Lee Hardcastle

Lee Hardcastle (born 21 January 1985) is a British animator who specialises in stop-motion techniques. He is famous for his handmade independent animations. His work includes original remakes of emblematic 1980s action and horror films, as well as parodies of animated series and video clips. His work is known for its violent and gory content.
Biography.
Lee Hardcastle was born in Leeds, United Kingdom. His love of cinema began when he was a teenager, and when he was eighteen years old he decided to study cinema in the Northern Film School of Leeds Beckett University. After graduating in 2006, he began his artistic work.
At first, he worked with action figures instead of clay. He also combined stop-motion with live-action in the 2014 video "Game Boy: The Movie". Usually, he uses clay for his works.
Hardcastle founded Missing Head Limited, and on 13 July 2006 started a YouTube channel with the "Dead Corps" series of videos. His popularity increased in 2011, when "T is for Toilet" was selected to be in the film "The ABCs of Death." The short was inspired by his prior experiences baby-sitting: The previous year before I made the film, I spent three months working in a café with my girlfriend. The café was owned by her brother-in-law and they had a nephew who was like two-years-old, so while they were busy working, I’d do a lot of babysitting, looking after this child and I’d never been in that position before. It was a new experience and it really inspired me to see the world through this young child’s eyes and that’s where “T is for Toilet” came from. He has worked with many companies including Momentum Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and Adult Swim, and has also worked with notable artists such as Sufjan Stevens. 
In 2014, he published the project "Spook Train" in the crowdfunding portal Kickstarter. It was declared "the first claysploitation movie in the world". He did not reach his objective of £40,000 and left the project temporarily, until changing his mind later and coming back to it. The first chapter of the film was released on YouTube in September, 2018.
Hardcastle played drums in the hardcore-punk band Shit the Bed, and made music videos for the band.
Influences.
Hardcastle enjoys the works of filmmakers Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and Sam Raimi, and animated series "The Simpsons" and "Family Guy". He affirms that he decided to create animations using clay after he watched "Comet Quest", "Wallace and Gromit" and "Celebrity Deathmatch". He has sometimes cited John Carpenter's "The Thing" as his favourite horror film, and as one of the most important inspirations for his works.