Animate Clay
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Neville Buchanan animating a puppet Neville Buchanan (born 17 October 1959) was a stop motion animator and director based just outside England. Sadly Neville passed away suddenly on the 11th of August 2026. If you recognize his name, that might be because he and I collaborated on a recent article about the passing of Tom Brierton. Neville had met with Tom in the past and it seemed like it would be…
Have you heard of this new clay called Chroma Clay? I made a full video review to test out it's abilities and limits. Some of the things I considered were from the perspective of what clay animators would normally do with it. Not just sculpting, but how well it melts to armatures, smooths and especially how well it bends! At first I was disappointed until falling back on my experience with other…
Lorenzo Volpintesta and his creations! Good clay animation is rare these days, but there are still some who are carrying the torch. One of those people is Lorenzo Volpintesta! You may have read about him in our previous articles on this very page. Lorenzo reached out and offered to answer questions about his role in not just clay animation, but Brick Films too. Yes, Lorenzo has a Brick channel,…
I've got some very sad news to bring my readers today. Tom Brierton passed away this week. Tom taught stop motion in Chicago to many students over the years and was an extremely good armature maker. He was also a composer, but was mostly known for his stop motion contributions. Tom was born on June 30th 1957 and passed on July 26th 2026. Everyone from the late 90's to early 2000's had either heard…
Stop Motion Mentors Porter Young and Ian Boone Anthony Scott at Stopmotionanimation.com was known for helping animators online through his former message boards. It was a place where stop motion film makers would connect with anyone who wanted to learn or share advice. Since the message boards came to an end in 2024, Anthony has been hatching a new plan. Stop motion mentorships! The mentorships…
A miniature drive-in theater sign by Brian Capati It was time for another vacation! My wife knew I had worked in Portland many years ago on animation projects and wanted me to show her around the places I had been to. I had memories of walking the streets and visiting the studio where Will Vinton Studios was once located. I wondered how much might have changed since the late 90's, it was very…
What do you get when you have decayed characters, a futuristic dystopian story and prohibition all in one? You get the Prohibition Routine by the conflictivos YouTube channel. His work is really top notch and inspiring, but he doesn't have a big following. Here is another video showing some of what he does, from storyboards, sets, making new puppets and displays. What do you think of the work of…
Free D.C! Cover and Floppy Disk What was the very first video game to use clay or stop motion puppets as actors you remember? Was it Clayfighter? Or maybe the Neverhood? What about Primal Rage? In a recent conversation with Webster Colcord, he bought up a game project he worked on called FREE D.C! He sent a few pictures my way to ask if I remembered the character he sculpted called Harry the…
Will Vinton and a Mark Twain Puppet My family and I visited Portland Oregon this month as part of our vacation. While we were there I got to meet with Don Carlson (creator of Puppet Putty) to go on a Will Vinton pilgrimage. We visited the old studio building on 22nd street, and then went on to find Will's resting place. We took a Lyft to the River View cemetery, located in the south eastern part…
Studio Croma Animation posted a brand new stop motion creation. A station ID for Adult Swim with none other than Rick and Morty. We might have a lot of questions as to how the two met in such a strange circumstances. But it can't be said that it wasn't done in the spirit of the original cartoons! The above behind the scenes video shows a little of what went into the station ID. There was some very…
