Stop-Motion Character Animation

Here's my stop motion film, No Ball, No Problem:

This assignment was fun, But stop motion is hard. I have such respect for the artists who can create entire features doing stop motion. It's a delicate medium, and tough to get right.

For my film I wanted something simple with a character I could make easily and quickly. I decided to go with a sports theme, so I chose the best sport: basketball.

Here were some of my initial thumbnails to try and get the idea down: 

After this I decided to expand it into a few shots to create a little more of a set up. 

I then sketched out how I could go about building the hoop and character:

This design for my character did not work because the metal wiring I had was too strong and my clay was too soft, so there was no real strength in the armature and it fell apart easily. Eventually I did put some wiring in the character, but not as how I originally designed. 

Then I built the set on my desk:

For the final shot with the character throwing his head, I used  a clay base and metal wiring to hold up his head in mid-air. I just adjusted that frame by frame to get the right arc. 

I then masked out the base and wiring in After Effects. 

In the video below you can see the shot without any editing. 

And that's that!