It has been a while. I have worked on several things between then and now.

I did manage to cut the pieces for my iPad frame. However I am still trying to figure out how to cut the slit in the middle so I have a place for the iPad to sit. Hacksaw worked for the 45 degree angle cuts on the ends, but not so practical for the middle part. I am still problem solving that issue. I really want to get that one solved soon so I can get back to animating.

I did take a stab at making the foundations for the Ood and Vastra masks. I failed. Failed miserably. For one, I did it just after I had a root canal done, so the left side of my face was swollen. I also realized that when doing this myself, I had to move my face up and down to see what I was doing with the plaster fabric strips, which created pockets in the plaster every time I moved. It will not work for a foundation at all. Here is a bad pic of me with the mask:

I apparently didn't put enough vaseline on my face, as plaster stuck everywhere. It is right now resting on one of the foam heads I bought waiting for a purpose. The first night after I did this I totally freaked myself out by waking up with my face right next to it. Looking around, the other foam heads I bought were at random places around the room, lit up by the street lights. Looked like there were floating heads around my room. Scared the crap out of myself. And made myself laugh.

So, anyway, as that didn't really work out, I have thought it over and have decided to price out alginate. It is a gooey substance that when set brings out details, but is rubbery so can peel off. You then fill with plaster to make a lifemodel of your head. I am thinking making two of those might be an easier route to take. I just need to make sure I have a real baldcap (the plasticwrap one I tried previously was shit) and a person to smear me with alginate. And I need to find out if the cost is in my price range.

On another note, I am making a comic book. I have written the first script and sent it off. It is a practice script to make sure the artist and I are in sync and on the same page. More like a development script. I have the storyline all written out, I just need to scriptify it. It is kind of fun. Yes, I realize I already have a bajillion projects on the table. But this one kind of struck me as fun, so I took it on too. And really, it has sparked my writing brain into production again. Now I feel motivated to finish the other writing projects I have started. So I guess it has had a purpose.

I am also working on learning songs for OryCon. I have joined a filk group. If you don't know what filk is, you can go here. I have a few songs about Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, Beer in the Pants, Gandhi, etc to learn before Nov. 7th. Though this is fun, it is a lot of work. I am excited to perform again. It has been a while.

Ok, I suppose this post was mainly about accountability, which is one of the reasons I started this thing. More later.

So the creative bug had been biting me pretty hard lately. I really want to do some cool stuff, though I know a lot of it I just will need to learn how to do and it will be crap. I made a list of everything I want to do, and looking at it (it is pretty long) I think I am going to need to make a plan if I am ever going to get any of it done.

Warning: LONG post! Lots of bullshit! A bunch of pics! Feel free to read or skip as appropriate.

First thing, I have been working on a new stop mo. My camera has pretty much crapped out on me, so I am going to have to figure out how to do it without the camera. I have my iPad. I have figured out how to get pics from my iPad to my computer. I have found a few camera control apps for the iPad, though nothing that lets me control the focus the way I want. Also I need to anchor that sucker down somehow so it doesn't look like my characters are in an earthquake all the time.

So I have designed a frame thing that is made of PVC piping and foam insulation tape. I had planned on cutting the PVC with my hacksaw and mitre box. The box is missing. I packed them together, because I usually do not use either one by themselves. One of these days I will either go get another one or find a friend who has power tools to help me cut them at a 45 degree angle and cut a slot in the top for the foam insulation and a place to rest the iPad. Then I will drill a 1/4inch hole in the bottom for mounting to the tripod platform. Project number one. :)

So last weekend I helped a friend move. As per usual she wanted to get rid of stuff, and as per usual I accommodated her and took it off her hands. The first thing was this awesome globe thing that lights up.

