Clay Animation, which is also known as Stop-Motion, is a way of animating with clay figures. According to Vince Backeberg about the kind of clay used, "There are many good supply houses out there. But first I would suggest checking your local phonebook under art and ceramic supplies. Many cities have this stuff in town, without having to send out for mail order. (Look under Art and Ceramic supplies.) Vinton's used a plasticine from Van Aken and is selling their own under the ClaymationŽ name. They also used a lot of Sculpey for small props because of it's resemblance to clay, and the fact that once baked, it was rigid and un-melting under set lights."

Gumby and his horse Pokey.

Claymation started around 1908 by Etienne Arnaud of France who created the film La Statue which took a staue modeled in clay, deformed it, and expose one frame. This was one of the first attempts at doing clay animation. In 1978, Will Vinton made a documentary explaining the process of Clay Animation.

Will Vinton Studios is probably the most recognizable figure to work on Claymation with their California Raisins commercials from the late 1980's, with other projects on promotion include Return of Oz (1985), and the Domino's Pizza Noid campaign. This feature film The Adventure of Mark Twain in 1985. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1995) along with James and the Giant Peach also extensively used Stop-Motion animation. Recently, Chicken Run (2000) used this same technique.

George Pal was the inventor of the "replacement system" of stop-motion animation, where the character isn't actually deformed, but rather a set of replacement parts are created for each movement of the character.

So what else is there to say about claymation? It was once called 3D animation, until Computer Graphics Animation kicked in. Otherwise, Claymation has been a real different style towards animating inanimate objects. When someone thinks "animation", they think "things drawn on paper", but this isn't necessarily true, as animation is really just taking something and giving it the illusion of life.