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?

So my lighting setup finally got here. It didn't contain everything I thought it did, but enough that I don't care. The umbrellas are very fragile. I accidentally sat on one of the black/reflective ones and the post broke clean through. I don't know how I will fix it yet.

Of course I had to play with it a bit. I set up the background frame, clamped a bedsheet to  it, tacked a black foamboard to the table, set up the lights and played. Here are pics of the rig/ setup.

Here is the resulting video. It isn't great, but not too bad. I don't like the color of the bulbs that came with this setup. Too blue. I want something warmer.

I shot this video on my Android phone using the Animate It! app from Aardman. I love this app. I like Osnap for my ipad, but for my phone this is the best one out there for free. You can pay for $5 add-ons. But it allows you to lock focus, white balance, and exposure. It also includes onion skinning in the standard app. And if you pay for the add-on package you can shoot in 4k. My phone acts weird when I check 4k option, though. It will take one picture normal, next way too overexposed. Even if I have exposure lock on. May be I need to do something I am not aware of yet. I will play with it more later.

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....

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.

SOooooo......

Working, I suppose. I am so far behind. I wasn't feel great for a while, then I procrastinted, so I most likely won't have anything done for Fandance. I am still going to try, but I am sooooooo far behind. I did not stick to my timetable at all. I also changed ideas midstream. That is a very bad idea. I still want to do my original idea. I have sets built and have done test dequences and stuff. But I wrote a filk to Princess fo the Night by Saxon. It is Doctor Who themed. So now I am leaning toward a music video for that. I want to do both, but reality tells me that both won't be completed in time. I need to stop being so indecisive. So now I am sitting in a pizza place forcing myself to plan and design, after which I will go home and build. And record the song. I ended up needing to take my uke in for a tune up. It wouldn't stay in tune for more than a few chords. Makes it difficult to record a song when your instrument won't stay in tune for the whole song. It is all good now. So I really need to do that today.

I also spent most of the day fueling my bad self with caffiene. Kind of over did it. My brain is kind of all over the place right now. I am hoping food will help drill down my focus a bit so I can get some stuff done.

Ok, I probably should finish eating and do some actual planning before ileave here. At least have a plan for the rest of the day. 

EDIT: So I came home and worked a little bit. I have decided to dress several of my little guy as Doctors. For your edification, as well as my memory of which soldier is to get which costume, here is a labeled picture:

So the next step is to glue magnets to their feet, then figure out how to clothe the little buggers. I made the ones with plumes to Baker, as I can hide with hat and hair, and Matt Smith, for the same reason. I plan to make little glasses for Tennent and go see if I can find teeny, tiny celery for Davison. 

I did not get anything recorded yet, though i did practice for a good long while tonight. My goal is to get it done tomorrow, post it to Soundcloud and then here so you can hear it. I think it is very clever, if I do say so myself. And it is fun. I just have to quit being so picky about how my uke playing sounds. 

So now I need to get to bed, as I haven't been sleeping well and I need to make myself sleep tonight so i can function. 

I leave you with a pic of my RPG test set:

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.

Well, yes, I have been working on my video. The one I am making completely (well, mostly) on my iPad. I have gotten some people to collaborate and help record voiceovers. I tried to do both voices myself and it sounded like the same person for both characters. I really need to learn how to do voices. Anyway, so now I have all the audio I need. Well, mostly. I may have to rewrite the script a bit, as I am having a hard time finding a particular soundbite that is integral to the plot. But anyway, I probably would be shooting today, but I got distracted. I have been dividing my time between this and a new project. Yesterday someone at work brought in a bunch of stuff she had cleaned out of her son's room. This was included in the bunch:

It is a little bitty baby guitar. At first I was going to just restring it as a guitar, as 2 of the strings were broken and I had my doubts about the remaining ones. Then I went to the uke store for strings for my soprano uke and the guy suggested I string it as a concert uke. It is exactly the same size and shape. The biggest differences being the part at the end that holds the strings and more tuning pegs. So, while I have been working on my video stuff, I turned that ugly orange thing into this:

It is kind of hard to see. The light also makes it look lighter than it is. But I painted it green with silver trim, and painted the bridge black with silver trim. I also had to glue a piece of wood under the metal string holder. I found out the hard way that the metal eats through nylon strings quickly. Like, within minutes of stringing it and while trying to tune it. If I didn't have my glasses on at the time I would have put my eye out. I have strung it like a concert uke, and with a low G instead of a high G. It is interesting to listen to. Definitely changes how my chords sound. The strings are still acclimating. It will take a bit before they stop stretching and settle in.

But yeah, I would paint a bit, then work on video while the paint was drying, then paint some more. I probably would be farther along on the video if I could just leave this thing alone. But I can't. It's my new toy.

Tonight I am tired of doing stuff, but tomorrow I will get to shooting and editing. My plan is to have it completely done by sundown tomorrow. That is the plan. We shall see what actually happens. :)