• Joined: January 12, 2020

Topic: Lego Help Please

Hello,
I have done stop motion animation before but only with clay. I would like to do some films with bricks. However, when I ordered some bricks and characters I was surprised that the characters rhat arrived are so small. They are MiniFisgs. My question to this community is, are MiniFig characters the standard size Lego character that everyone is using to produce Brickfilms?

Also, what type of camera do you use to record the tiny minifig characters? Cellphone, DSLR, any lens recommendations, wide-angle, zoom?

Last edited by Brickster (January 12, 2020 (02:41pm))

  • Joined: August 5, 2019

Re: Lego Help Please

Yes and that is why it takes days/weeks/months to produce one good video. I'm guessing you never grew up with Lego? LoL it's a different world of stop motion. Different tricks and techniques invloved.

  • Joined: January 12, 2020

Re: Lego Help Please

Hellcat77 wrote:

Yes and that is why it takes days/weeks/months to produce one good video. I'm guessing you never grew up with Lego? LoL it's a different world of stop motion. Different tricks and techniques invloved.

Thank you for the reply. I appreciate it.

  • Joined: March 28, 2014

Re: Lego Help Please

Funny thing about LEGO... even though it's so small, you can build it into bigger stuff.

https://bricksafe.com/files/Brickcrazy/Stop%20Motion%20Animation/Roses_001_06_X1_0063.jpg

I don't have a full body shot of this, but Brickcrazy built this out of LEGO and it's very articulate.

But the limitations are what make LEGO fun to work with. Personally, I hate doing claymation because it's so hard to manipulate smoothly. Minifigs are small, sure, and take tons of practice, but they're fun and I think the size adds to the benefits for me. I don't have that much space to work in, so the smaller the better for me.

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  • Joined: January 12, 2020

Re: Lego Help Please

rioforce wrote:

Funny thing about LEGO... even though it's so small, you can build it into bigger stuff.

https://bricksafe.com/files/Brickcrazy/Stop%20Motion%20Animation/Roses_001_06_X1_0063.jpg

I don't have a full body shot of this, but Brickcrazy built this out of LEGO and it's very articulate.

But the limitations are what make LEGO fun to work with. Personally, I hate doing claymation because it's so hard to manipulate smoothly. Minifigs are small, sure, and take tons of practice, but they're fun and I think the size adds to the benefits for me. I don't have that much space to work in, so the smaller the better for me.

Thank you for the encouragement. What type of camera do you use to record the tiny minifig characters? Cellphone, DSLR, any lens recommendations, wide-angle, zoom?

  • Joined: January 12, 2020

Re: Lego Help Please

I’m new to  using legos and brick films. What type of camera do you use to record the tiny minifig characters? Cellphone, DSLR, any lens recommendations, wide-angle, zoom?

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Re: Lego Help Please

Brickster wrote:

I’m new to  using legos and brick films. What type of camera do you use to record the tiny minifig characters? Cellphone, DSLR, any lens recommendations, wide-angle, zoom?

People tend to use whatever they have, so all of the above. I've just got a webcam myself, the Logitech C920 which is fairly popular choice for people who can't afford/don't want a DSLR. It has the benefit of being small enough to squeeze into small sets without too much effort.

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  • Joined: January 12, 2020

Re: Lego Help Please

JOCo wrote:
Brickster wrote:

I’m new to  using legos and brick films. What type of camera do you use to record the tiny minifig characters? Cellphone, DSLR, any lens recommendations, wide-angle, zoom?

People tend to use whatever they have, so all of the above. I've just got a webcam myself, the Logitech C920 which is fairly popular choice for people who can't afford/don't want a DSLR. It has the benefit of being small enough to squeeze into small sets without too much effort.

Thank you for your reply.

  • Joined: August 14, 2010

Re: Lego Help Please

Yeah, Lego minifigures are pretty small. In the past Lego had made some figures in different sizes, but aside from the brick-built BrickHeadz, they haven't really dabbled in larger sized figures for a while.

If your just starting out I'd recommend you watch these two tutorial playlists. Since you're already a stop-motion animator, a lot of this will be familiar to you. But these do cover some Lego-specifics that would probably be beneficial to you.

Nathan Wells' Bricks in Motion Tutorial Series
& Doug Vandegrift's Brickfilm School.

Larger cameras (like DSLR's) tend to give the greatest image resolution, lens options, and post-production opportunities (shooting RAW helps) however, tiny little webcams have always been heavily utilized in Lego stop-motion for their size - easy to integrate into tiny pre-built sets & spaces - although, obviously, they shoot at a much lower resolution (most can handle 720p or 1080p HD nowadays, though!)

Thanks for reaching out! Looking forward to seeing what you do & come up with! Animating Lego is such a unique and different experience to other forms of animation & stop-motion - but it has a lot of neat pluses as well! mini/smile

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Re: Lego Help Please

use a webcam. i use this one https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Widescr … amp;sr=8-2

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  • Joined: January 12, 2020

Re: Lego Help Please

Dyland wrote:

Yeah, Lego minifigures are pretty small. In the past Lego had made some figures in different sizes, but aside from the brick-built BrickHeadz, they haven't really dabbled in larger sized figures for a while.

If your just starting out I'd recommend you watch these two tutorial playlists. Since you're already a stop-motion animator, a lot of this will be familiar to you. But these do cover some Lego-specifics that would probably be beneficial to you.

Nathan Wells' Bricks in Motion Tutorial Series
& Doug Vandegrift's Brickfilm School.

Larger cameras (like DSLR's) tend to give the greatest image resolution, lens options, and post-production opportunities (shooting RAW helps) however, tiny little webcams have always been heavily utilized in Lego stop-motion for their size - easy to integrate into tiny pre-built sets & spaces - although, obviously, they shoot at a much lower resolution (most can handle 720p or 1080p HD nowadays, though!)

Thanks for reaching out! Looking forward to seeing what you do & come up with! Animating Lego is such a unique and different experience to other forms of animation & stop-motion - but it has a lot of neat pluses as well! mini/smile

Great information and advice! Thank you for replying