Now I have to figure out how to costume this bad boy. I can't sew, and I have other sewing projects I want to do. So I will need to find a place to find South Korean looking jackets and grey slacks. And of course the mask. I HAVE to take a shot at making a mask of that face. I have no mask making experience. I do have liquid latex. I have been looking online and if I do it in 3 pieces I may actually be able to pull it off. One piece for the face, another piece for the tentacles, and a final piece for the head. I am currently researching the cost of latex foam. I also need to get myself a few styrofoam heads to use as bases. I think I would make a thin latex mask for the face, a molded latex foam for the head, then attach the tentacles to a large mesh frame that attaches to the mask. that will make it easier to breath. It would also be awesome if I can find a cheap voice modulator.

On the latex mask front, I decided if I am going to do an Ood, I also need to make a Vastra mask.

This is Madame Vastra (picture property of BBC and Doctor Who). She is strong and beautiful and a warrior and everything I wish I could be. She is one of my favorite fictional characters ever. She is married to Jenny, the lady behind her in this picture. If you don't watch any other Doctor Who, it is worth watching the episodes she is in just to bask is this dazzling character. I have been waiting out the last few years of less than stellar storylines and Moffet's version of Psych! and a Doctor who doesn't really feel like the Doctor, but her alone has made this wait worth it. As masks go, this one looks like the most comfortable one to wear for long periods at a time. I would do her Victorian outfits, though. She has some gorgeous black dresses I really want. Though, my next project could conceivably be used for her character.

I also got a green leather coat. It is HUGE. It is very 80's. The shoulder pads are gone, but thiey have left thier mark in the shoulders of this coat. there is enough leather fabric in that coat to make a steampunky vest or two. A vest that would go with the brown leather coat I found last winter. It would also go with the Vastra mask. I also want to sew some aviator pants to use with steampunk.


 

I want this look, pants boots and all. Except I want to make them black. These pants could go with steampunk and Vastra.

I also was given several sets of vampire fangs. So....I can do regular vampire, steampunk vampire, or vampire Silurian (Vastra is a Silurian). OR Vampire Steampunk Silurian! Oh this is going to be awesome. :)

I can't sew worth a damn, so I will have to find someone to supervise.

So the list....

Not in priority order...

1. Latex Ood mask
2. Latex Madame Vastra mask
3. Build a more interactable stop mo set
4.Leather steampunk vest or two, depending
5.iPad frame with foam insulation
6.Button over aviator pants
7.Steampunk goggles
8.Crochet sweater and vests out of mounds of yarn I have laying around
9.Spin the fleece I have sitting around
10.Play with armatures and different materials to decide on puppets for stop mo.
11. Finish all writing projects (web series, 10 minute short, play, novel)
12.Finish filming current stop mo

I once told someone I am never bored. If I had a bajillion dollars, I would have plenty to do. They didn't believe me. :)

So now I have to decide what needs to be done with each of these projects, when I want to have them done by, and what I need in order to finish them. Then I will make a general plan to get them done.

And once again, after vowing not to, I have dropped the ball. For the most part I have been writing, though not as much as I vowed to in my last post, and I have not completed my script yet. This last month has been hectic. At work I did my very first ever real life server upgrade. It took way more of my energy than I anticipated. I spent my days looking up info, gathering the information I needed, ordering hardware and prepping my coworkers for the jolting change. I spent my evenings reading up on Windows Server 2012, how to install and manage it, and making list after list to make sure I planned for every contingency. That left very little time or energy for writing or doing anything else, really. Now that it is done, I can breathe a little better and relax a little more.

So now I am prepping to perform at OryCon with a filk group. I am really excited about this. It is going to be fun. And it has had an unintended consequence. When talking to the concom about our group, our illustrious leader was asked "Is that THE Eleanor Stokes, the animator?" I must admit I squeed a bit when he told me that. Another admission - I didn't think anyone really knew who I was. Well, beyond friends and family. It also shocks me because I am not the first Eleanor Stokes that comes up when you Google me. There is a romance author with my name. She is published and so usually comes up first. In fact, a date from OK Cupid renegged on their offer after Googling me and finding her. But I guess I did get minor coverage on i09 (though they posted someone else's video with my name) and some promotion from the Towel Day site for the winning video I did last year. (If you don't know what I am talking about, you must have just stumbled on this blog, as for most of last year it was all I posted about.)

