Stop motion animation using LEGO bricks is a fantastic way to tell stories, and some of the top YouTube channels have massive followings.
It’s no surprise then that there is a lot of interest in learning how to get started with the medium. The LEGO Animation Book aims to be your complete guide to being a LEGO stop-motion animator.
A lot of the previous LEGO books that I have reviewed have been fairly light, easy reading. They’ve either been fun things aimed at kids or informational books with more pictures than text. The LEGO Animation book does start off light but does get very technical.
The book has a great progression from the basics of staging a shoot to some very advanced topics. You can see the trailer for the film referenced throughout the book at the end of the article.
The LEGO Side
If you are expecting this to be a book full of build instructions then you are going to be a little disappointed. That’s not what this book is about.
There are a few builds in the book – creating large “puppets” for your animation, but the rest of the building presented is all designed for a specific function.
The book talks about building settings for your film and includes tips like not building things that you won’t see on camera (such as the 4th wall of a building) and spacing out your build so characters can move freely within a scene.
Also covered are various scales that you can build at, and how those work in different ways within a film.
The LEGO content of the book is about the advantages of using LEGO as an animation medium and how to build in a way that will achieve the outcome you want. Its not about creating MOCS.
An Animation Guide
You might see the book and immediately think it’s a LEGO book, but if I had to classify it I would say that it’s a book about animation. It talks about all of the fundamentals of animation; the rules and guiding principles created in the early days of Disney.
Each element is expertly covered. They are the sort of things that you don’t notice when they are there, but would make your film look poor if they were missing. Little things like firing a rocket launcher causing a minifigure to move backwards.
The animation principles that are covered are what makes people connect with characters, even if they are minifigures.
Chapter two of the book is all about the key to the majority of LEGO animation – the minifigure. Unlike other ways of doing animation there are limitations to what is possible with a LEGO minifigure. The book breaks down complex topics like points of articulation into easily understandable language.
There are useful tips spread throughout like grouping together your minifigure heads that could be the same “character” in order to get a library of different facial expressions.
Getting Technical
The later chapters of the book get into some of the more complex and technical side of doing stop-motion LEGO animation, but the information is always presented in an approachable way.
Not everybody is going to understand photography terms like white balance and ISO, but they are presented as an advanced topic. Those advanced topics are presented as an extension of the basic tips, rather than instead of them.
The section on camera selection uses colour coded pages to convey varying complexities. If you want to just use your smartphone then the book doesn’t dismiss that option.
The tools of the trade section covers everything that you will need from the camera and tripod to lighting, microphones and little things like dust removal tools and tape.
The other aspect of the technical part of the book is a guide to cinematography and post-production. The cinematography section will give you a good understanding of how to shoot your film. The software that you can use and some general tips about actually capturing the frames needed.
On the post-production side, the book touches on using computer generated images to add to your film. It’s a skill that not everybody is going to have, and the book does make it clear that it is an advanced topic.
Sound design and recording is also covered well.
Being Creative
Chapter 7 of the book does its best to cover what is possibly the hardest part of creating a LEGO animation – being creative. Having a good idea for a story is difficult and this book doesn’t really aim to inspire that. What this chapter does offer is ways to brainstorm ideas, how to create story boards and get that idea out of your head. Lots of general information like standard script formatting.
I would have liked if the book did more to inspire ideas, but having said that I don’t know how it could have actually done that. Like I said previously this isn’t just a LEGO book, or a LEGO Ideas book.
In conclusion
To be honest I have never really had much interest in LEGO animation myself, it’s just not something I aspired to do. Despite that I really enjoyed reading this book. It’s impossible to dismiss the work involved in LEGO animation and getting such an in depth guide really makes me appreciate it more than ever. I enjoy learning the technical side of things and this book is very educational while still being approachable.
If you have any desire to become a LEGO animator or just want to learn more about the medium then I highly recommend this book.
You can read more information about The LEGO Animation Book at https://www.nostarch.com/legoanimation
If you are interested in this book the cheapest place I found to purchase it was UK based online book store bookdepository.com. The price is (at the time of publication) AU$21.88 with free international shipping.
Bricking Around was sent a copy of the book to review. Receiving review products does not guarantee positive coverage – Bricking Around posts will always place honesty above commercial considerations.