Hello again. I am back again with more resolve to post here more often. Life has been kicking my butt. However I have renewed motivation and plan to try to keep this thing going. In order for that to happen, I have made a plan. Bwuahahaha.
So...

Plan 1 - Post here 2x a week, no matter where I am at.
I am hoping by making myself stick to a pre planned schedule, things won’t fall through the cracks. I have several SCA events to get ready for this summer, as well as Norwescon in April (if it isn’t cancelled) and Rose City Comic Con in September. I also have some stop mo’s I want to complete. They are all written, I just have to construct the puppets, sets, props etc and film. Hwat I work on will be dependent on time, energy, joint flare ups and money for the pieces I need.

Plan 2 - Post a vlog on You Tube either once a week or every other week.
I set up a YouTube channel for bloggy things that are not actual stop mo things. I will embed the videos here. We shall see how that goes.

For now, let me get you caught up.

I have so many projects. I think I will just list them here and break them down into the different parts.

1. SCA
I am going to just concentrate on getting a set of camping event garbs to wear to events this summer. This is going to consist of
-Elizabethan peasant garb
-1 or 2 chemises
-2 or 3 kirtles
​-an apron
-2 or 3 coifs with forehead kercheifs
-a tie on collared partlet
- Possibly either a flat cap, straw hat or both

Elizabethan peasant garb seems fairly straight forward. I am basing my basic design on this:

Basically the blue one. I don’t want to mess with back lacing while camping alone. This is also slightly earlier than my period, but it is the basic jist of what I am going for. I also want to make fake padded braids to wear under the coif to make it fit right. Cause my hair is sparce at the moment.


2. Cosplays
I want to get Talleg done (yes, STILL), and I need to fix Aoifa. I am thinking of just leaving it at those. Because I don’t have a lot of spare money right now, and Norwescon is in a month, I am just going to concentrate and those two for now.

Aoifa
-Fix her corset. Either try to make it a real corset or figure out how to sew the cardboard together so it won’t pop
-Remake her horns
-Make a padded circlet to go under the wig, so the horns look like they are growing kut of her head. Seriously that circlet is a joke.
-Figure out how to incorporate the dragon eye from the current circlet
-Sew the fur collar to the cloak. It is currently hot glued, very badly
-Repaint the spider broaches so the black doesn’t chip off
-Figure out a better sleeve configuration. Or learn how to glue them to my skin so they stay
-Figure out how to install the ears, and how to makeup them

Not much. 😒

Talleg
-Finish breastplate
-leg armor and arm armor
-Gauntlets
-Finish +1 mace.....MAKE IT LIGHT UP

​I think I will break this down futher in my video. When I get that done.

I went to Blicks, a local art supply store, and got some air dry clay to play around with. I suck.....big time....but it is so fun and so zen. I may eventually get to a point where I have something useable. I have never actually done pottery before. I have watched many people do it. I have read books. Once I ordered this wheel I watch a bajillion YouTube videos of people doing it. Amazingly enough that is not the same as doing it. :P That is fine. I will continue to try. Eventually I will get it.

About a week after this one showed up, a second wheel showed up. When I was ordering my wheel, the first one I ordered ended up coming from China, and listed the shipping as 2 months out. So I cancelled that one and got the other one. Then while I was playing with the other one, the first one I ordered showed up. Even though I canceled that order. THey already gave me my money back. So I guess I have 2 mini wheels now.

​Ok...so now pic dump of wheels and attempts.

It has been a while again. I have been so busy trying to find a job I haven't had time to do much else.

I have lost a lot of wieght, as a consequence clothes fit me that did not before. Last summer I ordered a bunch of clothes online that were really really cheap, but despite being size 3x they didn't even remotely fit. They were more like 14-16, which is in the Large/Xlarge range. At this point things are starting to actually fit. This weekend is Kumoricon, and I haven't had time to do much cosplay building. I was just planning on going, playing DnD and taking cosplay pictures. But this jacket now sort of fits, and it is kind piratey....maybe? It had a really crappy zipper on it that wouldn't stay together even if I zipped it up without putting it on so there was no pull on it.

