12 Tips to Improve Your LEGO Stop-Motion Animation

12 Tips to Improve Your LEGO Stop-Motion Animation

From smooth walk cycles to cinematic lighting, LEGO animator Josh Whitehouse reveals the techniques he uses to bring his brickfilms to life. Whether you're new to stop-motion or looking to sharpen your skills, these 12 tips will take your animations to the next level.

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The Mandalorian Trailer...In LEGO

The Mandalorian is finally here, and I’m all in. And I’m not alone, this is the Star Wars extended universe we’ve been waiting for, the fans love it. Brick FORCE Studios was all in even before it premiered, putting a ton of work and love into this stop-motion trailer recreation, check it out.

Mandalorian in LEGO - trailer re-creation.

Start Your Hyrule Morning Off Right!

With a delicious bowl of KakarikO’s thanks to the endless creativity of Julius von Brunk. A warning though, it may be a bit unsettling for the hardcore Zelda fans to see Link so…loquacious, but it’s funny and charming and it was a ton of work. Watch the video below.

KakarikO's: part of this balanced breakfast!™ Watch everybody's favorite tunic-wearing elfin hero officially endorse this delicious and nutritious new breakfast cereal! This is a mixed-media stop-motion #LEGO #brickfilm animation that I've gradually animated and edited throughout the course of over two months in summer 2019.

The NerdFlex Motion Control System

I've gotten a lot of questions about my custom motion control system I built for stop motion animation, from the LEGO community and beyond. So I decided to put together a video to share what it is and how it came about. 

Breaking down my custom Arduino-based motion control system for Dragonframe. Visit us at www.bricknerd.com See the full LEGO Life spot here https://youtu.be/2TQc6sWUNvY experiment yourself with Arduino and motion control https://amzn.to/2G8SrFe My mini slider legs https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2460401

Birdemic: Shock And Terror - The LEGO Edition

Something that you might not know about me is my love of bad movies. Not just films that are poorly made, but those movies that are so bad, but made with such earnestness and passion, that somehow they've gone past awful and ended up good again. I'm a huge fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and RiffTrax, and they're unique take on the bad movie shared experience. When I heard that RiffTrax was having a contest inviting people to recreate some moments from James Nguyen films, I knew just what had to be done. 

Please note, this is awful, just like the film that inspired it, you've been warned.

One of Birdemic's iconic scenes painfully recreated in LEGO. Produced at BrickNerd Studios Directed by Tommy Williamson visit us at www.bricknerd.com Created for the RiffTrax James Nguyen "Direct it Yourself" Contest With apologies to Mr Nguyen, and anyone else who watches

American Ninja Warrior

We don't watch much sports at our house (is American Ninja Warrior a sport?) but we do watch this from time to time. And when you combine it with stop motion animation and LEGO, well, that's a winner in our book. Find out what happens when the Ninjago team faces the course. The animation in this is pretty amazing, and the build is fantastic. I don't know who to credit for it, but it's excellent work.

What kind of training does it take to be an American Ninja Warrior? Kristine Leahy takes us behind-the-scenes into a homemade gym where Jay, Lloyd and Kai are training. Alongside other American Ninja Warrior veterans (how many can you spot in this video?)

Somebody Get Batman Some Eggnog

Ever wonder why Batman is so grumpy this time of year? Happy holidays from BrickNerd!

Ever wonder why Batman is always in a foul mood this time of year? Happy Holidays from BrickNerd Studios! A film by Tommy Williamson Batman: Tommy Williamson Robin: Brian T Stevenson "Jingle Bells" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Doritos: Dark Alley

When I watched the video promoting the Doritos Crash the Superbowl contest, this commercial immediately popped into my mind. After reading the rules, it was clearly breaking many of them (wait a minute, they showed Batman in the brief, but I can't have Batman in my video?). But I made it anyway, because that's how I roll. So when I submitted last night I wasn't at all confident, and of course it was immediately rejected. But I'm still proud of it and want to share.

Big thanks to EclipseGFX for the custom printed Doritos tile, and a huge shout out to everyone that helped make it happen, full credits in the YouTube description.

As expected, rejected :-( This was done for the Doritos Crash The Superbowl contest, but knowing full well it was breaking the rules. After seeing the brief, I just wanted to make this. But just because it isn't in the running doesn't mean it can't be shared and liked!

