Animateclay recently has been in contact with a company in Australia that created a webcam that they claimed was suitable for stop motion. There are a LOT of webcams out there, so why is this one important to our community? And is it as good as advertised?

Read our full review of this latest webcam on the market here.

Robina Marchesi, animator Tim Hittle, Klara Harris and Liza Patnoe have finally released Gumby Dharma. The film is an emmy award winning film about Art Clokey, the person behind the popular green guy everyone knows as...of course, Gumby!

The film went through all the film festivals, won awards and you can grab it on DVD to watch if it didnt show up in your town. Clokey who was deeply spiritual really believed that he was on the right path with Gumby and was fortunate enough to employ new animators and take them under his wing. In fact his humble studio hired many of the animators working on all the stop motion films you will find in theaters today. The documentary however focuses more on his personal life and hardships during his childhood and career.

You can get your copy online here.

Read more about the film and the film makers on the same site here.

If you still arent convinced it is worth buying, watch the trailer for the film here.

We have some big news for visitors of Animateclay.com and Stopmotionmagic.com. To celebrate Ray Harryhausens 90th birthday, we'll be accepting animated contest entries in his name at stopmotionmagic.com soon. Leroy who takes care of the challenges will be helping. It may be part of our regular challenges - but might not. We need to work it out. Famous Monsters of Film Land will be hosting a festival in Rays name and will be showing the entries to a live audience. So this is big news and a possible way for visitors of all our sites to get noticed. Possibly by Ray himself!

Tony Dalton who is in contact with Ray directly said this about the contests:

(By all means proceed with the proposed competition based on mythology in Ray's name but he asks that we keep it Harryhausen-like rather than promoting something that is simply not Ray at all.)

According to Ron Coles blog, there are a few details that he says contestants must stick to. Every entry must be family friendly, so no blood and gore. He also says that the entries can be as long or short as the animator wants. I asked what the deadline will be, but that is unknown still. My guess is that since Rays birthday is June 29th, it will most likely be a few days to a week before that.

Once we get things ironed out I will post a link to the official contest page here. But if you would like to join, now is the time to start building some realistic Harryhausen puppets for the contest!

Cam and Mike, the two creators of GooRoo Animation have a fun site with a lot of videos, stories and pictures. They are two new stop motion artists, and they have finished six films so far - with more in the works. You can read all about them on their site here. They are definitely a pair of people to keep an eye on in the future so make sure to bookmark their site.

The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb was one of those films that when you watch it, you never forget many of the unusual scenes. There is a lot of visual poetry going on and there is almost no dialogue. Real live actors are animated one frame at a time where items around them are brought to life. Including the stop motion puppets that inhabit the surreal world. Here is a brief description taken directly from the YouTube video where I found it uploaded:

The story follows the tiny Tom Thumb as he is abducted from his loving parents and taken to an experimental laboratory, and his subsequent escape. He discovers a community of similarly-sized people living in a swamp, who help him on his journey to return to his parents. The film is largely dialogue-free, limited mostly to grunts and other non-verbal vocalizations.

Watch all six parts below:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6