For some reason I didn't think of getting a pic before I started working on it. First I just cut off the zipper. Then I reinforced the button area. I have pinned all the buttons on, and sewed about 3 of them. I will then make loops to hook over the buttons. I have no idea what else I will do with it. What will I wear under it? Skirt? Pants? Will it easily lend itself to being turned into a cosplay for an existing character? I dunno. It is 3/4 length sleeves. I have a ton of silver buttons. Originally I was going to put buttons on both sides and lace it together. However I do not have enough of the same kind of buttons, so I decided to do the button loop thing. I have these pirate skull and crossbones buttons. Not enough for the sleeve cuff buttons, but that is ok. I will put dragon buttons on the sleeve cuffs. The color matches. Sort of. I also found a bunch of Halloween themed stuff I bought on sale last year. I have no idea what I will do with them yet, but I am sure I will think of something.

I need to get back to job hunting. If I come up with something cool I will post it.

So I found a refurbished iPad on the Apple site for really cheap.

My old one...the one that I won as first prize in the Douglas Adams contest back in 2012.....she has had a long a fruitful run. I blogged it all if you wanna look back at it. I believe it is Jan through June of 2012. She was a Ipad gen 3. I won it like 4 or 5 months before the gen 4 came out, but right after it was released. Yeah that year they released them really close together. It is a signal of my accomplishment. It is a reminder of what I can do. It is a memory of Stephen Fry (aaaaaaah) calling my work a love letter that was cute but not too precious. It is a memory of Bob Stein looking me up and giving me a call and saying he thought my comedic choices were good, and that he thought I had talent and potential. He told me to contact him when I was ready to go pro. It is also a reminder of how petty people can be, as it is the only part of the whole prize package I actually recieved.

She has served me well. However, years and years of use and a buse has made her....weary. I have struggled for years to keep her going. I personally replaced the battery andthe bluetooth, and I replaced the screen and digitizer at least 4 times. I have an issue with my joints, and that means from time to time my hands just release and stop holding whatever it is I am holding. Sometimes that means the ipad she ended up on the floor. 😞 When I had a good case for her it was fine. When I didn’t....well that is the reason the screen and digitizer was replaced so many times. This last time when I went to replace the screen I found some internal damage that was fatal. Well, almost. She had been dropped so many times the metal tags that hold the LCD screen in place were completely sheered off. Even though the screen works fine, this means it is floating around inside the iPad and it cannot sync with the digitizer. I can’t just get new tabs....I have to get a whole new LCD screen. Which no one has. iFixit has them off and on, but now is not one of those on times. They also charge $45-$50 for one, without the shipping.

So I had to make a decision. Do I persist in keeping her going with bubblegum and duct tape, or do I move on? Moving on felt...wrong. Like cheating on a spouse. She has been a loyal friend, and a memory I will cherish for the rest of my life. It feels wrong to just give up on her. But she is now old enough I can’t update her further than ios 9. And it will be harder and harder to keep her in action. But.....they engraved “Don’t Panic” on the back of her. But if I have to keep putting $40-$50 into her every couple of months, and she will still only be limping along, is it worth it?

Well, perusing the Apple site and finding the cheap refurbished iPad made my final decision. I bought it. And now I am testing Weebly’s newer app by posting from it.

It is sad. I feel like I betrayed a friend. I feel like we have been through so much together and I am just tossing her aside like yesterday’s jam. There is so much I have been able to accomplish just because she was there in my life. So much more I plan to accomplish, and she won’t be there by my side (or on the floor).

​ I am not going to just throw her out though. I will eventually get the new LCD screen and make her work again. Or I will gut her and put her shell in a shadowbox for my wall. For now I feel like I am mourning a friend. Is that wierd?

