Claymation and stop motion: 12 fps feel, fingerprints, slight jitter

A filled 7-part prompt for a clay stop-motion shot where the imperfections are the point: visible fingerprints, a frame-by-frame stutter, a set that looks built by hand, and what not to ask for.

VeoRunwayKlingImage modelsintermediate10 minunverified
SUBJECT: {subject as a clay figure: body shape, two colours of clay, one prop}
ACTION: {one action, one beat, slightly exaggerated, e.g. 'picks up the oversized teacup with both hands and sips'}
SETTING: a tabletop miniature set: a kitchen built from painted cardboard and felt, visible glue edges, a backdrop of painted paper sky, everything slightly out of scale
CAMERA: static locked-off camera on a tripod, medium shot, slightly low angle as if the camera sits on the table; no camera movement at all
LENS & LIGHT: 50mm macro look, shallow depth of field so the back of the set softens; warm tungsten key from the upper left, a soft fill, small hard shadows that flicker slightly from frame to frame
STYLE: handmade claymation stop motion, shot on ones and twos so motion steps at about 12 frames per second, visible fingerprints and tool marks in the clay, slight position jitter between frames, matte clay surfaces with no gloss, clay texture on every surface, saturated primary palette; no smooth interpolation, no motion blur, no CGI
SOUND: tiny foley: a clay squeak, a wooden knock, room tone; no music
DURATION: 5 seconds. No on-screen text, no logos.

Paste into the video model as one paragraph; remove the labels once you are happy with the content.

Tips

  • What it breaks: smooth camera moves (the model interpolates and the stutter disappears, which kills the style), fast action (the clay melts rather than steps), and mouths; keep the figure's mouth closed or a simple line.
  • Ask for 'no motion blur' and 'no smooth interpolation' explicitly; left out, most models render fluid motion that looks like a 3D render of clay.
  • Aspect: 16:9 or 4:3 reads as a film; 9:16 works for a single figure against the painted backdrop. Keep the set edges in frame either way, they are the proof it is handmade.
  • Try first: Veo or Runway from text, or any model from an image-model still of the set; a suggestion to start with, not a claim about which is best.
works withVeo: Google text-to-video / image-to-video prompts. · Runway: Runway Gen prompts and camera controls. · Kling: Kling text/image-to-video prompts. · Image models: Midjourney, Flux, Imagen: keyframes and style boards for image-to-video.
costFree. The video or image model you paste it into has its own pricing.
statusUnverified: written from the technique, not yet run end to end by us.
licenseCC BY 4.0 for the text here; skills are MIT.
updated2026-11-01
for agentsclaymation-stop-motion-video-prompt.md
#claymation#stop-motion#style-prompt#text-to-video#handmade

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