Behind the Scenes of Pokeballin'

Pokeballin' is the result of two weeks of non-stop work (in between school and karate and sleeping and eating and stuff). I had the Ash character built for a long time but never really did anything with it. "THIS HAS TO BE IN A LEGO MOVIE," I would yell in my head. "AND MAKE YOUR BED," I wouldn't say.

The first set piece that was built was the Diglett scene. With some basic Technic knowledge I made a small lift for Diglett so that he could easily be animated up and down. Of course it took an entire night to make the lift but I assure you it saved time. Hashtag ItDidIPromise. So basically all I had to was turn that big gear on the right of the picture and the motion was transferred to some gears beneath Diglett. These were attached to liftarms that would raise and lower the Pokemon. Neat.jpg

Nearly all of my green bricks and plates were used for the ground level shots. I was really in the mood to animate so I didn't want to have to wait for Bricklink orders or anything. Fun fact: The city in the background was made out of bricks (though it doesn't appear in the above picture).

To animate Ash, another Technic contraption was built. Basic stuff, but it got the job done. His hips were attached to a rotating platform that could be moved incrementally for motions that required Ash to lean forwards and backwards.

Look at Ash. He is just a swag machine. Hashtag BallAllDayErryDay. So I didn't use that leaning Technic contraption thingy for every shot, sometimes it was just more convenient to throw a support beam under him, as seen in the above picture, in which the protagonist is demonstrating an unmatched level of sass.

I thought the sky was going to fall. I really did.

So there's that skyline I was talking about earlier. See? I'm not a liar.

Okay, okay, here's the best part. The cool animated background when Ash throws the Pokeball isn't a visual effect, no. I took my second monitor and positioned behind Mr. Ketchum. I designed a giant vertical banner in Photoshop, and scrolled down the image after each frame. Seriously, when I finished this shot I was absolutely thrilled, it looks SO COOL. Bye.