Charcoal stop-motion animation is a very interesting art form that uses hand-drawn or charcoal drawings to create stop motion. This form of animation often gives a very unique visual experience as it captures the detail and texture of the lines, making the animation look more realistic. I had never tried this approach before.

We mainly used larger grams of watercolour paper, the thicker thickness of which made it possible to avoid the paper becoming unusable due to heavy wear and tear during the drawing process, and the charcoal pencils were divided into different thickness and hardness so that the texture of the drawing would be different.

There were two types of experience, one was stop-motion animation through toner and the other was making a self-portrait together as a class.

For the toner stop-motion animation, I used a grinding tool to grind the charcoal into powder for stacking to create the effect of waves, and added white powder to the ebb section to make the image look clearer and more three-dimensional.

Drawing a self-portrait together as a class was more of a new form for me we drew for 2-3 minutes leaving our canvas and through multiple actions eventually becoming a huge experimental stop-motion animation. This activity allowed me to try drawing with carbon strips for the first time, a process I found very testing in terms of hand drawing skills and control of the line, requiring me to accurately capture the texture and detail of the line and to capture my own appearance.

All in all, I had a lot of fun and I learnt a lot of new techniques and forms of animation. Charcoal can produce a stronger contrast between black and white and more pronounced textures, which brings more expressiveness to my future work. Also, the nature of charcoal drawing allows me to make quick revisions and changes on paper at will. This freedom and flexibility allows me to be more creative and imaginative.