Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and are ready to dive into another exciting year of stop motion animation. As I look ahead to 2023, I can't help but feel a sense of renewed energy and inspiration for the art form I love. One of the things I'm most excited about for the upcoming year is the continued growth and evolution of stop motion animation technology. With new software and hardware tools becoming available all the time, the possibilities for what can be achieved...

Dropbear's Stop Motion Tips Greetings and welcome to the second broadcast from Dropbear! ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ Stop motion animation is just as much as a technical art form as it is creative and there are some really simple things you can do to immensely improve the quality of your animations. Tip #1 Use controlled, constant lighting One of the most common mistakes I see when people are starting out in stop motion, is animating without controlling the light. Any lighting changes from an external source such...

Still from the music video Against the Grain How my stop motion went viral Greetings and welcome to the first broadcast from Dropbear! ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ What makes a video go viral? It's hard to predict the key ingredients but it happened to me and it kick-started my career as a stop motion animator and director. Back in 2011 I was asked to make an animated music video for indie folk musician Hudson and Troop. I had dabbled in stop motion but hadn't really had a chance to put my skills to the test and...