How to do a Lego Animation (With PicPac)

Hey guys its Joseph here, and today I’m going to be teaching you how to do a Lego Animations like the ones on our YouTube channel. For those unaware, I am the one that creates those videos. For the best readability and comprehension, I will be explaining how to do this is a step-by-step format.

Items Required/Recommended

• Camera/Phone

• Legos

• Phone holder

• PicPac

• Lego Platform

• Lego Minifigures

• A Brightly Lit Area

Step 1

The app that I use to create my Lego Animations is PicPac, however, that is not necessary and is more so personal preference than anything.

PicPac

PicPac is a great free app for Android where you can easily create stop-motion animations from pictures you have already taken. The app also comes with its own camera to create a stop-motion animation right off the bat. PicPac has two versions, the Pro Version and Free Version. With the Free Version, you can quickly generate your own videos, record your own audio, and add music! The Pro Version allows you to upload in higher quality.

Step 2

Bring out a Lego base plate to do your animation on. The base plate is not necessary, but it helps when working with legos by keeping the legos in place and still.

Step 3

Get a bright light source to illuminate your studio and working area. The bright light helps the video look better by providing a clearer image while also helping you work on the video itself.

Step 4

I would recommend getting a stand or something small to help hold your camera in a steady position so that the pictures are exact and straight and don’t differentiate from each other. You also need to make sure that the stand doesn’t block the phone camera. I would also recommend setting the app on a timer to take a picture every 2 minutes or so which allows you enough time to change the scene. This is because personally when try to take a picture by tapping the phone I end up moving the stand slightly which changes how the picture will look from the ones before hand.

Step 5

Brainstorm what you want your Lego animation to be about. It’s themes, message, and plot are good starting points to begin thinking. For example, let’s say it Easter, and you want to create an Easter theme animation. A good place to start would be to think what do you do on Easter. For me, my family usually does Easter egg hunts. So maybe I would do an Easter egg hunting animation.

Step 6

After figuring out what you are planning on doing, take out your Legos that you are going to use and set up their starting position. I like to use mini figures to convey the story as I feel its easier to do so.

At this point, you should have a layout that looks a bit like this,

Step 7

Open up Pic Pac and take pictures after moving each lego piece. Remember to move the legos slightly so that the animation flows better.

Step 8

Maybe you messed up a picture? No worries, after taking all your pictures you can choose the images you want to use in case any of them were faulty. So instead of starting over just take the picture again!

Step 9

Edit the video however you would like. You can add your own audio as a voice over, or you can add music from your phone or online.

Step 10

After you have finished editing remember to convert the video to a mp4 or gif file. Remember, if you added music or audio you would want to convert it to a mp4 file since the gif file will take out the sound and leave it as a video.

Step 11

Tada! You just created your own Lego Animation. Now you can share it a multitude of ways with your friends and family, or you can upload it directly to YouTube

As you can see, creating your own Lego Animation seems like a daunting task but if you put your mind to and brainstorm of what you want to do before hand it becomes an easy, casual, calming task.