Claymation: Making the scene.

I really enjoyed making the scene for my Claymation. My original idea for this world was always that it was a colourful fun world where anything can happen. It later became a colourful fun snowy wonder land. I love snow, well more the thought of snow as I have never seen snow, but snow is magical and I feel that’s what the snow has given to the scene.

First off I made the cardboard sky and ground scene, (this helped me with the measurement for the rest of the scene.)

The houses:

I made the houses with Styrofoam and cardboard. I measured out the size and shapes of the houses cut the shapes up and then stuck cardboard over the Styrofoam. I made a big mess as well, but it was fun!

After this I made the roofs and then painted them. For the roof I layered tape over the top to give them a tiled look.

With a hot glue gun everything was glued together. I used paper for the doors and windows but I glued a layer of cardboard in-between the paper and the house to give it a 3D effect.

Lights:

I thought it would look nice having old fashioned street lamps in the scene.

I made these with little bits of wood, cardboard and of course glue and paint. I really enjoyed this.

I had to create the top of the lamp which was a little tricky, after a few tries I came up with a map to use so that each lamp looked the same and was easy to put together. This took me back to school in math and making cube boxes, never thought I would say this but math class actually did teach me something useful. ;)

After this I painted them and drew in details with a marker.

I cut out swirls for the sides and stuck two back to back and then attached them to the wood and the top of the lamp.

For the bottom of the lamp I cut out circles, cut a slit and hole in the middle, and stapled them together creating a hole big enough to push the wood through. Then glued a flat piece of cardboard underneath to steady it and hold the wood in place.

With everything glued and painted the lamps where done.

Seat:

The wood I bought had a little picture of a seat you could make with them on the back so I thought why not.

I made this little seat with the wood and cardboard then watered down some paint to give it a rusty look.

Trees:

The style of this world is similar to Dr. Sues, colourful and fun. I had these little coloured Styrofoam balls from a previous project and had an Idea to make funky trees.

I painted a larger Styrofoam ball then glued the little Styrofoam balls to it, and also glued painted wood for the trunk.

These groovy little trees helped to bring the scene together.

Background:

For the main background I painted the ground white as there was to be snow over the top and painted long white bits of cardboard for the sky.

Then I cut out mountains and painted them and glued them to the sky with a layer of cardboard in-between for the 3D effect and it looked nicer.

There were far away mountains, the blue ones and also close up mountains that where a snowy white.

My inspiration was Finland.

Background characters:

I also had a few background characters in the scene that you have to look out for.

Near the seat and then at the door are two little blue birds made from clay.

Then in the background near the houses is a cute little guy watering his garden.

Final touches:

A friend of mine bought me this awesome ‘Make your own snow’ stuff. And that is what I placed in the scene on the ground and also sprinkled in other areas. This was the icing on the cake and made the scene perfect as well as fun!

Before I made the fake snow I separated cotton buds and glued them in areas such as the roof tops and around the lamps, this was to help give the snowy effect and it worked well.