical problems. So, I stuck with Windows Movie Maker. Not because there is anything wrong with AnimatorHD (that I have found yet), more due to the fact that the camera I was using let me down and didn’t quite give me the options and settings I require.
Whilst filming, I was hit suddenly with a message telling me that the battery was low. About 3 seconds later the camera completely died on me. Unfortunately, the cable connecting it to my laptop does not recharge the camera. The batteries that required replacing are situated underneath the camera, which meant I couldn’t remove them whilst still connected to the tripod. It was a bit of a disaster. Moving the camera or tripod slightly would mean that I’d have to start all over again.
After much frustration, stomping around the house looking for batteries, and making weird growling noises I finally managed to resolve the problem by replacing 3 of the 4 batteries (which was very difficult). Once I finished filming I transferred my files over the my laptop to find that several frames (photos) were missing. This is why the walking animation at the start suddenly jerks forward, and why the ball rolling in and up to become the Blue Blob’s nose isn’t very fluid. This may have had something to do with the camera saying it’s memory was full on the last photo I took, or because the batteries died? I’m not sure what happened really, but I will definately have another pop at this once I get my new camera (which I recieved today, with a cracked screen.. dammit! – now awaiting a replacement).
Loads of stuff went wrong, but I was determined to get a video out of the evening’s work. I learnt a lot as I tried to make the animation a bit more complex and I’m still happy with the results, but hope I am not quite as unlucky next time.
After recently posting my Green Blob Claymation video on this site, the forum, and my facebook page, I have received some great feedback. One of the common questions I received was how did I make the video. Rather than post a lengthy reply to numerous people, I thought I’d post up an article here on how I made “The Green Blob” animation.
In order to make my stop-motion animation I used the following items:
A digital camera (although you can use a webcam)
A tripod
Windows Movie Maker (free with Vista)
White Card
A paperclip
Plasticine (I bought a big box from Toys R Us for £9.99, although they also do packets for about £1 each)
I feel a bit bad just calling him the “weird boy”, but I’m terrible at coming up with decent names for my doodles and blog posts. I really like to try and come up with something imaginative and different to “doodle number 3″, so maybe someone can help me come up with a few ideas for interesting naming conventions..?
I had originally planned to start animating this week. However, I have spent most of my time sketching out ideas, reading tutorials, and watching videos for some inspiration. As all of my previous animation has been purely experimental, I really wanted to make my next stop-motion video a little more meaningful or entertaining.
After recently posting my 
