Awesome Claymation

Animator Lee Hardcastle is known for his gory and twisted claymation shorts, including Rick and Morty’s Non Canonical Adventures. In Dreaming Child, we’re transported into the mind of a young boy whose dream starts out joyful but quickly turns into a surreal nightmare.

Visual artist and musician Ellard Devane creates mindblowing animations out of clay. But these are no California raisins, nope. Ellard makes his works by arranging polymer clay into surreal faces and scenes that reveal themselves as he slices away at them, layer by layer, frame by frame. This video compiles highlights from the past couple of years.

If you didn’t read the title of this video, you might think it was done with computer graphics. But ClayClaim created this spot-on remake of the familiar “It’s-a me, Mario” intro sequence from Super Mario 64 out of clay. Here’s the original for comparison.

Animator Trent Shy created this fun and gory little claymation sequence. It drops us into a scientist’s laboratory, where they create entire humans by adding their secret formula to a pile of bones. And when their little creations talk back, they don’t live for long.

(Gore, Flashing lights) Animator Lee Hardcastle follows up his visceral DOOM claymation with another carnage-filled short, as our heroic kitty does everything he can to protect his cute little bunny pal from a horrific demise at the hands of an alien horde. But is he too late?

It took animator Guldies over six months and 2500 still images to complete this weird and wild stop-motion short film, which introduces us to a strange human/frog creature who begets all kinds of shapes and objects, all made out of clay.

(Gore) Lee Hardcastle is back with another series of Rick and Morty claymation shorts, this time sending the duo on a some Halloween adventures, injecting them into Beetlejuice, Hellraiser, The Blair Witch Project, Videodrome, and a few other creepy and not so creepy movie classics.

Giangrande’s inspiring folk track Free to Roam is complemented beautifully by Gianluca Maruotti’s stop-motion music video. The claymation imagery was created using with the scenes playing out against a flattened backdrop. Be sure to watch the behind the scenes video too.

(Gore) Krusty and other Springfield characters star in a heist gone horribly wrong. Claymation master Lee Hardcastle shares what he says is a banned couch gag that he made for The Simpsons. The song is I Need A New Beginning by Ruiji – an homage to Where Is My Mind.

(Gore, Flashing lights) Claymation master Lee Hardcastle sends his ass-kicking cat up against the forces of hell in this amazing promotional short film for the new DOOM game. Mew mew Mister Falcon.

(Gore) Master of blood and guts and Play-doh-mation Lee Hardcastle created his inimitable take on the classic Simpsons’ couch gag, with a creepy and disturbing take that’s sure to fill your nightmares. We can say with 100% certainty that FOX won’t be running this one.

(NSFW: Gore, Language) From the warped mind of clay animator Lee Hardcastle comes a redo of one of the most disturbing scenes from John Carpenter’s horror classic The Thing, in which the cast of Frozen drop by the Antarctic outpost.

Focus Features shares the final scene of The Boxtrolls, in which Richard Ayoade and Nick Frost’s characters unknowingly break the fourth wall, reminding us that stop-motion animation is incredibly tedious.

Doug TenNapel and Pencil Test Studios prove that their Kickstarter money is being put to good use with this gameplay trailer for their upcoming point-and-click claymation game Armikrog., the spiritual successor to The Neverhood.

(NSFW) When Captain Picard and his men log out for the day, the Night Crew takes over. Sir Patrick Stewart and Chris Pine guest star in this groovy Robot Chicken skit. Commander La Freak: best name ever.

(NSFW: Language, Gore) Claymation master Lee Hardcastle had Peter, Ray, Egon and Winston recreate scenes from Reservoir Dogs, Inglorious Basterds, Pulp Fiction and other Tarantino films. Also, here’s a promising pitch for Ghostbusters 3.

(Gore) Robot Chicken looks to The Birds for inspiration as it imagines how life must be like for A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin. We wonder if it annoys or tickles the man when people call him by his full name.

Five people depicted as cute plants or animals share their stories of loss – a pet, a body part, a friend and parents – how they overcame it and what they took from the experience. A heartwarming claymation by Fiona Dalwood.

(NSFW) Allison Schulnik continues her obsession with beautiful decay. Give this short film a few minutes of your time and you’ll be treated to a stop-motion tour de force. Aaron Olson created the film’s score.

From the creators of cult classics Earthworm Jim and The Neverhood comes a new claymation point-and-click adventure game, featuring a space explorer and his blind, talking dog sidekick.

(Gore) There’s only one name you can turn to when you are looking for gratuitous claymation violence: Lee Hardcastle. This time we see the doody that goes down when a very familiar looking rookie cop goes in without backup.

(Gore) Yippee ki yay Mother Russia! Claymation master Lee Hardcastle hypes up John McClane’s latest misadventure A Good Day to Die Hard with a recap of the vigilante’s explosive résumé.

Musician Sufjan Stevens’ new clip offers up his own nightmare-before-Christmas in this blood-and-guts-filled claymation video by Lee Hardcastle that’ll give the kids nightmares for years to come.