Stop motion animation--A New Machine

[TonyC]

Hi everyone,
This is a stopmotion animation I just finished this past month.


It's a sort of American/Korean diaspora steampunk adventure about a girl whose mother disappears, and the machines she builds to try to get her back.

I am working as an English teacher and trying to crawl my way into the animation world. I don't really know what the next step is for me, but right now I just would like some feedback and to have people get to see my work. I've never taking any animating classes, so specific advice or texts to look at to fix some of my mistakes would be really helpful.

Thanks for your time!
Tony

[Charles]

Hi Tony and welcome to AN!

Here's your video. Take this part of the Vimeo url... 47920074 ... and paste it between the brackets ... [vimeo][/vimeo] ... and you get this...

[TonyC]

Thanks, Charles! I'm a little clumsy with some of this stuff--I appreciate the help!

[Car t00n]

Pretty good, Tony. Some things to keep in mind is to try and make the movements as fluid and un-choppy as possible, even if it means to spend that extra time to add those frames, it'll make it much better in the long run.

The lip sync was also pretty good and so were the sets.

Just a question, what type of camera and program did you use?

[TonyC]

I think that's a good plan--I imagine I'll be much happier if I just pour the time in to make sure it's 24 fps for the next movie.

I shot it with a Nikon D5000 (which I'm thinking about upgrading--it's fine, but I feel like I'm ready for something nicer, more consistent, but still not sure where to go with that) and software wise I used Dragonframe--which is worth every penny, and did the drawing on the cheapest Wacom Bamboo tablet available, which worked reasonably well but I'd like a bit more sensitivity and to learn how to use it efficiently for animation.

Thanks for watching and for the comments!

[Charles]

Very good film Tony! Hats off to you, that's a lot of work. You did great and deserve congratulations.

My critique would be along the lines of improving the look of your characters. Try for smoother face skin and more engaging expressions especially for the females. That's key in getting your audience hooked on your characters. The ending is abrupt. Will there be a conclusion? Your 2D animation is also good and helped to add interest.

[TonyC]

Maybe a materials change? I had trouble with the urethane rubber faces but I'm not sure how to get better at it for more expressive faces. Any suggestions? This isn't a stopmotion forum, but maybe you know of something that generally is easier to use than urethane rubber.

The ending, however, was intentional. I may have to reconsider doing a little more "telling" in my storytelling to make things clearer.

Thanks for the advice (and let me know if you have material suggestions that help make nicer faces) and for watching!