Coons Cartoons

Yay! My set is finished!
A city of cardboard was all I could afford.
I cut it up and glued it in,
and strung it through with chord.
Mostly, it is made from stuff I had lying around or snatched from friends and family, but there were a few things I had to purchase: glue (both super and hot), wood (for the base and table), dowels and wire (for the telephone poles), foamcore...
For a pan-view clip, link to vimeo!
http://vimeo.com/19933495


Now remains the question: how will I animate the flying angels and ponies!?!? I am hoping to order the Dragon Stopmotion software within the next couple of days. It looks awesome! I watched a tutorial and the interface seems very sensible and as if it were actually designed by an animator.
But now to ask the real question: is it more sensible to animate the ponies flying through my set on strings, or to prop them up on green screens and composite later? I will be testing this out this week. String flight first; I really do want to avoid as much compositing as I can. Why? Because there is something magical about seams and strings that you don't see so often these days. My animation is done by hand and in this project, I want to emphasize that fact. Not to mention, it seems like less fun to match lighting and angles for compositing.
I'm thinking that I will have to make some sort of wind-up device to adjust the string height. Just a simple peg in a hole-type-thing. Something that would remain snug, but loose enough for me to adjust. Like my violin strings! Good idea Travis, you're sweet!

Does anyone read this shit?