Stop Motion: Craft Skills for Model Animation

Classic stop-motion animation using puppets and figures is having a resurgence and is being used in shows like Cartoon Network´s "Robot Chicken." Shaw´s bestselling and most accessible guide to creating and animating puppets is now fully updated. To make great animation, you need to know how to control a whole world: how to make a character, how to make that character live and be happy or sad. You need to create four walls around them, a landscape, the sun and moon - a whole life for them. You have to get inside that puppet and first make it live, then make it perform. Susannah Shaw provides the first truly practical introduction to the craft skills of model animation. This is a vital book in the development of model animation which, following the success of Aardman´s first full-length film, Chicken Run, is now at the forefront of modern animation. Illustrated in full colour throughout you are shown step by step how to create successful model animation. Starting with some basic exercises, you will learn about developing a story, making models, creating set and props, the mechanics of movement, filming, postproduction and how to set about finding that elusive first job in a modern studio.