Tonight At SDCC!

I'm super excited for tonight. I'm on the second of my two panels at this year's San Diego Comic Con, Making The LEGO Fan Scene. Join me, Nathan Sawaya, Brandon Griffith, Joe Meno and Paul Lee as we talk about different aspects of the LEGO fan community and LEGO art.

I'm finally going to get to show my animated short Batman vs Superman to it's core audience!

Join us from 6-7 in room 23ABC, see you there!

Awesome LEGO Animated Short

Stop motion is not for the faint of heart, and certainly not for the impatient. I've spent a great deal of time in the last couple years working in this medium and it gives me an even greater appreciation for this brilliant short by Rogier Wieland. It's charming and funny, and worth a watch. And take some time to watch the behind the scenes after, see what goes into making such an ambitious project.

This is a short stop motion animated story that we made for Lego China. see the Making of here: https://vimeo.com/127632215 Written and directed by: Rogier Wieland Client: Lego China Agency: AKQA ,Shanghai Production Company: Black and Cameron, Shanghai MADE BY Animators: Rogier Wieland Danièle Knirim Yoana Buzova Suus Hessling Raymon Wittenberg Iris van den Akker Producer: Danièle Knirim Voice over talent & boy in snake suit: Thomas Boyd Art direction & design: Rogier Wieland Set builders: Matthias Hurtl Pieter-Henk van Wijk Special thanks to: Nadine Bradshaw Jasper van Blokland Jesse Hendriks Jean Villanueva Mickey Yang

Making of Lego_Adventure In The City see the original video here: https://vimeo.com/127628756

Beyond The Brick Gets A Trailer!

Just over a year ago BrickNerd Studios completed work doing a load of animation (a lot of which is in this trailer!) for Beyond The Brick, a LEGO Brickumentary. I'm happy to see it's finally coming out soon. Check out the trailer!

"Beyond the Brick: A Lego Brickumentary" Official TRAILER (2015) Jason Bateman Documentary Movie HD If you thought you knew the world of LEGO®, you don't know brick. Step into the amazing real-life world of the global phenomenon that will captivate fans of all ages.

Shaun The Sheep

Fun facts about sheep

  • A group of sheep is known as a herd, flock or mob.
  • Sheep like to stay close to others in a herd which makes them easier to move together to new pastures.
  • There are over 1 billion sheep in the world.
  • Sheep have a field of vision of around 300 degrees, allowing them to see behind themselves without having to turn their head.
  • When stop-motion animated they can be especially amusing.
  • When built in LEGO by Palixa And The Bricks they are irresistible.
Shaun the Sheep

This Is How You End Iron Builder

This was yet another epic round of Iron Builder. Once again I'm floored by the creativity and ingenuity of the builders. And as if the flood of MOCs that somehow incorporated that infernal pitchfork part wasn't enough, builder 6kyubi6 ends this round with a stop motion animation inspired by Jon Rolph's "Paint. A Short Lego Film". Well played sir.

"We Spared No Expense"

Friend and fellow filmmaker Paul Hollingsworth and his daughter followed in John Hammond's footsteps and spared no expense making this EPIC tribute to Jurassic Park. If you're a fan of animation, LEGO, dinosaurs or humor, you're going to love this film. There's also a great behind the scenes video, where you can see that making these films is as much fun as watching them. I chatted with Paul this morning and he said "Teaching Hailee how to animate has been a great way to spend time together doing what we love." I couldn't agree more.

This is a behind the scenes look at how a Dad, his daughter and all their friends helped create a LEGO brick flick of Jurassic Park. It's a journey into a stop motion wonderland, complete with motion control camera rigs, after effects compositing and an original score composed by Voodoo Highway.

The Right Person

The School of Life released it's latest video, The Right Person. Produced at BrickNerd Studios in collaboration with Spastik Chuwawa. Don't let the misguided standards of dating sites and social pressure prevent you from finding the right person. Be romantic and realize nobody is perfect, including you. Done by James Morr, Dane Erland and me, a crew of three.
 

The most romantic thing you can do is realise that there's no such thing as 'the right person'. Everyone is a bit wrong in fascinating ways - not least, you. And that's OK...