A tutorial covering the techniques and principles of animating facial features, including eye movement, blinks, and takes. A clay face takes a lot of time to animate, but the range of expressions, mouth shapes, and squash and stretch possibilities make it worth the extra effort. Here you'll see how to create exaggerated but believable facial movement that will bring your character to life.

Please see my other tutorials on how to make an armature for a puppet, as well as other stop motion subjects.

Software: Dragonframe. iStopmotion (Mac and mobile) is a good frame-capturing app for the price. I understand iKITmovie is a good free option for Windows. Stop Motion Studio is a good mobile app. If you have a favorite stop motion app, please tell us about it in the comments.

Camera: I'm using a DSLR. But if you're not there yet, a good option is a camcorder that can run a live video signal to your computer. But these days a mobile device with a camera running a stop motion app is all you need. The principles discussed in this video will also apply to animation recorded with a mobile device.

Shopping for Puppet-Making:
Clay (Van Aken, Sculpy III), armature wire: Arts/craft store like Hobby Lobby or amazon.com.
Armature kit: stopmotionstore.com
16-gauge aluminum armature wire (from an art store or Amazon, not the hardware store)
For the head, aluminum foil or wood ball (craft store)

Just about everything here can be found on Amazon if you don't have all these kinds of stores in your area. You can also get animation supplies from stopmotionstore.com.