I was not very happy with the way that octopus video turned out. It is kind of fuzzy. It is jumpy (that part is my fault, I was not patient enough to get the right frames and tried to duplicate, which I know rarely works well in stop mo). So I started looking online for Pinnacle studio tutorials. With the newer version, you can shoot stop mo directly to computer, and it has fewer requirements than Dragonframe. They are having a sale, so instead of $120 to upgrade, it is only $69.95. I have been struggling long and hard, and right now, the point of everything I am doing is to figure out the best way to use the equipment I've got. I can still use version 18 if 20 does not work with my laptop. So I decided to go for it. I may regret it, but it isn't as bad as the $300 oopsy with Dragonframe. Which according to thier tech specs SHOULD work with this laptop and does NOT. Won't even open. BTW, thier support is CRAP. I do not reccomend Dragonframe, even if it turns out to work great after I have the money to upgrade my laptop.

Pinnacle upgrade is downloading right now. I guestimate I will know if I have chosen wisely or chosen poorly in about 30 minutes. Fortunately for me, all I will be out is $70 and my frustration. No melty faces or whatever. My plan is to do a little playing around tonight, and if I can get it to recognize my camera, shoot and whatnot, I will do some actual shooting tomorrow and Periscope it. See if I can get a better video. If not, I will be disappointed.

The other thing I have been thinking over is the 72 hour Horror Film challenge by Eugene Film Society. This year it is going on Oct. 22-24. I mean, it was a frustrating blast last year. And if I can get this to shoot better, I may be able to get a better video than last year. But do I want to deal with it? I have other things I want to work on. BUT.....it would also be a great way to test the new setup, see what I can do with it. I have committed to a DnD game on the Saturday. With how much time was wasted last year with the computer shutting down and losing 3 hours of work, I may be able to do it. I have to decide.....I already committed to the game, and they are counting on me, so if I do it I would have to budget 5 hours out of that to go do that. THough that is tentative, and we have no final go ahead on the game. I suppose I can put my hat in the ring, then decide to drop out if I want.

Argh. Why can't I just be normal and not obsessed with this stop motion crap? I mean I love it. I LOVE IT. I dream about it. I literally cry when something goes wrong, I want to do it well so badly. When it goes right, it goes so right. I wish I had more of a natural aptitude for this, and it wasn't so hard for me to get a good finished product. Sigh.

It has been such a busy week. I have been working on animating. I plan on sharinf pictures and thoughts on the process, but right now I am SO tired and need desperately to nap. I will post when I have more energy.

I will, however, take the time to share with you my new video. It is not great, but it isn't bad. I ran out of time to do proper audio dialog and sound mixing, so I went with the silent movie approach.

Also reworked my second animation ever. It is pretty bad. There was a lot more to it, but I cut it down for your sanity and mine. It was part of a series of animations I did about the Tardis taking time to have adventures without the Doctor. The sound is a little off, but I will fix it later.

So there ya go. Will talk about animating next post.

So...been a while, time for the ol update.

I have been busy. I watched a video by Doctor Puppet on You tube about how she made her Doctor Who stop motion show Doctor Puppet. I have been very jealous of her, cause 1. she got a Doctor Who stop mo in before I did and 2. She is REALLY really good at it. Much better than me. Of course, she is a professional, has has formal training, and knows what she is doing, but hey, that is where I want to be SO badly.

Anyway, she posted a video on how she constructed the Doctor puppet. I have watched many, many armature construction videos, but hers made the most sense to me. So I decided to give it a whirl. I really want some more videos done before I attend and do panels at Orycon. As my iPad camera does not do macro well, I need bigger puppets if I am going to use it as my camera until I can afford a new one. So I guess the worse that can happen is I fail miserably. And I didn't. Kind of.

Her construction technique involved epoxy putty, wire, square brass tubing of 2 sizes that nest into each other, extra firm Sculpy, and foam.

So she made her head out of an aluminum foil ball covered in Sculpy, with a piece of the larger square brass tubing in the bottom to allow for the neck to be placed in it. This is my version here. She did not put any "bones" on her armature, but I know my limitations. I think I need them to help keep the joints bending at a natural place. I made them out of Sculpy too.
While those were baking I made the chest and torso. She made those out of epoxy putty with pieces of the larger square brass tubing for the neck, arms, waist and legs. I ran out of epoxy putty after the torso, so I used the extra firm Sculpy. Probably not a good idea, but I plan on getting more for the next one, so I will do it all out of epoxy putty then. I just couldn't find more within walking distance, and didn't feel up to traipsing around town on the bus for it.