So now I am excited, and feel the need to do another animation. Need to square away more of real life first, but I definitely feel the itch. I have for a while, I have just not had the energy. Now that work has settled down somewhat I can clean up my space and do some animating. And writing. And Stuff. :)

Well, it has been a very productive weekend. I haven't finished recording and posting stories yet, but it still has been very productive.  

     I spent several hours yesterday rewriting the story arc for the webseries. This is re-write number 3. Re-write because the direction it was going has changed so dramatically I had to go back and change the first few episodes and reconfigure the story arc. For some reason this time my characters are telling me where they want go with it, and it is not what I had in mind at all. However, it is truer to the characters themselves, so I guess I don't mind the rewrite. It is also necessitating the addition of more great characters, so I starting losing track of it all. And little jokes, story threads and character interactions are popping in, giving little touches to what was a good silly little story thing. It has become more than I meant it to be. I do not think it is bad. But it really isn't what I had in mind when I started this. it is tons better. I just hope I can make it fully to fruition. 

     One thing I noticed was I kept having to flip around through my notebooks to make sure I was referencing each character correctly, and not leaving dangling story threads through out. I found cheap foam board at the Dollar Tree, which I had planned to use for light bouncing. I decided that having everything easily accessible was a better idea. 

So now, my walls look like this:

     I just taped the foam board to the walls using packing tape. I will still be able to use the other side for lighting. I also am saving a few to put animation notes on. As crazy as it looks, it is actually helpful. I have never been in a writer's room, but after I did all this I realized this room now looks like pictures I have seen on the intertubes. So maybe I am on to something. Probably a lot less efficient, as it follows my logic not general conventions, but still. Sitting back and looking at it all I feel like I actually accomplished something. And I feel that much closer to this thing becoming a reality. 

     Also this weekend my friend drove me to the hardware store so I could purchase some supplies. I bought plywood, 1x1, 1-1/2x1/2, etc. I glued and nailed the boards together for a frame, then I glued and nailed the plywood to the top. Once it is dry I will have a base I can clamp to the table and attach a background. 

Here are some pics:

     So that's now done. I also purchased some small pieces of sheet metal. I am still figuring out what exactly I want to do with them. One of the ways I anchor my puppets is by using magnets. Unlike some, I put my magnets in the feet and use a metal base. Even if I feel the need to go the other way with my new puppets, a sheet metal base for the floor will give extra stability. I just haven't exactly decided how to execute it yet. 

     So that was my weekend. I still have a ton to do, but I feel like I am moving forward instead of stagnating. 

I have been working on this video all week. I still don't have all the pictures moved into the timeline. This is tedious. Well, usually stop motion is. I have to import each picture, one at a time, and sometimes instead of dragging it, the app decides to send me to another folder. As there are no visible numbers on the pictures, and it doesn't save the markers, I have to figure out what picture I was on when it decided to crap out on me. This is the frustrating bit. I have not yet figured out what it is that makes it do this. I must admit I walked away a couple of times. I am now about 2/3 through adding pictures, then I get to actually work on finesses it all into a coherent video. I worked for 4 hours last night, and didn't get very far, so this part may take way longer than I anticipated. I shall continue soldiering on, and maybe by the end of the weekend I will have a video for you.

I have also been working on polishing my stories for storytelling. I have my first class on Monday, and I am very, very nervous. Just to get used to people hearing my stories, when one of my friends said he needed stories for his new blog I submitted one. If you want to read it, it is at Broken Treasures . It really didn't get much editing, and his spell check actually changed some of the words so they don't make sense. but otherwise that is mostly what I am going with. Feel free to read it and comment back here. I would love to know if it is too rambly, disjointed, whiney, etc.

Ok, back to the grindstone. I may go get tea and work somewhere else.

EDIT: I am finding that the app is now seriously lagging. Thinking maybe 1165 photos are too much for this app to process. SIGH SO I am starting over, and going to see if I can do this in spidgettes, like I did with the Douglas Adams video and still have something continuous and flowy. I am concerned with it becoming jerky and hard to watch. With the Douglas Adams audio I did the segments where the scene changes were so you'd expect a little bit of flow interruption. Cross fingers. And damn duplicating work.

