Bricks in Motion
We are a friendly filmmaking community devoted to the art of stop-motion animation using LEGO® and similar construction toys. Here, you can share your work, join our community of other brickfilmers, and participate in periodic animation contests!
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Birdie
Three birds and an egg. What could go wrong?
Made for EASTER 2014, and my first experiment with larger-than-minifigure characters! Featuring Zach Macias (MindGame Studios).
The bird models are beautiful along with the background creation. The only thing I think could have been done better was the animation for each birds head.
I would've used a bionicle ball piece to allow for more fluid movement in the head, but that's just me. Good work
If I really wanted to nitpick, I'd say that I would have added something more to the movement of the birds. (Pretty much what CarollFilms said). I really liked it. Good job!
Oh Lord. 
That's all. Really good job, as always.
Also,
I loved the way you did the birds' eyes popping out, that was really funny and quite creative. The LEGO golf club head is also a really nice model. 
Really nice and creative, it's hard to get fluid movements on big models like that so that didn't bother me much. Very well executed.
Really loved this film! It's a very creative idea, and it's executed well and it's pretty well animated. Like said before, a little more animation on the birds, like some hopping around, would have gone a long way. But I think it's still a fun movie.
Eggcellent.
Good job, I was a bit skeptical in the chat room, but this turned out really well.
This was amazing! Like everyone else, I believe the birds should have moved more. Awesome job though!
It looked really cool and impressive, except the club went right through the head of the blue bird, which felt really weird.
Woah, I just noticed that you forgot to erase the rig holding the cardinal on your intro picture. Fail.
Loved it, I really like your new stuff, its really refreshing to see such quality brickfilms being churned out regularly. Kudos.
This was a very nice animation. The models were amazing.
I'll have to disagree with what several others in this thread have mentioned; I don't think the birds needed MORE movement - the movements themselves were appropriate. However, I think you should have done something with the TIMING of the movements. It felt a little unnatural that the three birds were (essentially) still, then all 3 moved at the same time for the same duration, were still again, then all moved at the same time again. The cardinal did have some independent movement but (I think) there should have been more of that. I often find myself falling into the same trap when animating several figures in a crowd. This is but a minor point and does not detract from the overall animation.
Great job on your back-to-back hits!
This was a very nice animation. The models were amazing.
I'll have to disagree with what several others in this thread have mentioned; I don't think the birds needed MORE movement - the movements themselves were appropriate. However, I think you should have done something with the TIMING of the movements. It felt a little unnatural that the three birds were (essentially) still, then all 3 moved at the same time for the same duration, were still again, then all moved at the same time again. The cardinal did have some independent movement but (I think) there should have been more of that. I often find myself falling into the same trap when animating several figures in a crowd. This is but a minor point and does not detract from the overall animation.
Great job on your back-to-back hits!
The fact that all three were moving at the same time was obviously meant to be that way. Every time the egg moved the birds would get excited, then they would calm down and start waiting again till the egg moved and they once more excited. It would have greatly lessened the importance of the egg if the birds were always the center of attention.
Nice short film Nathan, I really liked the models.
That absolutely cracked me up. Awesome job. Carroll already covered the only issue I had. But, that was absolutely fantastic.
Thank you for all of the kind comments and helpful critiques! They are appreciated as always! I never expected to release a new film so soon after Alex and Derrick: Five Years Later, but things just fell into place!
The bird models are beautiful along with the background creation. The only thing I think could have been done better was the animation for each birds head.
I would've used a bionicle ball piece to allow for more fluid movement in the head, but that's just me. Good work
Overall I agree with you. This was a great learning experience for me regarding form vs function. I am very happy with how the birds look, but I made the mistake of designing the birds for their looks instead of for their functionality. Ultimately their limited movements hampered their animation, and if I were to do it all again I would focus more on articulation first.
Oh Lord.
Also,
Spoiler (click to read)
I loved the way you did the birds' eyes popping out, that was really funny and quite creative. The LEGO golf club head is also a really nice model.
The ball joint with the eye printing from the new Mixels sets were the spark that set this animation in motion. Without the eye-popping, I don't think this short would have worked at all. I'm happy it turned out so well.
It looked really cool and impressive, except the club went right through the head of the blue bird, which felt really weird.
Yeah, I discovered after blocking my shot that I was going to have to cheat a bit with the placement and movement of objects. Because of set limitations (I used almost all of my green plates for this film), I couldn't pull the camera back any further, and it was already crowded with the three birds and the egg. So I decided just to make do and cheat. It isn't the best solution, but even Disney cheats sometimes when it comes to animation, such as Elsa's hair during the Let it Go sequence in Frozen.
AlNickelsFilms wrote:This was a very nice animation. The models were amazing.
I'll have to disagree with what several others in this thread have mentioned; I don't think the birds needed MORE movement - the movements themselves were appropriate. However, I think you should have done something with the TIMING of the movements. It felt a little unnatural that the three birds were (essentially) still, then all 3 moved at the same time for the same duration, were still again, then all moved at the same time again. The cardinal did have some independent movement but (I think) there should have been more of that. I often find myself falling into the same trap when animating several figures in a crowd. This is but a minor point and does not detract from the overall animation.
Great job on your back-to-back hits!
The fact that all three were moving at the same time was obviously meant to be that way. Every time the egg moved the birds would get excited, then they would calm down and start waiting again till the egg moved and they once more excited. It would have greatly lessened the importance of the egg if the birds were always the center of attention
I've got to agree with GEF here. The animation of the birds was intentional. I do wish the animation of the birds themselves was a bit better, but I was very rushed to meet the EASTER deadline, and only had one day to animate. I was forced to animate all in one go and push through the weaker parts of the animation.
In my original vision, at least one of the birds was actually going to fly into the shot at the beginning. This quickly turned out to be impossible. The birds turned out to be a lot heavier than I expected, and even the strongest flexible technic rigs wouldn't hold them up unsupported without difficulties, so I had to eliminate that animation.
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