Next I painted the head. I did not realize I got enamel paint. It is a bit shiny. But it looked good after I was done. I got some matte acrylic paint to use for the next one. If I really want to try animating with this one I can use face powder to cut down on the shine.

Next step was to glue hair on the head. I went down to the local Hirons and bought a $5 fake mullet wig. Very cheesy, not easy to work with. I couldn't find rubber cement like she suggested, so I decided to use contact cement. For the record, these are not the same thing. For one thing, contact cement melts enamel paint. It melts it fast and almost back to a liquid state. This was a problem when gluing on the hair. A big one.

The hair came with some pieces serged on the ends. I decided to work with it and use the serged parts as the glue points. I also thought about how doll's hair is attached. It is usually attached in circles. I thought I would just glue a larger outer circle, then another inner smaller circle, then a smaller one until it filled the space. Along with fighting the melting enamel paint to get the hair to stay, I also had to fight the direction of the hair. It is fakey fake nylon threads. It does not want to move in a direction other than straight. I planned on gluing the stitching on inwards, then flip the hair back over it to cover it. Might have worked better if it were real hair.

Here it is completed. As you can see, there are lumps in the hair cause it didn't want to bend. In my haste to fix the melting glue I also missed some coverage. But I found if I put it back in a pony tail and fiddled with it I could cover the bare spots believably. I did end up cutting about an inch off the length of the hair. I figured it would make it less heavy....pull less on those possibly weak glue points.

So next was to make hands and feet. I decided I wanted to stick with magnets for my anchor method. She uses bolts, which are fine but leave holes in the set that I haven't figured out how to get rid of. Also, I only have a flat table. It isn't practical to try to drill through the whole table. I have a couple pieces of sheet metal I intend to use for the base of my set. So when I was making the feet, I molded them out of the extra firm Scuply and made a notch in the bottom to fit the magnets. I also added a bit of brass tubing to attach it to the leg.

The hands were more difficult. I think I will try another method for the hands. It was clumsy and hard to do, and looks pretty bad. There is a tutorial on the intertubes for making stop motion puppet hands out of florist wire and liquid latex. I am going to try that next. Cause look here....this is just bad....

Also...something creepy happened while I was baking the chest part. See that red thing? It looks like a heart. I did not put that there. That side was up when I baked it. It kind of showed up there. I suppose it is fine, but weird. When you burn Sculpy it turns red. But that part wasn't any higher then the rest of it. I don't know why it did it.
So next step is to find some foam and make a chest and tummy, then sew some clothes for her. I plan on cutting felt mouths that will stick on with handitak. I learned a lot from making this puppet. I will make a few more then experiment with animating them.

I plan on going to get more epoxy putty and seeing if that makes a difference. I also plan on getting real hair hair extensions to use for the hair on the next one, see if it helps.

And last but not least, this is my new toy. It is a cabasa. For our Orycon concert we are doing a filk to In the Summertime, a Mungo Jerry song. I was having issues getting a good rhythm with the skull shakers for that one, so when I found this online for cheap I snatched it up. We have a rehearsal tomorrow. I will see how well it works then.
:)

Okey dokey, that was my little experiment. Still working on it. Feel free to throw suggestions my way for how to make this puppet work better. I think I am well on my way finally to doing real stop mo.

Now I just need a camera....

I really need to get creative with my titles. :P It has only been a week and half, but I thought I would post anyway. Just kidding. I am trying to be better at keeping up with this thing. It feels like it has been months, though the calendar says it hasn't been. I really had fun playing with the Dremmel. I haven't taken it out for anything else yet. I am itching to, but I am worried about using it when I don't need to and killing a project that would have otherwise been fine.



