• Joined: August 6, 2017

Topic: A mess for me, that is stop-motion

Hi, before I start typing about this topic I want to apologize in case I ramble too much or if I sound like a whiny little "fish". With that said, here we go!

Also, here's a list of points on "why" and "why I don't" want to give up on making brickfilms:
1 - Evolution
2 - Investment
3 - The all mighty 3D
4 - Fun

Number #1
Evolution - I can somewhat learn the basics of animation through the use of minifigures. But at the same time, sticking with minifgures won't get me too far. I was thinking of maybe replacing them with action figures made out of LEGO Bricks, with articulations and everything. This though, leads me to my 2nd point...

Number#2
Investment - It's too expensive for me to keep buying bricks / minifigures / sets / baseplates and let's not forget about storage systems. Not only that, but having to invest in such "domain" is also tiresome for me. I do have sources from where I can aquire bricks / sets etc... but they don't offer me much. I do know that I can go to "Brickowl" and make my shopping there but it's ridiculous how much I have to pay for the shipping. Call me cheap, but I want to spend my money on other things, (or maybe I don't know the value of money?). Given that, if I depend on buying bricks again and again it will get tedious for me to make brickfilms. Meanwhile, there's the alternative that it's called "３ＤＡＮＩＭＡＴＩＯＮ".

Number #3
The all mighty 3D - Which is obviously more convenient. For the most part, you need a powerful computer / laptop. I was thinking of becoming familiar with 3D by using Mine-Imator and doing Stop-Motion in Garry's Mod. Then slowly getting myself into Blender / Maya etc. The way I see it, (In Gmod for example) you can start playing on a map that you like, spawn some characters, lights, some props to put in the background and start animating.
Another thing is that I can work with my favorite characters from various franchises. Which are made and look great. Here's an example, if I were to make a brickfilm / stop-motion animation with Sonic, the character itself would be hard for me to acquire (it's either expensive or hard to find). Building a Sonic from bricks? It would be the same thing that I just talked about, the "LEGO MOC - Action Figures". Last but not least, 3D animation is what people want nowadays < Just a quick little side note, I don't want to start making 3D just because it's one of the most wanted form of animation, but because it's more convenient.

Number #4
Fun - This is by far the hardest part that I will have to deal with, in case I give up on brickfilms. When I made stop-motion, I got used to having to move the characters with my own hands. It's such a nice feeling for me and it's faster if I work like that. Another thing, my whole love for animation sparked mostly from all the brickfilms and stop-motion animations that I watched on YouTube, back from when I was a kid.

Now I am in a position where I don't know what to do. Either I go with something that is "comfortable" and familiar to me (stop-motion) or go to the next-level and ＥＶＯＬＶＥ by doing 3D Animation. I made few and very short animations in Gmod, but I know 3D is not just that and it's more complicated. Meanwhile, I keep thinking about stop-motion and if I have the necessary resources, setup, the ability to accept that stop-motion as a hobby is a bit expensive, patience... and so on... I could be able to work fast and with pleasure... though the way I see it, I don't even know which one will make me feel satisfied.

P.S - Sorry for any grammatical errors and that I whined too much about my problem here on a forum instead of talking to a therapist.

The Brick Director's Website

  • Joined: March 28, 2014

Re: A mess for me, that is stop-motion

Last but not least, 3D animation is what people want nowaday

Imma stop you right there before I comment on the entire post. Why are you making art? Saying 3D animation is what people want nowadays is implying you're making it for an audience. Are you making it for yourself? If you only try to please others, then you're wasting your time and will get burnt out. You can never please other people, especially if you yourself aren't pleased. Unless of course you're referring to building your skills for a career in 3D animation, in which case, the basics of animation can be applied to any medium. But of course, experience is super valuable.

With that said, I want to say that I understand this. I had a time in my hobby where I wanted to go to CGI for these very reasons. And I did it. I put away most of my physical LEGO and switched to making LEGO in Blender. This was before things like Stud.io and MecaBricks were around. I wasn't satisfied with the limitations of my LEGO collection and wanted to go bigger. I was also working on a video game at that point (that I never finished) so I had a good reason to do CGI. From this, I branched out beyond LEGO, but also stuck true to the LEGO CGI stuff... but then I realized, why should I make LEGO in CGI when I have it physically with me? Making stuff from scratch is hard, so I went back to brickfilming because I already had the models and shaders with me... because it's real life.

