Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen and The Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation have reached an exclusive agreement with Animationtoolkit, to bring a high quality steel joints armature making kit into the UK animation marketplace.
The new kit, branded as ‘Armacreature’, features over 100 stainless steel parts that can be used by animation professionals, students and enthusiasts to enable them to build and create characters and creatures from scratch.
The kit was the brainchild of BAFTA nominated Westley Wood, owner of animationtoolkit, who adapted and shaped the components over several years, before partnering with Ray Harryhausen (and the Foundation) to launch ‘Armacreature’.
Harryhausen, an American visual effects creator, writer and producer, is acknowledged within the sector as a leading exponent of stop-motion animation. He is argubaly best-known for a brand of stop-motion model animation known as ‘Dynamation’.
He has made a number of films utilising the art of stop-motion animation and special effects through his career. His credits include, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and Clash of the Titans (1981). Leading film makers including Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, James Cameron, Peter Lord and Nick Park have all cited him as influential in their own work.
In 1986, together with his wife Diana, they established the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation: a charitable trust with the aim of protecting Harryhausen’s name and body of work as well as archiving, preserving and restoring his own extensive collection.
Thirty-two year old Wood began his career with puppet makers MacKinnon and Saunders before he left to become development producer for Cosgrove Hall Films. He subsequently felt there was a gap in the market for an armature kit that could serve the needs of those working in or experimenting in the world of animation; so he established animationtoolkit.com.
Wood said: “To partner with animation legend Ray Harryhausen and bring Armacreature into the hands of animation lovers across the globe; is an absolute honour.
“Ray and I hope that those who buy Armacreature have hours of enjoyment and that our kits help them to realise their dreams and capture their imaginations on film.”