So it has been a while. Again. It is surprising how fast time gets away from me when I am working at an actual job. I haven't done much more than last post. I have pulled out my stop mo stuff and gone through it. I need to figure out what I need for sets and props and start building. I need to do a run to Eugene Toy and Hobby and stock back up on balsa wood. I also need to decide how I am going to do foliage for the forrest. Am I going to try to do it with real plants, fake plats that look real, or plnt-ish representations. I think the reason I havebeen putting it off is I have an idea that may change how I am currently doing my stop mo. I think I may have posted about it before. I want to research and play around with the idea of stabilizing marionettes to use as my stop mo puppets. They would be much larger, so I would have to look for and/or make larger sets, furniture and props. it would be easier to find what I need, though.

Last night a friend and I went thrifting and I found a set of knitting hoops for $5. Not a bad buy, considering they are usually $30-$40 for a set like that. It was missing one hoop, but it did have the hooks and finishing needle. so now while I sit and watch my shows I have something new to play with. I plan on trying to make myself a sweater or something. At this point I am just palying around with them and learning how they work. they seem simple and straightforward enough. It looks like they make a very loose knit, though. I may have to see if I can get it to tighten up somehow.

I am currently sitting at a cafe waiting for a friend to come join me for sodas, beer and brownies and ice cream. I probably should post this before she gets here. I will leave you with a pic of the 1959 Jewish cook book I found at the thrift store. Rosh Hashana is coming up, and it has some excellent recipes. I am happy withthat find.

Another day of writing. I am housesitting this weekend starting last night, so I thought this would be a great weekend to sequester myself with my computer and write. I have a lot of writing to do. However, now I am here I am having a hard time motivating myself to get started. It's not like I don't want to write. I love writing. As hard as it is, and even with how much I struggle with getting it just right, I love it. This whole frustrating, maddening, wonderful process I call stop motion is love worthy. I admit, no job I have ever had has made me as happy. Or as frustrated. And yet, in spite of the frustration, I still want to do it. I have not the feeling of "Fuck it!" and the urge to walk away, kicking everyone in face as I do so. The frustration does not make me mad. As much as I want to have an income, after experiencing this, I don't want to go back to crappy day-to-day stuff. I am still looking and will take what I can get, but I am realizing more and more that I need to get my butt in gear and figure out a way to make THIS my job. I need to find someone who can help me figure out what is crap and what is good, so I can improve faster.

I feel stupid just figuring out what I want to be when I grow up at age 37. I wish I had figured my life out sooner. Looking back on my life, I don't think I could have. I went from one abusive situation to another. I wasted my 20's on an abusive man who wasn't worth my time, and wasted most of my 30's getting away from the shit he lay on me. Only now am I realizing what I can do, and what makes me happy. Only now can I look at what I do and see the good as well as the bad. I guess I am getting to a point in my life where I really am getting too old for other people's shit, and their negativity no longer completely shuts me down. Granted, I have a long way to go before the fear monster sitting on my shoulder dies. He may never die completely. But it feels good to look back on something I made, even if there are flaws that need to be corrected, and be excited and happy with what I see. It feels good to make myself laugh. It makes me feel like running around yelling "Look what I did!" like a five year old.

