Today I went on Facebook and found out from Ken Priebe that Art Clokey passed away today. It isn't a total shock since Art was already 89 years old, but it's still a big loss for clay animation. Art who created the Gumby series that were made for kids were never really high tech. Everything from props to the characters were very simple, but Art always concentrated on the message more than the flashy effects. Art also took in new animators with hardly any experience who then went on to become major stop motion animation directors on later films. So he really gave people an opening to move onto bigger things. He was a great supporter of the entire art form, and stop motion would not be what it is today if it weren't for him.

Read more about Arts passing here.

There is a very informative Lego Brickfilm web site with tutorials, videos, links, software and more. It actually reminds me of how our site started out here and has a similar format. The site is in German, but only the front page will remain that way. Once you click on any link from the menu, click the little American flag to translate that tutorial to English. So if Brickfilming is your favorite form of stop motion, definitely take a look around the BrickTrick site. There's so many little tricks to learn you will definitely want to try at least a few out.

To go there just click here.

To all my visitors: Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! This holiday I wanted to post about Don Carlson. Don has always sent me tips he's learned during his productions, has occasionally contributed news and helped out here and there. So why not break out the new year to talk about his latest project Blue Alien Summer? Actually I don't need to talk about it because he already has on his blog. He's recently posted a lot of pictures and information with some excellent lighting and a more refined style.

Read Dons blog for yourself here.

Henry Selick has not been in the news too much it seems. But lately people have been asking questions about him and his future plans in the world of stop motion. Some of it is too speculative to post here since nothing is affirmed. However there is some information that comes from the man himself. Henry did a recent interview about his work on Coraline which was released today, as well as video interviews about his future plans with Neil Gaiman. It all sounds very exciting so these videos are definitely worth watching if you are one of Henrys fans, or a fan of Neils.

Watch Henry talking about Coraline here.

Watch Henry talking about his future plans with Neil Gaiman here.

If you want to learn about the uncle of stop motion animation, the Harryhausen Chronicles is a great video documentary about the man himself. The documentary covers most of his work and has some great close-up shots of a lot of his puppets too. If you are a fan of Rays, it is worth spending the time to watch these.

Part 1 Here
Part 2 Here
Part 3 Here
Part 4 Here
Part 5 Here
Part 6 Here