Stop motion armature specialist Animation Toolkit has partnered with Aardman to design and create a bespoke armature kit to help stop motion animation students and enthusiasts with the puppet making process.
The Aardman Animation Kit includes eight easy to assemble products, from a customisable Character Kit to a compact A2 Studio Stage – perfect for the bedroom animator.
The kit is now available to pre-order on the Animation Toolkit website.
Animation Toolkit was founded by award-winning animation producer Westley Wood after he saw a gap in the market following his own struggle to find parts and materials to help him create armatures for production. The company is now recognised as one of the biggest global manufacturers of stop-motion armatures (anatomically correct metal engineered skeleton) and its range of kits have been used in hundreds of productions across the world including the recent release Chuck Steel – Night of the Trampires.
“It’s an honour to work with one of the finest stop-motion animation producers in the UK,” says Westley Wood, Managing Director of Animation Toolkit. “The Wallace & Gromit films were inspirational to our development as a company and fuelled our desire to help others make stop-motion films.
“By its very nature, stop-motion puppet (armature) fabrication isn’t an easy task and doesn’t fall into the average person’s repertoire of DIY projects. We hope that these kits make the art more accessible to a vast range of storytellers, and help continue to grow and sustain creativity within this art form, for many years to come”.
“The Aardman armature kits are perfect for student or amateur filmmakers to bring their characters life,” says Merlin Crossingham, Creative Director of Wallace & Gromit. “I look forward to seeing the creativity and animation that the kits will support”.
• The Aardman kit is now available to pre-order on the Animation Toolkit website.
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The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.
He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.
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