Actually, I take that back. I am not just discovering now what I want to be when I grow up. I am only now rediscovering what I wanted to be from a young age. When I was in elementary school I used to write little stories all the time. I used to amuse my teachers with them. One of them even encouraged me to submit one of my stories to the district wide writer's conference. Somewhere there is a published volume of elementary school kid's stories from 1984, and one of mine is in there. I believe it was a story about a witch. I LOVED melodramas, and as an extension British pantos. One summer I wrote a melodrama, and I roped my siblings and my cousins into performing it for all the adults. I think I was 10 at the time. When I was a teenager I wrote books to take with me babysitting. I had what I called my babysitting bag. I found that although kids had books and toys and videos at their houses, usually they had played them all to death and didn't really want to do any of that stuff. So in my bag I put a bag of chocolate chips with which to make cookies, a jump rope, paper and colored pencils, dress up clothes  and cheap McDonald's toys. And, of course books. My mom wouldn't let me take our books out of the house, so I wrote my own and my best friend illustrated them. We made several for my bag and several for hers. So what happened? Several things. There are circumstances I don't want to bore you with, but mainly the end result was me giving up on myself. I honestly thought that the best I could do was be someone's wife and raise kids. (The ironic thing is I still don't have any kids) That I was too stupid and incompetent to be creative. That my ideas were cliche and stupid. And it has just taken me this long to wade through all the bullshit and realize what I have known all along.....that I can do this, and whether or not I am good enough at it NOW for people to pay me for it, it makes me happy. "It" being stop motion animation, storytelling, writing, comedy....anything and everything that I have been working on the last year to keep myself sane.

Because in the end, all THAT,  is what makes me happy and sane.

Well, look at that. I think I just knocked my motivation loose. See ya either when the weekend is over or when I hit another rough patch. Enjoy your weekend. :)

Ok, this post is because I am stuck and I need to kick myself out of my stuck spot.

For some reason, whenever I write, the place I always get stuck is the names. I may put too much emphasis on the importance of names in fiction. However I feel that the right name tells the audience the right things about your character. I also have an affinity for names that are clever double meanings, tells you something specific but covertly about the character's personality, or has obscure ties to something in the storyline. It doesn't help that I am a fan of such authors like J.R.R. Tolkien and Neil Gaiman. Tolkien was a linguist, and used words and names accordingly. In American Gods, the king of character development  Neil Gaiman uses names to help tell the story. He uses them to obscure the identities of  the gods, and uses the ambiguous name Shadow for the main character to emphasize his ambiguous roots and the fact he is basically lost at sea after the death of his wife and release from prison. As he learns more about himself and his origins, we learn more about his name. In The Graveyard Book he uses names like Miss Lupescu  for the Hound of God or werewolf. The ghouls, who have obviously lost who they were before they became ghouls, receive names that are obviously ridiculously not theirs.

So, those are all serious fiction. They are well written novels by talented writers. Why should I have such a hang up on names? It would be really easy to write the whole thing then add in names afterwards. For me, though, the names will help me A. keep track of the characters and B. keep each character's, um, character in mind so I don't have them doing things out of character. That annoys me the most about poorly written fiction. Once you establish your character, you had better give me a good reason why that character does something that is outside the already established parameters. Just having them do something because it pushes the story forward or because you have written yourself into a corner and need a magic story bandaid takes me right out of the willing suspension of disbelief. You may be writing about invisible aliens attacking talking animals in anti gravity boots, but what will make me call bullshit is an action or bit of dialog that doesn't fit. It is jarring. I equate it to that moment in the Wily E. Coyote cartoons after he has walked off the edge of the cliff. At the beginning he stays up in the air, because he hasn't realized that the ground is no longer underneath him. The moment he starts falling is the moment he realizes he should be falling.

Now  if you give a good reason for this out of character action and/or dialog, that is something else. In the Hobbit, Bilbo does a ton of things that are way outside his established character. However we also see how he is struggling with it, and he doesn't do anything completely out of character from the beginning. He doesn't charge into the encampment of trolls brandishing his sword and shouting. He considers his precarious position with the dwarves, and how the uncharacteristic action of stealing the trolls pouch would aid in establishing his position with the dwarves.  Both actions are out of character, but one illustrates his evolution into doing the out-of-character action.

But I digress. My point is that establishing the correct names from the beginning helps me to keep my characters in character. It  helps to remind me of what I had in mind for them in the first place and not make that jarring mistake. Should I even care about this if I am just writing a silly little stop motion video? Am I being over conscientious?

What's in a name? Everything.

I think I have successfully kicked myself out of the stuck spot. Now that I have articulated my reasoning I can now just do instead of agonize. Thanks for the help.