My final outcome
The work I created is a stop motion animation that is made up of a series of 12 images. The themes of the project were movement and the Cultural Olympiad, so the work I have produced is directly inspired by these themes.
The idea around my design
I wanted to link my work with an Olympic spot as one of the themes was the Cultural Olympiad. I simply looked though the long list of Olympic sports; thinking of what ones would be good to work with. I came up with a few ideas that I thought would be easy to create in the style I’m working with.

Influences for my work
When thinking and researching for ideas I came across the artist Robin Rhode, he is the main artist that I have taken inspiration from on the style of my work. His work includes the use of stop motion and some of the pieces I looked at are linked with spots. This is why I found him such a great help, because I can work and link to his work easily. I looked at the artwork ‘he got game’ by Robin Rhode the most, when I first saw this work I knew straight away I wanted to work like this. I liked the uniqueness of the work and the simple but effect style it had.

My final design
As I wanted it to be about the theme of the Olympics I choose a sport that I thought would work well in a stop motion style of work. I had a few sports that I could have worked with but I chose to do diving. When looking at Robin Rhodes work I thought there was a little bit of humour in it, so I have tried to incorporate this into my work by ending the dive in a belly flop. This was the first time I have worked in this way and I think I have produced a piece of work to a good standard. I am happy with how my final work looks.

High Dive, my final outcome for this project

Eadweard Muybridge has played a big part in my project and ideas. At the beginning of the project when researching animation I looked into Eadweard Muybridge’s work. I came across his designs for a phenakistoscope and got onto the idea of a zoetrope. Once I had this idea of a zoetrope, I didn’t take the time to look at other ideas in case this didn’t work.
So I was stuck when my zoetrope idea didn’t work. I looked back though some research I done and when looking at Eadweard Muybridge I remember an idea I had when I first saw his work. I came across stop motion, he was the first person to use stop motion animation. I liked the idea of using stop motion but I decided not to research this way of animation further, I can’t remember the reason why however I wish I did.
Seen as I have worked a rather long time on my zoetrope idea, I am quite away though this project and close to my deadline. So I have got straight onto researching around stop motion.

Stop motion is an animation technique to give an impression of physical movement in a series of photos. The object that is being photographed moves slightly in-between each photo frame, therefore giving the photos a continuous sequence when played frame by frame.

I have been researching around stop motion and artists that work in this way. When looking through the book ‘Vitamin D’ I came across the artist Robin Rhode. He uses stop motion in his work and the work I saw in this book links to how I should be working.
The piece work I have been looking at is ‘He Got Game’ by Robin Rhode. I looked at this for inspiration because it’s easily linkable to my work. As this work is about sports and I’m going to link my work to the cultural Olympiad I found it helpful.
The piece I’m looking at is series of photos of a man flipping and slam dunking a basketball into a hoop. The background of the photos have been drawn on the floor with chalk and with each photo taken a man moves across the floor, giving the impression of movement when all images are played in a series. I like the way these pictures look and the unique style it has, so I have choose to produce my outcome in this way.

This is Robin Rhodes ‘He Got Game’ that I have taken inspiration from.


I now have the way I want to work I just need an idea for my designs. I have researched Olympic sports looking for a suitable sport to use for my design. I have been thinking of sports that will be easy to work with and looks good in this style of work. Here are some example I have come up with up,
- Diving
- Weight lifting
- Archery
- Swimming
- Table tennis
These are a few sport ideas I have been looking at from the long list of Olympic sports there are. I wanted to keep to the same style as Robin Rhode, basically I want to keep the background the same a just move one element of the work. When looking for an I idea the main thing I was thinking about was, if I could keep the background in each photo the same. I have choose a few ideas I liked the best and made them into a stop motion design, this is to see what design looks best and to see if I can actually work in this way.

Here are the outcomes of my experiments using stop motion on some of my ideas.




After seeing how my experiments have turn out, I am happy with the way my designs look. The three designs I produced were the three favourites I had, so I will be choosing one of them as my finial piece. I think the making of them where easy as well, the only thing is having patients to do it.

I started of by simply laying a long row of plain paper down to use as my background. Then I choose the sport I wanted to use for example diving, so with diving I drew a simply outline of what I thought a diving board would look like. I used an artist mannequin to represent a human and moved it as I thought someone diving would move. When looking at how people actually dive the board moves up and down, so I have added this in by simply rubbing out the diving board and re-drawing it up or down. Each time I moved the mannequin I would take a photo, I ended up with 19 photos and when played as a series of images it gives the impression of moving.

After looking at my experiment and showing others to get feedback, I think the best idea to use for my final outcome is the diving design.

Zoetrope’s

After looking at Eadweard Muybridge’s phenakistoscope I came across an updated version that I like the look of, it is a zoetrope.
A zoetrope is a device that creates an illusion of movement from a rapid series of still images. Its made up of a cylinder with slits sliced vertically in the sides. Below the slits on the inside wall of the cylinder is a strip which has your series of images on it. As you spin the zoetrope and look through the slits at the images on the other side you see the illusion of movement. This is because the scanning of the slits keep the images from merely blurring together, giving the effect of motion.
This is simple and effective way to produce illusion in my work and I will be experimenting more with this style.


