Super Mario Phenakistoscopic Animation

A phenakistoscope is a spinning animation toy from the 1800's. When you spin them in a mirror and look through the slits it comes to life. I've hand animated them before, but for this Mario Bros. themed 'scope I wanted to use the actual sprites from the video game.  A smaller version of this could be made with cardstock and paper, but strong cardboard gives my larger one a good backing.

Supplies You'll Need:

- Compass (the circle making kind)
- Ruler (or the straight edge of the nearest thing lying around)
- Cardboard
- Glue
- Print outs of video game sprites (or you could draw them by hand)
    I found mine here: Mariomayhem.com
- Cardboard
- X-Acto, Box-cutter, or scissors
- Pencil

Step 1 Cutting Circles & Dividing the Frames

Cut out 2 circles:
You'll be cutting out 2 circles. 1 shutter spinner (cardboard, larger), and 1 animation disc (paper or cardboard, smaller)
The animation disc should be about 2-3 inches smaller.
I used cardboard for both to make the scope hardier, but paper would work fine for the animation disc.
Be sure to clearly mark the center dot (where the compass needle was).  Everything will spin around this.

Making the Frames:
Decide how many frames you want your animation to be. 
More frames = smaller "pizza pieces" = smoother animation = less details fit in a frame
Less frames = bigger pizza pieces = chunkier animation = more details fit in a frame
I did 33 for mine.

There are great tutorials for how to use a ruler and compass to divide up a circle, and they will be more exact than my method which was:
-> Photoshop's "Polygon Tool" and make a starburst shape with the desired number of points
-> print out
-> tape to the center of your disc
-> mark a dot at the points of the star
-> Use a ruler to connect the dots out

Making the Shutters:
Center the animation disc on the shutter spinner and trace it.  This line will show you how long your shutters will be.
Make 2 vertical cuts on the shutter spinner along each frame line, then pop it out.
Note: Shutters that are a little long don't hurt anything, since your animation will cover them up.

Comments

[artonline]

I love optical illusions like this one! So funny that in the digital age, they can still surprise!!! great! Thank you! Artists of Ukraine

[iectyx3c]

Superb use of the phenakistoscope format -- really like the way you use most of the disk for your animation. Makes this superior to a zoetrope (similar but looks like a carousel)  for this particular animation.

Nicely done i'ble.

I wonder how FEW slits you can use? For instance if you could have only 4 you could animate a 3D photo by using 4 larger alternating left and right images LRLR. I'll have to experiment with this.

Thanks for the inspiration!!!

[MFJones]

I love the 3D idea -- one obstacle would be that the slits don't really block out much: you generally see the whole disc at once. This may be solved by fewer slits though. I'd love to see any experiments on this!

[gare8421]

Wow great instructable! Very clear. Great diagrams.

[GenteDeMassinha]

Wow, amazing!!! Thank you :)

[The Papier Boy]

That is really cool. Great job.

[Kiteman]

This is very cool, especially the animated GIFs, but could I be greedy and ask you to add a scan of your finished disc?

That way, folk would be able to skip a lot of your more complicated steps, and simply print it out and cut the slots....

[MFJones]

I added a higher quality image of the disc along with some instructions. One thing of note: my center hole is a bit off, which produces the wobble you see in the animated one.

[Kiteman]

Brilliant, thanks.