I have been writing, but haven't really finished anything. This week we have had issues at work with the servers, issues at home with an injured ankle, and emotional issues dealing with this time of year. Also, someone in France has decided to usem y debit card number to try to purchase Formula One tickets (of all the fucking things), so they had to close down my debit card. My plan for this weekend was to price out alginate and get it ordered. Nope. I cannot do anything online now. Grrr argh. At least my new bank had the courtesy to call me first. They gave me a chance to get cash before they closed for the weekend. And they also replaced the money and flagged my card number. That is much better than what my previous bank did. My previous bank let the bastards clear out my account completely, from clear across the country, minutes after I used it here, so clearly it WASN'T ME. I had to jump through a ton of hoops to get it cncelled, a ton of hoops to get my money back, I had to threaten to sue in order to get my legally mandated 45 day credit until it was cleared up. I had to send a police report 4 times before they acknowledged they recieved it. At least this time the transaction was flagged, they saw it was from another country, and called me right away.



But I digress....I am good at that. :) Now that my ankle is doing a bit better and I am a bit more mobile, i will et going on it all again. I shot some footage a few weeks ago with my iPad. I am not happy with it, but I am trying to work with it. Main issue....the damn autofocus. Even after I have put it in focus lock it still kept refocusing. This is why I need a good camera damn it. I am getting tired of this crap. Makes it hard to get anything done. I have been playing around with the pictures in Pinnacle on my iPad. Not much help, but I think if I futz with it a bit more I may make something workable out of it. I tried transferring the pictures to my computer and working with them there. Every one of them were blurry. How the hell did it lose quality? All I did was copy them over. There are 400 some odd pictures. I guess I could try to email each one to myself. Or I could just say screw it and see what I can do in the ipad. Unless one of you wants to spring for a brand new camera? Yeah, didn't think so. I am also feeling jealous. Last fall a girl did an awesome Doctor Who stop mo, in the style of the old Rankin Bass Rudolph stop mos. it was very well done. And I am green with envy, cause I want to do THAT. And if I had money for the equipment I need, I could. I don't begrudge her the props. Cause she totally deserves them. I just want to be there too, and I am not yet.



Ok...enough of the whining. Time to get back to work.

Ok...so the last couple of days I have been working on my iPad frame. I got a hold of a Dremmel tool and was able to cut the slit in the middle. I learned a bit about cutting PVC. Of course I followed all the safety procedures. I wore a mask and safety glasses. I opened all the windows and turned on a fan. I wore protective clothing. That was a big deal as I hate wearing extraneous clothing while building things. I like a close fitting tank top and a pair of comfy but not too roomy shorts when I work. That way I am comfortable abd don't risk getting pieces of clothing in the way.....ie in glue, under my cutting tool, knocking over things in my set, etc. Though Dremmels work very well, the one I used overheated quickly and I had to stop every few minutes or I couldn't handle it. The Dremmel would also stop if I hit a harder spot. I realize this is probably a safety feature, but it is damned annoying. The best way to cut PVC with a Dremmel, in case you were wondering, is to make several medium speed passes at it. It is better to go from right to left, as the other way when you hit the end of what you are cutting the Dremmel goes flying off to the right. As I am pretty sure that could end badly, moving the other direction seems wiser. Also...PVC doesn't just knock out when you get close to the end. You have to cut it the whole way through before it'll move. Not like wood at ALL.

So now that I know, I probably will never work with PVC again. But it is mostly finished now.

I am finding it difficult to get the foam insulation to stay on the inside edges. I have yet to decide if that means i need to glue it in with better glue or if I need to find a better padding medium. I also need to glue down the nut that is currently holding the screw from the tripod in place. I plan to sand down the corners and paint it with black spray paint. The kind made for covering plastic furniture. So that project is almost done. Action shot:

I also think I need to figure out how to make the iPad sit higher in the frame. I was relying on the insulation to do that. Maybe it still will.

I feel a bit more accomplished now. I love working with ny hands. The Dremmel is a blast. Now I am going to have to find other projects to use it for.