atelier sango: mini claymation portraits

steve boyer with his miniature clay portrait sculpted by atelier sango image © designboom

based in shizuoka, japan, atelier sango (yuji kawauchi and yuri hamaguchi) produce figures for claymation videos. they presented their miniature work as part of the designboom curated show yakitate! at dwell on design 2011 in los angeles, from june 24 – 26th, 2011.

‘yakitate’ is japanese for ‘freshly baked’, and this cultural group exhibition featured the work of eight independent professionals / groups influencing the contemporary design scene in japan. in the diverse fields of animation, lighting design, architecture, textile design and craft, the young talents explore the role of tradition and innovation, from functional design to sculpture. for the duration of the show, the participating designers delivered 30 minute workshop performances, twice a day to visitors, giving them an up close look to their work and design process. large crowds gathered, offering a lively atmosphere. Q+A sessions in each of these workshops were translated for those designers who were less fluent in english language. steve boyer, professor at otis college of art and design in los angeles, with his miniature clay portrait sculpted by yuji kawauchi image © designboom

image © designboom

yakitate workshop conducted by atelier sango, translation by kumi hakushi image © designboom

fun making and fun watching: twice a day, during the very popular yakitate workshops, japanese atelier sango – scanning the audience – selected someone to sculpt a mini clay portrait in just 30 minutes.

image © designboom

lara hedberg, founder of architecture and design magazine dwell image © designboom

image © designboom

spanish designer, architect and design writer juli capella image © designboom

the creation of juli capella‘s look-alike translation by kumi hakushi

image © designboom

beth schnerow cid of S.O.T.A. design image © designboom

image © designboom

a young visitor poses with his clay portrait image © designboom

in clay animation, each object is sculpted in a pliable material such as plasticine, usually around a wire skeleton. producing a stop-motion animation using clay is extremely laborious. normal film runs at 24 frames per second (frame/s). with the standard practice of ‘doubles’ or ‘twos’ (double-framing, exposing two frames for each shot), 12 changes are usually made for one second of film movement. for a 30-minute movie, there are approximately 21,600 stops to change the figures for the frames. read more about the claymation process here. kawauchi uses bake and bend sculpey as his medium. of the only 8 different colors available, besides neon, silver and gold, he is able to create more than 2000+ hues.

atelier sango: mini claymation portraits

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yakitate at dwell on design (11)