How to make a cartoon of a clay doll?

Even animation is transformed from European tradition. In Southeast Europe, people found the charm of frame-by-frame photography, even drama.

This field has existed ever since. Japan has a similar tradition, so even anime is quite popular there. (1) Clay couple

Animation, with its diversity of special materials and uniqueness of production techniques, also occupies a large proportion in the production of academic schools. . The following is a summary of the way to talk about the production process of clay doll animation.

1. Early planning stage

1. 1 skeleton and modeling of animated characters

When you have a long-planned notebook or character modeling, you should start to consider the skeleton, clothing, props, scenes and other issues of the animated characters. The modeling part of the animated clay figurine character is mainly divided into two parts: skeleton and clay attached to the skeleton.

It is very important to make the skeleton, which requires it to be able to do all kinds of movements and postures, and to be strong and not easy to be damaged. This requires that the joint can be used repeatedly and is not easy to break. (There is no professional skeleton in China. The bones abroad are expensive, and the more joints there are, the more expensive they are. ) Generally speaking, a low-cost foil is enough.

(2) You can choose aluminum wire and lead wire (that is, fuse), because both aluminum wire and lead wire are soft and easy to swing. Copper wire or iron wire can also be used, and silver wire can also be used for key parts. You need to choose according to the design requirements of modeling and action. As far as drunken hitting the golden branch is concerned, because it is a martial arts action, the action range is very large. Moreover, in the process of difficult jumping and rotating, the bones will be greatly distorted. This requires the skeleton itself to have strong characteristics of easy folding, bending and not breaking. When choosing the material of skeleton, I choose aluminum wire, thin wire, thick wire and lead wire according to the characteristics of animated characters. Used in all parts of my body. For example, thin lines are easy to break but not easy to break, and have strong flexibility and resilience. It is used to make my hands and arms, because my hands and movements are the most commonly used movements in the plot and the most flexible movements. Its waist and neck don't move much, but they should be fixed. The waist should bear the weight of the whole body and the neck should bear the weight of the head. Choose thick wire, which is very hard. You can use it when you don't have much movement, and you should pay attention to spend some effort when you swing, but it won't break. Aluminum wire is very soft, it will break if it is folded too much, but it is still useful as my antenna. Because the animated character is a mantis. Therefore, if you want to be a flexible, small role, you can use aluminum wire. The function of silver wire is useless, because the production cost is small, and I think the materials mentioned above are enough.

The skeleton should be meticulous and resistant to folding. As important as the foundation, all future work is based on the foundation. If the skeleton suddenly breaks one day, all previous efforts will be in vain. Therefore, the author suggests that the last one should be used as a backup when making the skeleton.

After the skeleton is finished, it will be filled, so you can't put the clay directly, because it is too heavy, the movement is difficult to do, and even the hanging line is complicated. You can choose plastic foam powder. Use a knife and other tools, cut into the required shape, insert the skeleton, and wrap it with vinyl cloth. You can wrap it in mud.

Regarding the choice of clay, there are two main requirements: good shaping and non-sticking. Good molding means that it is easy to mold clay according to the set shape, not too soft or too hard, easy to control, and will not break when doing actions. If you don't touch it with your hands, the clay won't become soft because of the strong light, otherwise it will be deformed, and it will easily get on the clay on your hands, dirty the shape and affect the picture quality. There are many kinds of clay that can be bought now, each with its own characteristics. We bought clay near Xi Academy of Fine Arts. It is characterized by bright and soft colors! Feel delicate! There is no unpleasant pungent smell! Long-term plastic kneading does not stick to hands! In addition to ordinary plasticine, there are paper clay, soft pottery, silica gel, sculpture mud and so on. , are very good materials, need more practice to master their characteristics, so there will be more choices in the production process. When wrapping mud, you can knead the mud into a ball first. If there is no color, two or three colors should be mixed together and kneaded evenly. This is hard work. Patience is enough. The next thing to do is to roll it into skin, so that my weight is very light and I can save plasticine.

Clothes and props depend on your efforts. The finer they are made, the better, and the higher the quality of the products. One thing to be reminded is that if you want to enrich the expression of the character, you should take more pictures of your head when you do it. Just like our film shot more than 40 heads. Because the expression on its face is very important when it shows drunkenness.

