We all have creativity within ourselves, it's just a struggle sometimes to unlock it.

A UK company is trying to fix that. Called Animation Toolkit, the company was founded by Westley Wood, a director, and producer for CITV in the U.K. They have created a kit called "Armacreature!" for making your very own stop motion animation. At the very least, it should open the door for those interested in animation to branch out and find their own methods. Everyone has to start somewhere.

The kit must be pretty good because it was endorsed by legendary special effects maven Ray Harryhausen before Harryhausen passed away. Harryhausen created some of the best animations in film history in classic adventures such as "Jason and the Argonauts" and "Clash of the Titans." There are very few people in the world who know more about stop motion animation than did Ray Harryhausen.

Wood himself also knows a thing or two about animation. He produces and directs programs such as "Compost Corner" and "Stix and Stones" for CITV out of MediaCityUK. He says:

 “The idea to create animation armature kits was really born by seeing trainee animation students struggle to build puppets for their films, it’s very time consuming as well as difficult to find the parts to build a quality and durable armature for a character. In my spare time I started to make the kits in my garage and demand soon picked up,” says Wood. “Harryhausen is the grandmaster of stop motion animation so I knew that if he agreed to endorse my product that my armature kits would really take off. I felt very honored that he gave my product his seal of approval before he sadly passed away.”

The kit is solidly built and used not just by amateurs, but also by professionals. You may learn more about it on the company's website here.

2020