All this being said, budget is always a thing to deal with with any hobby. Yes, LEGO is expensive. But regular stop-motion is way more expensive. And CGI can be expensive as well, especially if you have to buy computers or render farm subscriptions to actually make your scenes come to life. Any hobby can swallow your wallet in a heartbeat. So don't fool yourself by thinking that CGI is cheap. It's cheaper upfront, but eventually you'll want better hardware to work with and maybe better software too. And don't get me started on textures and lightmaps and models you might want to buy.

Finally, making "what you want," like working with, for example LEGO Sonic. Sure, they dont have an official LEGO Sonic (yet, anyway), but that shouldn't stop you from making things you want to make. There are always solutions for doing things. It's creative limitations. Part of the fun of brickfilming to me is working around the limitations of a LEGO Minifig who only has 7 points of articulation and using the basic LEGO bricks to make detailed sets that are appealing to the eye. There'll be limitations in CGI too. For example your render power may limit how much you can create in CGI, or your skillset may limit what you can model from scratch. There's creative limitations with anything.

This was a good post! I can really relate to it. I struggle with what I want to create a lot of times because I have to decide what medium to use. I think it's great to practice in both and switch between to your heart's content. After all, like I mentioned at the beginning, the art should be made for you, not for some mystical audience somewhere. So just have fun!

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"Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31b

rioforce's Website

  • Joined: August 6, 2017

Re: A mess for me, that is stop-motion

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Last edited by The Brick Director (January 28, 2020 (07:54am))

The Brick Director's Website

  • BertL
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  • Location: The Netherlands
  • Joined: December 28, 2008

Re: A mess for me, that is stop-motion

I really enjoyed reading this post!

To be honest, I'm not sure that 3D animation is more convenient. I can only speak from my own experience, but I had a hard time figuring out Blender. There's definitely a learning curve there that is more steep than stop motion animation. I also think that "building the scene" is more challenging when when you have to model and texture everything yourself. It takes a lot of time to learn and develop the skills needed to do CGI animation. (By the way, I really do not mean to sound discouraging or anything like that. Learning CGI was never really my strong suit, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it!)

I definitely feel you on the investment part. LEGO in general isn't a cheap hobby, and when you get serious about brickfilming equipment can become pretty costly. I had the fortune of growing up with 2 brothers who were also really into LEGO, and for years we only asked for LEGO for birthday and holiday gifts. I still use that old collection (most of it is from 90s sets) to build with.

Having only a small amount of LEGO to work with doesn't have to be a bad thing, though. Some of my favorite brickfilms that I've made only have a very... minimalistic... aesthetic. I've found that working within such limitations can actually help get the creative juices flowing, although it does require a different approach. Rather than coming up with epic stories and ideas, I go through my collection, ask myself "well, what do I have to work with?" and go from there.

I'm inclined to disagree with you on that CGI is what people want. There is something about the physicality of making stop motion animation that I really like. There is a certain charm to making minifigs come to using your own hands, one picture at a time. I think that's why stop motion animation is still loved by viewers: there is a certain charm to it. I feel like stop motion videos, or even 2D computer animation (like "real life doodles" or "animator vs animation") go viral and are shared more often than full 3D CGI videos are. Maybe that's just confirmation bias at work, though, since I'm a huge sucker for hand crafted animation videos mini/mrgreen

All in all: as the old meme goes, why not both? If you have the time and a decent enough computer, it can be a lot of fun to get into CGI. That doesn't mean you have to get rid of your LEGO! Brickfilming is a hobby for me, and I get a tremendous amount of joy and satisfaction out of it. It sounds like you do as well - there's no need to give that up and replace it with something else, right?

Just my two cents. mini/smile

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BertL's Website

  • Joined: August 6, 2017

Re: A mess for me, that is stop-motion

BertL wrote:

I really enjoyed reading this post!

To be honest, I'm not sure that 3D animation is more convenient. I can only speak from my own experience, but I had a hard time figuring out Blender. There's definitely a learning curve there that is more steep than stop motion animation. I also think that "building the scene" is more challenging when when you have to model and texture everything yourself. It takes a lot of time to learn and develop the skills needed to do CGI animation. (By the way, I really do not mean to sound discouraging or anything like that. Learning CGI was never really my strong suit, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it!)

I definitely feel you on the investment part. LEGO in general isn't a cheap hobby, and when you get serious about brickfilming equipment can become pretty costly. I had the fortune of growing up with 2 brothers who were also really into LEGO, and for years we only asked for LEGO for birthday and holiday gifts. I still use that old collection (most of it is from 90s sets) to build with.

