DEAR FELLOW STOP MOTION ANIMATORS

The art of stop motion has been a very important part of special effects, developed by Willis O'brien, then perfected by the awesome Ray Harrryhausen. There are tons of stop motion artists on the internet today. I've been making monsters for my movies for three years now, and here's what I learned:

1. The floor of your set, if it has drill holes, must be suspended, so you can drill holes safely. I suggest having it stick off the side of the animation table, held in place by a monkey wrench or clamp.

2. If you need to use a wire armature, make sure the body covering it is very thin, so you can get good movement out of it.

3. Please, if you're making jointed legs, NEVER LET A SINGLE HINGE ON IT BE LOOSE! You need to have it stand up on it's own!

4. Latex dries faster at room tempature.

5. If you want a humanoid face, simply make a crude head shape out of plumber's tape and wire, wrap it in latex, then give it a face made out of plasticine. Although, it's really hard to make fingers or bodies out of plasticine that can last, so I suggest just making the face out of plasticine.

6. If you want a detailed head, but don't have the experience to do it, simply put blobs of glue over the foam head to make a texture, then paint latex on it. It works on hard pieces only, though, such as an upper jaw.

7. Whatever you do, do not let the animation process's problems annoy you! As long as it moves, and the camera isn't too jerky (attach it to a tripod), it will look fine.

MY LIFE AS AN ANIMATOR: EARLY CLAY PROJECTS

 Hello,
I'm going to tell you about my life as animator.

Ever since I heard of it, stop motion has been a process I've always wanted to try. My first projects, in which baked sculpey animals run around on a paper set, are sadly lost, due to my first computer crashing, but I have been able to recover some early experiments in plasticine, a kind of clay that doesn't dry out. I used it to make some crude animation, like this blob creature, inspired by the "Bolero" sequence of the animated feature "Allegro non Troppo" I saw on youtube. Trust me, it was less jerky on my computer.

And this T-rex eating a ornithomimus, on an unfinished film about the bone wars:

INTRO

Hello, Fellow Hominids!

I'm Kelston, and here I will document my hobby of writing short stories and making stop motion dinosaurs.

Since I was a kid, I've always enjoyed dinosaurs, and the ways they've been interpreted on screen. And when I discovered stop motion, well, I could now make the monsters of my mind on both paper and film.

Currently, I'm working on a film project inspired by the writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Ray Bradbury. It's very challenging, with limited resources, but I believe I can push on.

So, enjoy my blog!

-Kelston

Special Feature: The Hollow World

This is a special Hollow Earth poem I made Based upon Jules Verne's 'Journey to the Center of the Earth':

The Hollow World

by

Kelston Hubler

Deep beneath our planet,
lies the ancient Hollow Earth,
saved by a sky of granite,
holding creatures since it's birth.

Just below the granite sky,
Pterosaurs still can fly,
Super Mushrooms, big as trees,
rarely attract giant bees.

Just below the stormy seas,
Pleisiosaurs, green as peas,
dance with purple Icthyosaurs,
sea-lizards, blind fish, and many more.

A 200-pound Gigantosaurus,
sings with raptorsaurs in chorus,
flocks of glowing, bright-blue Birds,
folow giant Mastodon herds.

Giant hairy caveman sing,
to Venus Fly-Traps ''Ding-a-Ling'',
and as Magnetic Boulders float,
the Giant Atlantean Lizards note:
'' even if you do get in,
getting out's not around the bin''!