Create Stop-motion Animation with Klikbot Studio Pack THUD -with the Free App!
/Directed/Produced by Young Jeohn
Klikbot action figures come with a free downloadable app that lets you tell your own stories. This pack is called the Studio Pack THUD - it comes with a red character hero (with his laser gun and shield) and a scorpion creature. The interesting thing is, it feels like a cross between Transformers and Lego because his weapons and armor turn into the scorpion and vice versa. This means when he gets tired, his own weapons and armor carry itself around!
In addition to the two characters, you also get a smartphone tripod for holding your phone steady (when you create stop-motion video) and a backdrop portraying an icy planet. Now all you have to do is download the Zing Studio app from the Google Play store (it’s free!) and have some fun!
THE FIGURES
The hero has an incredible range of motion that lets you literally form any pose you want. He can "scratch" his head, sit on the ground with this arms around his knees and even touch his toes. He's got suction cups under his feet that allows him to walk up hard surfaces like glass window skyscrapers (or a metal fridge) too. This guy is a lot of fun to play with.
He can almost touch his toes
The scorpion is mixed bag. He comes in parts so you have to put him together like a jigsaw puzzle, which should be fun - but isn't. First, the instructions are hard to make out. It's a 1 pager that's too small and you can't tell the pieces apart because the print is so dark.
Second, the pieces are hard to put together. Ideally, they should "click" into place (like Lego), but you know it's not going to be easy when you're struggling -even pushing at full strength- to connect the first 2 pieces! So while it's difficult to put together, once you finish, that's it. Your struggle is now over and everything works as it should. Except for the legs. Somehow, they keep slipping off, so you have to be careful when you move them.
These design/manufacturing issues where some parts fit too tightly and others are too loose is something Zing can improve on for future versions.
While things may have started slowly, it's easily some of the best fun you'll have as you explore the full range of movement these figures offer. It's almost be like playing Dungeons and Dragons with visuals, and you can also make your own short movies with the stop-motion animation app too.
ZING STUDIO APP
You can do two things with this software - take photos and stop-motion videos.
The photo part lets you edit pics with text and clipart. For example, you can take a selfie of yourself and then use the built-in clipart library to pick out and add a top hat, mustache and a tie with some text saying "distinguished gentleperson". The great thing is, you can edit this picture and change the clipart or text even after you save it.
Huge clipart gallery to choose from (in this picture: cap, tie, piggy head and oogly eyes)
It's not perfect though - when the picture is saved, the clipart has moved a little bit so it won't be aligned. It's somewhat disappointing - after all, you just put in all that work to resize, move and add some art, but it doesn't stay where you put it. There are other apps that can do this too of course, but it would be great if Zing could fix this up to work as intended.
App misaligns clipart (it’s not you)
STOP MOTION ANIMATION
If you've ever watched Wallace & Grommit or A Nightmare Before Christmas, those are all stop-motion animation films. You'll be using similar techniques to make your own video, which requires a bit of patience.
It basically works by stitching together a sequence of pictures. The more pictures you take, the longer the video. The smaller the movements of your figures, the smoother it looks. Technically, there are 24 FPS (frames per second) in a normal movie, but the the app will default to 12 to get you started. So after you shoot the first 12 frames, you have 1 second of video. The next 12 frames will make it 2 seconds of video. And so forth.
There's a nice feature called Ghost Image that let's you see the previous picture you took before you snap the next one. You can use this as a rough guideline because like the photo app, this too isn't 100% accurate. While it does show you the previous image you took, it sort of zooms in - so you can't use it as a reference to frame the next shot. What you CAN use it for is to compare your hero's next move, like seeing how much of the arm is bent and if you want to bend it further.
Compare your next frame with “Ghost Image”
When you're done, the app automagically stitches all the photos into a video, after which you can add music or record your own sounds. Take note however, you only have one chance at it, so choose carefully. Tap on the AUDIO icon to hear the audio clip, and when you've made your selection, tap the title of the song to mix it into your video. Then you're more or less finished.
CONCLUSION
The Zing Klikbot Studio Pack THUD is a lot of fun for two types of people - those who like action figures (you get hybrid Lego/Transformer types of figures) and those who are interested in stop-motion videos. By joining these two together, Zing has come up with something that can provide many hours of fun for one or more people.
And it's not to say everything is perfect; both the figures and the app could use tweaks to improve overall usability. But once you get over the niggles, the fun factor can be huge at a relatively affordable price!
FINAL RATING: 4 Stars (out of 5)
5 - Fun Factor
3 - Quality
3- Software Photo
4- Software Video
What the stars mean:
5 - Excellent (up there with the best, no flaws/issues)
4 - Very Good (better than expected, may have minor flaws)
3 - Good w/caveats (works, but has some issues)
2 - SMH (serious issues, needs major improvement)
1 - 0_0;; (just... why?)
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Check prices: https://amzn.to/34hPidC --- Amazon affiliate link
More info: https://zing.store
(Test unit provided by Zing for this review.)