Having only a small amount of LEGO to work with doesn't have to be a bad thing, though. Some of my favorite brickfilms that I've made only have a very... minimalistic... aesthetic. I've found that working within such limitations can actually help get the creative juices flowing, although it does require a different approach. Rather than coming up with epic stories and ideas, I go through my collection, ask myself "well, what do I have to work with?" and go from there.

I'm inclined to disagree with you on that CGI is what people want. There is something about the physicality of making stop motion animation that I really like. There is a certain charm to making minifigs come to using your own hands, one picture at a time. I think that's why stop motion animation is still loved by viewers: there is a certain charm to it. I feel like stop motion videos, or even 2D computer animation (like "real life doodles" or "animator vs animation") go viral and are shared more often than full 3D CGI videos are. Maybe that's just confirmation bias at work, though, since I'm a huge sucker for hand crafted animation videos mini/mrgreen

All in all: as the old meme goes, why not both? If you have the time and a decent enough computer, it can be a lot of fun to get into CGI. That doesn't mean you have to get rid of your LEGO! Brickfilming is a hobby for me, and I get a tremendous amount of joy and satisfaction out of it. It sounds like you do as well - there's no need to give that up and replace it with something else, right?

Just my two cents. mini/smile

I am really glad you actually enjoyed reading this post of mine! And thank you for the reply!
Well just like I said in my response to rioforce, I think the best decision for me would be to do them both at the same time (to have CGI as a "plus" thing, while my main form of animation will be brickfilm / stop-motion).
I totally understand what you are saying: working around with the limitations of a minifigure, having minimalist sets and the whole charm. I guess I did not had the opportunity to be as creative as possible, since I only knew about these "concepts" but I did not put them into practice. I think this will be the first thing that I'll do when I will have my studio all set up once again.
Thank you again for the reply!

The Brick Director's Website

  • Joined: August 6, 2017

Re: A mess for me, that is stop-motion

rioforce wrote:

Last but not least, 3D animation is what people want nowaday

Imma stop you right there before I comment on the entire post. Why are you making art? Saying 3D animation is what people want nowadays is implying you're making it for an audience. Are you making it for yourself? If you only try to please others, then you're wasting your time and will get burnt out. You can never please other people, especially if you yourself aren't pleased. Unless of course you're referring to building your skills for a career in 3D animation, in which case, the basics of animation can be applied to any medium. But of course, experience is super valuable.

With that said, I want to say that I understand this. I had a time in my hobby where I wanted to go to CGI for these very reasons. And I did it. I put away most of my physical LEGO and switched to making LEGO in Blender. This was before things like Stud.io and MecaBricks were around. I wasn't satisfied with the limitations of my LEGO collection and wanted to go bigger. I was also working on a video game at that point (that I never finished) so I had a good reason to do CGI. From this, I branched out beyond LEGO, but also stuck true to the LEGO CGI stuff... but then I realized, why should I make LEGO in CGI when I have it physically with me? Making stuff from scratch is hard, so I went back to brickfilming because I already had the models and shaders with me... because it's real life.

All this being said, budget is always a thing to deal with with any hobby. Yes, LEGO is expensive. But regular stop-motion is way more expensive. And CGI can be expensive as well, especially if you have to buy computers or render farm subscriptions to actually make your scenes come to life. Any hobby can swallow your wallet in a heartbeat. So don't fool yourself by thinking that CGI is cheap. It's cheaper upfront, but eventually you'll want better hardware to work with and maybe better software too. And don't get me started on textures and lightmaps and models you might want to buy.

Finally, making "what you want," like working with, for example LEGO Sonic. Sure, they dont have an official LEGO Sonic (yet, anyway), but that shouldn't stop you from making things you want to make. There are always solutions for doing things. It's creative limitations. Part of the fun of brickfilming to me is working around the limitations of a LEGO Minifig who only has 7 points of articulation and using the basic LEGO bricks to make detailed sets that are appealing to the eye. There'll be limitations in CGI too. For example your render power may limit how much you can create in CGI, or your skillset may limit what you can model from scratch. There's creative limitations with anything.

This was a good post! I can really relate to it. I struggle with what I want to create a lot of times because I have to decide what medium to use. I think it's great to practice in both and switch between to your heart's content. After all, like I mentioned at the beginning, the art should be made for you, not for some mystical audience somewhere. So just have fun!

Thank you for the reply!
I was thinking that perhaps I could do to the following: make brickfilms so I can make my own stories "come to life" and for bigger projects, where a bigger team is needed, I work in 3D maybe. Basically to have 3D there for more serious stuff, while when I only want to have fun I just do stop-motion.
Also, thanks for the advice!

The Brick Director's Website