Animation Artifacts 03 Sep 2006 08:29 am
More Skeletal Systems
– Yesterday, I posted a couple of links to images of imagined animation skeletons. I completed with the build-it-yourself armatures of Monterey Motion Puppets.
I feel as though this is a subject that deserves a bit more attention. Armatures.
There’s quite a bit of information on line, and I want to call attention to a couple of links.
At Stop-Motion Express, more armature building instructions as well as a lot of advice on puppet animation is available. You can also buy one through their store.
If you’re not handy and cannot build an armature yourself, you can buy one on ebay express. The Armaverse Armature sells for $149 – preconstructed and ready to be altered to your character’s needs. Or another smaller one for $139.
There are a number of articles about Aardman and their armatures. One from the BBC features a couple of small pictures.
Vince Backeberg has a site that features methods of armatures for all “Claymation” puppets. (I’m not sure he realizes that “claymation” was a copytighted term for Will Vinton’s animation process.)
AnimateClay is a webpage devoted to – guess. It features methods and devices needed.
Getting Started in Animation is a great Q&A article with 3Bears Animation a site where all the ins and outs of puppet animation are discussed, including armatures.
This article is part of exposure.co.uk, a site for advice on low budget film making.
Not to completely ignore the skeletons of cgi, Blender3d.org has posted a detailed article on How Armatures Work. Obviously, they’re talking about cgi armatures.
Two of the images posted here are from magazines. The top image comes from an article on Lou Bunin and shows a 1939 armature he had built when he was just starting out. The image to the right is part of a French magazine-sized publication from Folimage about Jiri Trnka. Pictured here is one of about five clustered together which can be viewed in total by clicking that image. The middle image is of Wallace as armature without his head.
