Gumby a distant cousin of Wallace&Gromit?

My last post was a about a short clay animation I found on YouTube. Clay animation looks fun and interesting. I know in this day and age i should probably be focusing on computer generated animation instead, but im pretty sure that clay models are still scanned into computer to help aid the fabrication of 3d computer animation anyway. An old and well known animation is Gumby. Gumby was created in mid 1950's and is a good example of early clay animation. Heres a short clip to jog the memory:



A more recent example of clay animation is Chicken Run. Made by Aardman Animations. The same studio that produced Wallace and Gromit.

If you click this link you'll see a great list of animations dating from 1955 too 2006 which include alot of different works produced by Will Vinton who ill cover in more depth in a later post.

A few starting places for people interested in clay animation are: The Clay Animation and Stop Motion How To Page, PT3 and Clay Animation Station.