The family in-joke
Put two clear faces in one frame and the result reads like a shot from a stop-motion film that does not exist — the family in-joke that keeps circulating long after a normal filter is forgotten.
A portrait or a pair in · A puppet scene out · No sign-up
Photo to Claymation
Step inside the stop-motion films you grew up loving: turn your portrait into a handmade puppet frame and see yourself as the star of a world built entirely by hand.
Built like a puppetThe animator's fingerprintsLit like a miniature set
Before / after
A man, then a puppet
A real run on this page's model. Drag the divider and look at the shirt rather than the face: the plaid survives as woven cloth while the head becomes clay, and that mismatch of materials is exactly what your eye is reading as stop-motion. Drag the divider and picture your own portrait gaining the same tactile clash of woven cloth, marked clay and miniature-set light.
Drag to compare before and after
AI photo tool
What does the claymation pass actually do?
It rebuilds a person as a stop-motion puppet: a modelled clay head with visible making marks, expressive oversized eyes, and real miniature clothing, photographed on a lit set rather than rendered on a background.
Image tool
Nearly everyone who searches for this is chasing a memory rather than an aesthetic. Stop-motion is the animation people watched as children and can still feel the texture of, and seeing your own face in that world lands differently from any other restyle. You can step into that world right now in the browser, on starting credits, without even creating an account.
Bring a bold expression in the source photo and the puppet pass turns it into the large, readable character face that makes stop-motion feel alive.
Creative engine
What the puppet pass does
Upload a portrait, describe the making marks and proportions you want to see, and check the estimate before generating.
1 portrait
Photo in
Mixed media
Clay + cloth
Credits back
Render errors
The tells are material contrasts
A stop-motion puppet is never one substance — clay face, fabric shirt, wire inside, sometimes glass for the eyes — and it is the boundaries between those materials that make the brain accept it as a real object. Clothing comes back as miniature fabric with its own weave and folds.
Set lighting, not studio lighting
Warm directional key and a shallow plane of focus, so the scale reads as small before you even register what the material is. That sense of a tabletop set is what separates a puppet from a sculpture on a white sweep.
This puppet pass is the richest handmade film-character look on the shelf; when a different craft is the goal, the AI clay filter makes a smooth art object, the Pixar filter a rendered animated look, and the AI sticker generator flat vector art.
How to use
Getting a puppet that looks handmade
Three steps to cast yourself in a miniature world — bring the expression, and the pass handles the clay, the cloth and the light.
1
Bring a strong expression
Puppets have big, readable faces. A wide grin, raised brows or a proper scowl all translate; a neutral passport look comes back neutral and lifeless.
2
Ask for the making marks
Name the thumbprints, the jaw seam and the fabric clothing explicitly. Those are the details that separate a stop-motion puppet from a smooth clay sculpture.
3
Push the scale, then generate
A larger head and shorter limbs read more like a puppet; realistic proportions read like a statue. Say which you want, check the estimate and run it.
Who it's for
Who wants to be a puppet
Three reasons to turn a familiar face into the stop-motion frame everyone wants to send, frame or keep.
The animation student
Seeing what a character design would look like as a physical build — head proportions, costume materials — before touching any clay.
The nostalgic gift
For the person who grew up on stop-motion and would frame a picture of themselves living in it.
Answers
Claymation FAQ
How the puppet look is built, and what it does with your face.
Usually because everything came back as one material. A puppet is clay *plus* cloth plus glass eyes, and it is the join between them that sells it. Ask explicitly for real fabric clothing and eyes with a glass highlight, and the result stops looking carved and starts looking built.
No — this produces a still frame that looks like it came from a stop-motion film. If you want the character to actually move, take the result and run it through a video tool; a clay puppet animates well because a viewer expects slightly jerky, weighty motion from one anyway.
Because puppet faces have a small expressive vocabulary — each expression is a sculpted state rather than a continuous range — and the model leans toward the readable ones. Subtle expressions tend to resolve to neutral or to a full grin. Bring the expression you want in the source photo.
The shape yes, the strands no. Hair becomes sculpted clay masses or a wool-like material with the same silhouette and colour, because that is how a physical puppet's hair is made — the silhouette and colour that make it recognisably yours carry straight across.
Yes, and pairs often work better than singles because the scene starts reading as a shot from a film rather than a portrait. Both faces need to be clear in the source; a second person half out of frame usually comes back rebuilt into someone else.
It stays, but it takes on the set treatment — shallower focus and warmer light, so it reads as a miniature build behind the character. If you want a specific set instead, describe it and turn the portrait into a complete miniature film scene.
No. It runs on the free image editor in the browser with credits to start, so you can put one portrait through and judge the result before deciding anything else.
The estimate is shown before you generate and moves with the resolution you choose. Failed generations are refunded automatically unless they broke the content policy, so an expression that never renders is not charged.
Kavel pricing — you pay per generation, never per seat
Credits are shared across everything Kavel runs. You see the cost before each run, and a failed job is never charged.
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More tools
Other ways to leave the photograph
Same face, different craft — sculpted, rendered or drawn.
Become a stop-motion character
Thumbprints in the clay, cloth that behaves like cloth, and a set light falling across a face that is still recognisably yours. Your first look runs in the browser on starting credits — no account needed.