Animation - Claymation Technique

Claymation is a had a rather wide variation of style to work from, just general techniques has been labeled in to difference categories. Below I am going to explain the differences of each techniques aided with examples.  Firstly though Claymation stands for 'Clay Animation', using not surprisingly 'clay' you can mould it into shapes your choice and use stop motion to create an animation.  The more detail you go into the more difficult and time consuming your piece will be come, I will be disucssing 'Character', 'Strata Cut', 'Clay Painting' and finally 'Freeform'.

Character

Instantly when you think 'Character' claymation you think of Wallace and Gromit so I won't talk about that, instead I will be talking about an extract from a film called 'Jaes and the Argonauts'. The scene consists of skeletons rising out of the ground and attack three human actors, see below.

 Not only do we see claymation at work but we see interaction with physically real actors, you noticed this style in alot of older films before CGI graphics we're possible as this was the only way to do it. This is a very detailed piece of work but doesn't require much moulding as that of Wallace & Gromit.

Strata Cut

This the least used animation technique out of the four as it to some it's just mind boggling, though the process is actually quite simple. It's built from a block of clay and sliced away piece by piece with a different variation of the image before it, photographed slice by slice an animation will start to form, here is an example below that takes you through the process.

Clay Painting

I chose this style next because it has a sort of resemblance to 'Strata Cut' you still have this surrealistic dream like effect but instead of slicing a piece away each time,  you take your clay and shift it around a canvas little by little to create different imagery. One of the most well known pieces for won an award for 'Best Animated Short' it merges a total of 35 different artists into an animation and is know as "Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase" created in 1992.

Free Form

I have saved 'Free Form' animation for last as this is the most widely used technique of all. Using clay you you rapidly make any desire shaped more into others, a good example would making the creation of man starting a blog of clay and moulding photograph by photograph in to a human body. Then after changing into a bird or any object, there is no in between section only beginning and end. It is then in it's self free form. An example that is very complex and well animated is 'Dantes Inferno' with over five minutes worth of animation the process must have been time consuming.