LEGO® D&D Mimic Chest Build – Stop Motion Animation
This is our FIRST EVER attempt at doing a stop motion animation using LEGO® … or using anything really.
The lucky LEGO set we used was the exclusive LEGO D&D Mimic Dice Box that looks like a chest with teeth (and with a few extra eyes thrown in there – any similarity to a certain mother-in-law is purely coincidental).
This time the stop motion animation was nothing fancy, just Rob W building the set one LEGO piece at a time.
This LEGO Set (#6510864 if you’re curious) WAS an exclusive bonus that you got if you purchased the large D&D set within the first seven days of its launch … Yes, that means that it is no longer available … sorry!
FYI: The box above arrived in that slightly battered state.
How did we do the stop motion animation?
We took a photo of each piece as it was added to the build. The tricky part is trying to add that piece without moving what you have already built. Yes, since it was our first time there were a couple of shots that were slight out of focus that we didn’t notice at the time. Fortunately since those shots don’t last for long on screen, you don’t really notice it … well, not much.
Using the Mimic chest was a great way for us to test if we could actually DO this stop motion stuff and to learn on how we can improve what we did. It was better to do it with a small build (only 168 pieces) than the big one that is coming up with 3745 pieces.
I think I will experiment again with another smaller LEGO set before taking on the big D&D one.
To create the “set” before taking the individual photos, we had to especially buy a thick curtain to use as the “floor” and backdrop. We hung the curtain from the top of our extendable Elgato green screen (which we have had for years and still use a lot) and had the lower part of the curtain draped over the dining room table giving the curtain a curved effect.
Then we had to position two of our Elgato lights and experiment with the best position of them in front of an old LEGO set we had already built.
Ange took the photo above of Rob taking the first ever photo for a LEGO stop motion animation of the D&D Mimic Dice Box / Chest for our Woodward Games YouTube Channel. This is a piece of history. Maybe people will come back to this photo in the future and think … Wow, he’s sexy Wow, at the time he has no idea the world would end how big this would become!
How long did it take to do this 50-second video?
Since there are 168 pieces, it meant that we had to take a photo of each one. BUT, we also had to take extra photos when we were moving the chest around from the front view to the back view (and back again) and also to “move” the completed lid up onto the top of the chest. In total we took 362 photos which took us around two hours to do. Remember, we had to follow the building instructions and FIND the next correct piece of lego to add. That sometimes took time.
THEN we had to put all the photos together in Premiere Pro and add the (secret) end section of the video.
The final thing we had to do, which took a LONG time to do was find music that we could legally use. We had to find websites that license out music (you know, because you don’t want a copyright strike or anything) and then read through all the BORING terms of conditions to make sure we could use it for what we had planned. Fortunately I won’t have to do it again as I have read all the boring legal stuff. (I was up until after midnight last night doing this.)
Ideally we would like to set up a room or space where we can leave the green screen / curtain / table combo set up with the lights and camera tripod already in place to save us having to set it up each time. That way the family to go back to eating together at the dining room table. 🙂
Ummm, what is a Mimic?
A mimic is monster in D&D (Dungeons & Dragons).
Mimics are shapeshifting predators able to take on the form of inanimate objects (such as chests or doors) to lure creatures to their doom … usually become a snack.
You can see the Mimic’s stats on dndbeyond.com or in the Monster Manual.
We already have an idea of how to use this Mimic in a future stop motion animation.
Oh, I haven’t mentioned it BUT we will be doing more of these stop motion things in the future. No, not just building sets but as a way to vent our weird sense of humour.
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