Stop-Motion Character Animation

Inanimate Wings

Artists and animators can be very ambitious. That's one of the best things about us, and also one of the worst things about us, because in my case, it creates one of my apparent weaknesses: I overlook my own limitations, and I plan to do more than I can actually accomplish.

This is my first character animation in stop motion, and it's not nearly as polished and spectacular as I dreamed it would be. I didn't even have enough time to edit out the strings like I did with the leaf drop animation.

But just one look at my amateurish makeshift "studio", and I'm pretty sure my passion, ambition, best efforts, and probably insanity are obvious.

My character of choice was my basic wooden mannequin. I chose this over making my own clay character because I feared that I would spend too much time designing, detailing and polishing the look of a sculpted figure; another one of my strengths/weaknesses. And to give myself enough space, I did this assignment in my bedroom in my parents' vacation home in Modesto.

I took the advice I got from the professional critique for my leaf drop assignment, and built myself a rig so that I can suspend my character in the air without doing it by hand. I built myself a surprisingly elaborate miniature studio in my room, which consisted mostly of shelf cubes as walls, with meter-long metal rulers stretched across as my "ceiling". I then created a kind of crane made of a foam cylinder, which I cut out the center, and popsicle sticks. I planned on using this as my marionette-style controller, which I am able to drag around on the rulers, rotate horizontally, and lift my character vertically by pulling and pinning the strings on the foam crane. I attached the strings onto my mannequin's waist (the center of gravity) and each shoulder, so that I can control which direction it's facing. Once again, I used my smartphone for my camera for the convenience of voice commands, and had it standing on another foam plate for ease of sliding and rotating.


Thanks to my overdone mini-studio, the easiest part to animate was surprisingly the jump, because the crane made it very easy to hold in position in the air. But the hardest part to animate were the parts when the mannequin was standing on the ground. The more still it was standing, the more difficult it was to maintain its position without falling over, and the more the character moved around, the easier it was to animate without the need to be too careful with the character's poses.

The overall structure and placement of the studio was rebuilt and readjusted numerous times due to changing necessities, conditions, and objectives. And I wished that I had used a clay figure instead of a mannequin because I didn't realize how incredibly difficult it was to control a mannequin's poses and movements with its limited flexibility.

Was this a gruelingly difficult assignment? Yes it was. Did I overdo it? Sure feels like it. Am I pleased with the results? Not as much as I had hoped. Did I have fun with this project? Yes I did!