Make a Stop Motion Swimming Scissors
Create a stop-motion animation of a swimming scissors character using paper cutouts, a phone camera, and frame-by-frame moves to tell a short story.
Step-by-step guide to make a stop-motion swimming scissors animation
Step 1
Clear a flat table and tape the blue paper or cloth flat to make your water background.
Step 2
Draw a big friendly scissors-shaped character on a sheet of paper with a pencil.
Step 3
Colour your scissors character with bright colours and add big eyes and a smile.
Step 4
Carefully cut out your scissors character using the scissors.
Step 5
Make two or three copies by tracing the cutout onto new paper and cutting those traced shapes out.
Step 6
Fold a small tab at the bottom of each cutout and tape the tab so each cutout can stand upright.
Step 7
Arrange the cutouts on the blue background to create a starting scene where your scissors look ready to swim.
Step 8
Set up your phone on a stack of books so the camera points straight down at the scene and will not wobble.
Step 9
Open the camera app and take a clear photo of your starting scene.
Step 10
Gently move the front cutout a tiny bit forward to show the scissors swimming stroke.
Step 11
Take another photo of the new position and repeat moving a tiny bit then taking a photo until you have about 12 photos showing the swimming motion.
Step 12
Use a stop-motion app or your phone’s photo editor to stitch your photos into a short animation and save the movie.
Step 13
Share your finished creation on DIY.org
Final steps
You're almost there! Complete all the steps, bring your creation to life, post it, and conquer the challenge!
Help!?
What can we use instead of blue paper or cloth if we don't have any?
If you don't have blue paper or cloth, tape a plain white sheet colored with blue crayons or markers or use a printed ocean photo or a blue bedsheet as the water background in step 1.
My photos are coming out blurry or the phone wobbles—how can I fix that?
To stop wobble and blur when following step 7, secure the stack of books with tape or use a small tripod, add more light, and use the camera timer or a remote so you don't touch the phone during each shot in step 8.
How can I adapt this activity for different ages?
For younger children (3–5) have an adult draw and pre-cut the scissors and limit to about 6 photos, while older kids (8+) can draw detailed characters, make 3–4 cutouts, and take ~20 photos for smoother motion in step 11.
What are some ways to enhance or personalize our stop-motion scissors movie?
Enhance the project by adding paper wave cutouts and extra swimmer characters to the blue background, varying cutout positions for a diving scene, and adding music or sound effects in the stop-motion app before sharing on DIY.org as in the final step.
Watch videos on how to make a stop-motion swimming scissors animation
How to start your first Stop Motion Animation | Beginners Guide To Stop Motion | Stop-Motion Fight
4 Videos
How to start your first Stop Motion Animation | Beginners Guide To Stop Motion | Stop-Motion Fight
How to make Stop Motions for Beginners Part 1 (Stop Motion Tutorial)
How to Make a Stop-Motion Animation | Tate Kids
How to Make Stop Motion Videos SMOOTHER | A Beginner's Guide to Stop Motion | Episode 2
Facts about stop-motion animation for kids
✂️ Lotte Reiniger's 1926 film The Adventures of Prince Achmed is the oldest surviving animated feature and was made with paper cutouts and silhouettes.
🌀 Devices like zoetropes and flipbooks create motion through 'persistence of vision' — your brain blends quick still images into movement.
🦴 Ray Harryhausen used stop-motion to animate famous creature battles, like the skeleton fight in Jason and the Argonauts (1963).
📱 Shoot at 12 frames per second for smooth stop-motion — that means 12 photos = 1 second, so a 1-minute clip needs 720 frames!
🎬 Stop-motion has been used in films for over a century — animators move characters one frame at a time to bring them to life!
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