- The king - I started doing Stop motion when a friend of a family introduced me to the medium.

We had a little VCR camcorder and we'd set up some of our toys and do a little toy Mation.

Life got away from me and I put it aside until I was about 27 years old and then I started picking up a camera again.

I started doing video production.

I would do short films, be live on set with actors, focused directly on knowing how to edit, how to set up a shot, how to light a scene.

I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia last year.

It causes pain all over my body all the time.

It restricts me from being able to venture out and be part of a group.

It's something that helped me transition into stop motion and move away from the live action.

You are the entirety of the crew.

So stop Motion has really given me the ability to uplift myself.

Stop motion is very difficult process, but it's not something that you want to run away from.

You don't have to study in a classroom.

There is a plethora of information out there.

Any kind of forum base will be your best bet.

You can search straight on Google for stop motion forums.

- That's the, the beauty of it for me is just you're constantly learning.

You're constantly getting to do and and figure out new things, new ways of doing stuff and seeing it all come together is, is really awesome and beautiful.

- Creating a stop motion.

There are many elements.

First materials, there's so many that you can utilize.

Whether you wanna use felt paints, foam board from the Dollar Store, - I'm always like hauling like giant bags from the dollar store.

Like I just spent a hundred dollars on craft supplies.

Like I'm the reason that craft aisle is there.

I just love the Dollar Storer.

I just like being like, I made this wizard out of a chicken nugget box and like some sheets of felt and some beads and now he's like real, - Hi there, I'm a wizard but I only know dumb spells about duck.

- I used to like really like playing with like tiny things if it makes sense.

Like I remember making like houses for bugs out of like match boxes and like that kind of stuff.

- What's your story?

Even not having a fully mapped out script is okay.

Having just words on paper is great because it helps you get direction, the route you want to go.

Once that script's finished, storyboarding is the next step.

- I start with the, with the story, then I create a script and then I, I usually work with other artists, like for storyboarding, I create an animatic, I make a shot list, I divide it into sequences and then I start just filming shot by shot.

- I didn't have storyboards, did a quick little breakdown of what I imagined would happen and I got to go ahead to go just with that.

- I feel like for me, my creative process is just to kind of just sit and let things come to me and doodle at the same time.

- Once everything's laid out, then you can bring out the camera.

I recommend grabbing a phone.

There's free software out there.

The fun begins there.

You would take a photo, move the camera a little bit, adjust your set or your, your puppet, take a photo, move the camera, adjust your set and puppet and so on and so forth until you finish out your scene.

Once the puppets are animated, there's a process to remove the rigs.

The rigs are gonna be the ball joint sockets or the metal armatures that are connected to the back or the front or the side of the puppets.

I use After Effects to remove all of the rigs, you just make a layer and another layer and then you overlay the image of the puppet with the rig and then you're able to just remove by highlighting around the rig.

It will show the animation as it should look.

I to remove all of the rigs I started in Photoshop, but the process is it takes much longer.

- I feel like people keep telling me that there's easy ways to do it in Adobe After Effects, but I'm just never, never satisfied with that.

So I end up just photoshopping each individual frame myself.

- CGI has helped stop motion abundantly.

It's provided the ability to not have to have such a large elaborate set, utilize blue or green screens and then be able to just build off of it.

- CGI, I think can complement any animation story and you know, it's the future and it's technology is always gonna be pushing further and further until we reach like a singularity.

But then again it doesn't because it's an art form.

You know, I specifically wanted to use textures that were very hard to mimic in CGI, so that somebody knows that it's a real thing.

Like clay, you can see my fingerprints, you know, you can see the imperfections in it and you can feel like you can reach out and touch it.

- That's what where stop motion kind of shines for me is like knowing that it's a real object.

It's a real thing that's moving through space and how cool it looks.

- Stop motion has this kind of childish like curiosity, playfulness, you know, using whatever they have and and like improvising with the stuff that we have.

- I love stop motion because it's frame by frame.

You have to build the sets, find a little space to do it, have a camera and some software and just have fun with it.

Become a creator and find your passion.

Whatever you choose to do, you're capable of it.

Just have fun and you know the sky's the limit.

It's all about imagination.