I have been experimenting with zoetrope’s and have come up with a few ideas that I want to use as my final outcome for this project. My first idea for the project was to work with hands, so I initially wanted to produce and design that will show a 3D view of a hand from all angles. I liked this idea however it wasn’t interesting enough it didn’t have and unique style or meaning.
Therefore I asked for some feedback from my class and they come up with some good advice and got me thinking. I was thinking about how I could incorporate the old and the new in my work, so I thought I could make a series of picture that change form something old to something new e.g. typing on a type writer to a keyboard to a keyboard on a phone.
I done a few sketches of this idea but it wasn’t looking very good to be honest, so I changed it a little. I kept the idea of using a keyboard and a phone and decided to use a hand texting as my design. You will be able to see the hand texting and the writing appear on the phone. I’m not sure what the text is going to say yet, but I think it is more important to get the designs of the hand first.

I really struggled trying to get my pictures to work, when I put my strip of images in my zoetrope and spun it, the images just blurred. I think I should have spent more time researching and making samples.
So I have gone back to the start and a looked into how to get my designs to work. I found out that you can’t use just liner lines for your images, you need to have them coloured in. This is because when you spin the zoetrope fast the image that is coloured stays the focused letting it easier to be seen.
Once I found this out I used it on my images to see if it would work. I didn’t want to use colours because on each picture it would be hard to get them the same; therefore I choose to use black and white.

Here are my pictures that I have produced to go into a strip for my zoetrope.


I now have my new improved designs and rightfully they should work, but they didn’t. I’m not sure why, I think it could have been that I over shaded my pictures making them to dark and they where not all in the same position. Consequently I had to produce another design, learning from these mistakes.
I gave it one more go at creating a design that will work. I decided to take one photo of my hands holding a phone texting. From this I only moved the thumbs of the picture the rest of the image stayed the same making it easy to see when spun.


I had trouble with this, same as the other design. It still wasn’t working how I wanted it to, it was hard to see what it was.
So I have decided to stop the idea of a zoetrope and change my final outcome to something else.

Phenakistoscope

A phenakistoscope is a way to produce moving images caused by illusion. It is made up from a disc with a series of pictures equally spaced out within the circle. Between each of the pictures you need to cut out slits that are big enough to look though. Once you have your disc with your pictures and slits on it, you need to hold it vertically in front of a mirror and spin it while looking though the slits and focusing on the reflection. Due to the slits and the reflection this device uses the phenakistoscope it keeps the pictures simply blurring together, giving rapid succession of images with the appearance of a motion.

I was influenced to look in to this way of animation when I came across Eadweard Muybridge’s photos. When researching animation and movement in art, Eadweard Muybridge name kept catching my eye. So I research Muybridge’s work and liked what he was doing. I found a picture of a phenakistoscope that he produced of man and women dancing the waltz. I liked the simplicity of this type of animation and the effect it had, so I thought I would have a go at producing one myself.

Here is a phenakistoscope created by Eadweard Mubridge


I have tried to use this method and produce a simple phenakistoscope of my own. I like the outcome I got from using this technique and I will be experimenting with different ways of getting motion with my work.

Movement ideas

I have been thinking of way I can produce and show movement in my work using drawings. I have came across things like flipbooks and zoetrope’s in my research and I like the idea of using theses.

-A flipbook is a small book containing a sequence of images that give the illusion of non-stop movement when you flick through the pages quickly.
-A zoetrope is a device that hold a series of images in a cylinder shape. The zoetrope has slits in the side where you look thought, these slits simply stop the images from blurring. So when you spin the zoetrope and look though the slits it give a picture that moves continuingly.
-Phenakistoscope are a lot like zoetrope’s. As they both work in the same way, you need to look though slits to stop the images from blurring. A phenakistoscope is a disk shape with your images on the front with the slits inbetween the images. To view the phenakistoscope you need to hold it up in front of a mirror and spin while looking though the slits to give the movement.
-Digital animation, photography sequences. These are snapshots of something happening for example a human walking, you would take a series of photos of a human walking. When you look at each different photo in a fast sequence it will give the impression of a film.

I think the my hand drawings came out looking good and I want to create work with hands but I want to produce something out of the ordinary for my finial work. I started thinking about the theme what is movement, this made me think that I want to produce work that moves.



This is a experiment to look at how I am going to put movement in my work.

When looking at skeletons I was looking at the different bones and the movement of them in the body. I was particularly interested in the look and the movement of hands. I looked the skeleton of the hand but decided I didn’t want to work with the skeleton. So I just started to look at normal hands and how we can manipulate them into many different shapes.

To get started I just started to practice by drawing my own hand in different positions.