Customer Reviews

A Beginners Guide to Animation: Sculpting Characters With Clay (2001) [VHS]

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- Too short.
- Way too expensive ($10 would be too much for this one).
- Despite all the cute pics on the cover, he only shows how to sculpt a 3-fingered hand with arm and one flat-backed (refrigerator magnet) face.
- Often you don't see what he's sculpting -- you see a close-up of his face while he's *talking about* what he's doing. Seems like half the video is a close-up of his face! I'd rather see a demonstration of sculpting.
- Very little substance to this video.
- Don't waste your money on this one. (...)

This is a great jumpstart into understanding *some* of the possibilities of armature puppet animation. The corny but clear host describes a method for creating tie-down wire armature puppets with various types of Sculpey, including the new "bake and bend" kind. I especially liked the tip about using coupling nuts for feet. But be warned, this method is expensive, requires trips to specialty stores and not all of his materials are non-toxic like Sculpey. The culprit is plumber's epoxy putty, which I'll admit is an amazing product for armatures when used safely. I recommend this video as an educational portion of a "healthy breakfast" of stop-motion animation research. Just don't make it the only thing you study. And remember you can get started with simpler techniques.