This is my first attempt at a 3D stop motion animation, and it was easier than I thought. I was inspired by Guldies' YouTube channel - spectacular claymation, really worth checking out.

How I made The Hug

First, I cooked up a batch of play dough (recipe at the bottom of this post). 

Then I set up a little studio for myself in the corner of our lounge room. I was hoping to keep the light a bit more consistent than in my previous two attempts and the mini-studio did help, but I still need to find a better way (I might have to shell out for some desk lamps soon and work with closed curtains).

The animation itself was pretty straight forward and was basically a matter of manipulating the play dough. As per usual, the camera was set up on the tripod and I used manual settings (I did bump the camera at one point, don't do that if you can avoid it). Unlike with the last two attempts, in this video all the frames were taken in order.

One thing that I would like to work on is pacing, you can see in this video that some sections could afford to be slowed down by taking more shots, and some transitions are a bit jerky and would look better if the changes happened in smaller increments.

Video was edited in Stop Motion Studio (any editing program should do the trick) and I got the music from http://www.bensound.com (free creative commons licence with attribution).

All up, this one probably took about two hours - same as the last two, but this one was a longer video. Progress!

Play dough recipe

(From the website kidspot.com.au):

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup cooking salt
• 1 tbs of cooking oil
• 1 tbs of cream of tartar
• food colouring

Mix the flour, water, salt and cream of tartar in a saucepan over medium heat until thick. Allow the mixture to cool and then add the oil and knead well over a floured cutting board or similar. Divide this blob evenly into as many colours as you’d like to make. Add food colouring to each ball until it is just the colour your child is looking for. 

A huge thank you to @skapaneas and @freesteem for supporting my last stop motion post and encouraging me to continue.

Previous posts about stop motion animation:

How I made my first stop motion animation in 2 hours. It’s easy; you can do it too!

Paper stop motion animation - I love you