#if there are typos i cant see them whoops i will fix them later

[briarquartz]

hi! sorry if you've been asked this before, but i was wondering- what did you do to get the monster high figures to stand up when doing the stopmotion out of touch video? i've tried to do stopmotion before, but i was stumped when it comes to getting them to stand and move around on two feet as cleanly as you did in the video. do you use clear stands and edit them out in post or do you have another technique? hope you have a good day btw, the video was v cute!!

Hi! Thank you for a really flattering and nice ask, it really made my evening! Unfortunately, I don't know how to do stop motion, I just rearranged some clips from the video below. Someone(s) professional at (or hired by) Mattel did the stop motion. They're not credited in the description or the end of the video, sadly. It's indeed very good, Twyla is best girl.

The clear stands are a very clever idea, anon! I suspect there are indeed some kind of special stands used here, probably something like this from kineticarmatures dot com. I suspect they hide the gray block under whatever surface the doll is supposed to walk on, and then take pictures from the front so the handle can't be seen.

You know how people on social media only post the best selfie and don't show the 20 other pictures they took, trying to find the most flattering angle and stuff? You don't owe anyone "perfection" when you're doing something for fun. Don't worry about the stands being visible in your stuff.

On the topic of editing stuff out, I do know little bit about it: I've used GIMP for a long while. It's a free photo editor you can download to your computer. With it, you can delete any background while leaving the doll untouched. Then you can replace the background with something else.

If you really want to go extra, you can cover the bits by the hips holding the doll upright by painting over them with the same color as the shirt/dress etc or using the clone tool (also pssst always add or edit on a separate layer. In the below video she can't just erase the darker blue and leave the color of the sky that's really there, cause she's doing it all on the same layer. If she had a copy of the plane layer, after adding the second plane, she could delete everything else, revealing the original photo, and have a neater result).

BUT.

Don't feel you have to do any of this extra stuff, I'm only adding these videos just in case it would be helpful. If you're making a video that's 24 frames per second, you're editing 24 pictures for 1 sec of animation, assuming there's movement in each frame and you're not using duplicates. Even if you only move the hand, take it and paste it onto an already edited picture, that's still A LOT of work.

Would it even be worth it? Will editing take the fun out of taking the photos so you can watch your dolls move? Maybe you just want to edit out the plastic by the hips if it bothers you, and leave everything else as is, so it looks like your dolls are moving on your table or interacting with your stuff.

All that matters is you're having fun doing it. You're not Mattel, publishing a professional music video. Don't hold yourself to the same standards. As long as you're happy with the animation (or at least feel you improved, even if the end result isn't quite what you wanted).

I hope you have a good day too, anon. <3