1.2 animation scene

After the character modeling is done, it is necessary to build scenes and make props according to the proportion of the characters and the requirements of the script. There are no special restrictions on the materials used to make props and scenes. Cardboard, foam board, PVC board, wood board and other materials are commonly used, but attention should be paid to the color of the materials used and the color of the pictures produced. The tone of the picture is very important in the final film effect. Because the scenes of my movies are made in 3D, I don't have much experience. In order to facilitate the later keying, I just need to add a blue screen to the background.

2. Mid-term shooting

After a long preparation period, the shooting finally came. From here we can see the unique way of even animation. Technically, it is more similar to real movies, but different from traditional animation.

2. 1 required equipment:

With the development of science and technology, many digital devices are widely used by more people, which also gives even comic lovers the opportunity to make their own comics.

The equipment mentioned here refers to:

1 camera (digital/film), but it is more practical and convenient than digital cameras. In the choice of camera, try to choose a camera with higher specifications. When shooting, it is necessary to say that the camera is completely fixed. Choose a sturdy and heavy tripod to avoid any shaking that will shake the image. We use Panasonic Z20. Although there is no cable release, it has good stability.

2 platform, that is, the "stage" of even animated character model. When the character model performs on this stage, the platform should be firm and firm, and it is not easy to shake and loosen. It has good expansibility and can make the layout of the scene more convenient and simple.

3 lighting, choose professional lighting lamps, at least 3 lamps, and have a light brightness regulator for better control. If possible, it is best to use professional studio lights with adjustable light intensity. At the same time, there should be a light brightness regulator for better control. Ordinary fluorescent lamps or tungsten lamp may have subtle changes caused by voltage instability, which may not be noticed when shooting, but the pictures taken may flicker. If the conditions are limited, you can buy decorative spotlights or table lamps instead. Optical film is also a good prop to change the cold and warm atmosphere.

4 computer, check at any time, in order to better complete the production of even animation.

2.2 shooting method

Clay animation is shot frame by frame, with 25 frames per second for TV series and 24 frames per second for movies. Here, for the convenience of calculation, we take 24 frames per second. If one beat is changed to two beats, it means 12 frames per second, which means one beat is changed to two beats.

In order to ensure the movement is very smooth, but at the same time, it also puts forward higher requirements for adjusting the movement, which requires a good grasp of the movement law. Sometimes one beat three or one beat four are often used, depending on the content to be expressed. Most of us are shooting one shot at a time to ensure the fluency of drunken sticks. Because of the particularity of the action, such as jumping off the ground, we hung up the line and chose the fishing line because it was thin and transparent. When posing, the mirror and story version of the book made in the early stage will play a role. Director, this is to know everything you shoot. Think about action scenes and how to make the order of pictures move smoothly. Mark every action in the same place, and shoot it here next time. Don't touch it, or the picture will shake. You can fix the messenger wire with a stick. Lines and rods can be processed in the later stage of keying. In order to make the character stand more stably in the picture, in addition to enlarging his feet as much as possible, it is also very helpful to use high-density foam materials on the scene ground. You can tie some imperceptible pins to the character's feet to help fix the position and make the shooting go smoothly.

According to different situations, we must solve the problem through our own search methods in shooting practice.

3 late synthesis

Clip the shots together and add music effects. It requires directors and editors to have perfect ideas and sophisticated skills, so that the later stage can be completed smoothly. The purpose of synthesis is to refine or enrich the information of the picture on the basis of mid-term shooting. The amount of lens information is mainly composed of

1, artistic composition of the picture (composition, color, light and shadow)

2. Movement inside and outside the lens (intra-layer movement, lens movement)

3, special effects processing (particle effect, text effect, etc. )

It includes three aspects. The choice of information comes from the need of narration. For the audience, whether a movie looks comfortable and smooth depends on the acceptance of these three kinds of information, namely, the emotional suggestion brought by the artistic composition of the picture, the rhythm brought by the camera movement and the visual impact brought by the special effects. A good typesetter, like a chef, is familiar with the attributes and qualities of each material, and finally presents the best effect through a certain proportion of collocation temperature. Intensive cultivation is the basic quality of this industry.

4 conclusion

An animated short film, besides its originality in content, theme and expression, also plays a very important role in its expression form and expression. The application of materials in animated short films does not exist in isolation, and various materials complement each other in the films. Even animation emphasizes the completion of one's own works under the condition of independent conception, design and shooting, which is original and original. In the creative process, we should express the theme in a highly generalized way, convey delicate emotions with smooth lenses, outline emotional fluctuations with unique composition and color composition, and complete the depiction of the soul with details.