The Nightmare Before Christmas
The film initially received positive reviews from critics; it has since gone on to receive widespread critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 95%, based on 88 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The site's consensus reads, ""The Nightmare Before Christmas" is a stunningly original and visually delightful work of stop-motion animation." On Metacritic the film has a score of 82 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Clay painting
In the Soviet Union, the technique was made famous by Alexander Tatarsky with films such as "Plasticine Crow" (1981 ) and "Last Year's Snow Was Falling" (1983 ). Typically, the technique was used to animate stories where the narrator wasn't sure of the story he was telling, and so characters and landscapes would morph into different shapes. Currently, Tatarskiy is head of Pilot Animation Studio, one of the biggest animation studios in Russia. Each episode of their current project, the patriotic series of animated short films "Mountain of Gems", starts with a complex clay-painting animation about the culture associated with the story and where they are located in Russia.