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.

So time has marched forward, and so has my progress....a little anyway. I now have my storyline for the steampunk video all lined out. I have my characters developed. I have designed the world in which they will live. I am kind of excited about it. This is going to be fun, once I get past the hard parts.

I decided I want the exterior of the houses to all be stone, with stone garden walls, etc. I envision this place to be like one the planned garden cities in England of the late 19th and early 20th century. If I am going to do this I need to find a good way to replicate a lot of walls. I do not sculpt well. I am not going to rely on someone with sculpting skills to have time available for this. So I took a trip to the Eugene Toy & Hobby to see waht they had. I found these retaining wall sections for model train sets. They will work wonderfully. I just can't afford to buy all I need. They were $11 for a set of 3.  I have liquid latex. I have lots and lots of cheap plaster. I thought hey, why not make my own molds of these wall sections and then I can make all I need cheaply.

Latex mold making is not as easy as they make it look. they didn't turn out very well. I got sick from all the latex fumes. And the ones that did work didn't actually produce a working model. Even though the molds really did not shrink (I can fit the original in without stretching it), the casting is a good inch smaller than the original. I need to figure out why. I also had a hard time getting that first layer to dry properly. The side touching the original wall piece never dried properly no matter how long I left it before I did the second layer. The thing is, when you do a second layer, you can't wait too long or the layers don't adhere to each other properly. Then there were the issues with making the mother molds. Latex is thin and does not hold it's shape. This is ideal for peeling it off the original...not so for holding the casting material in the right shape. So you make a mother mold out of plaster. After the last layer has dried you cover it in plaster. Let it sit until set and voila you have a good solid base for the latex mold that will still allow for you to peel the latex off the casting without breaking it. my issue...the plaster kept crumbling. I followed the directions on how to mix it. I let it sit for hours. the ambient room temp was 70. The stupid things just kept crumbling. I finally got a few that will work, though I really need to figure out how to solve the mysterious shrinking casting issue.

Here be the picture evidence. The yellow one on the left is the first one that worked. the one at the top is the second one, though you can tell it stuck to the original and destroyed some of the detail. The one in the middle is the original, and to the right is the casting. Sad, sad, sad.

I guess I am failing in whole new ways. That is ok. I am learning, and each one gets better. I just don't have a lot of time. I wanted to get the video done in time to submit it to the Pacific Northwest Animation festival as well, but that is not going to happen. The deadline for that is Dec 31. It is already the 11th. I will be lucky if I can get the sets built by then.
    I also had a brilliant idea to use those poseable wooden artists manquins as the armatures for the puppets. I figured out how to get the hands to work, I just got to figure out how to build up the head and face. The advantage is there are more natural articulation points, and they are already built up to natural human proportions. I will still work on learning how to make my own, but to try to facilitate this video that is what I am trying.

Because I don't have a lot of good clamping tools for delicate cutting, I used a Dremmel with the sanding wheel to grind the hands down to where they are more normal shape. The dots are the places I will be gluing twisted florist wire. I will then wrap them all in paper sports tape and paint them. Then I need to decide how I am going to anchor them. Do I want to continue the magnet method, or do I want to drill holes and destroy my set table to try screw anchors? I am leaning toward the magnets. Less permanent damage. And I don't have to go buy sturdier foam for the base. I don't think I could get that locally. Disadvantage of living in a small town.

    And that is as far as I have gotten. The molds alone took 3 days. This is a long slow process. I am impatient. I want to be animating. However, this time I want better puppets and sets. I want this one to be really cool.

    I am also looking into renting office space. As long as I keep it under $300 and utilities included I may be able to do it. I would be sacrificing saving any money for deposits for my own place to live, but it would be easier for everyone else to help out if I had a place other than just a bedroom for us to work. It feels weird, and frankly no one really wants to do that, as much as they want to work on this. Sigh. It always comes down to money, doesn't it. Well, if I can get to a place where my animations look more professional maybe I can get a few commissions, maybe start at least having it pay for itself. that would make it tons easier.

Anyway, if you are reading this and have an inkling of why my molds are giving me grief, feel free to either comment or email me. I was planning on having people over to help make castings, but I have to have enough molds for more than just one person to use.

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....

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. :)

Apparently I have a Tumblr account, which I totally forgot about. I tend to do that. Create accounts at the newest shiniest thing on the intertubes then completely forget about them. Also apparently I did some serious pontificating there about creativity, my cowardace about putting my stuff put there, etc. Yeah I know. Weird. Some of those things were actually good and fairly intelligent, if I do say so myself. I came across it while lazily spending the morning in bed googling myself. Don't judge me - you have done it too.

So the one that struck me the most this morning is about how people give criticism, and our general lack of knowledge around how to do it correctly. While creativity rarely happens in a void, bad criticism can shut it down completely. Here is a copy-n-paste of what I said there. Do you agree? Do you think I am being overly harsh, or have I hit the nail on the head?

~In my ongoing to search to find something out there that will help me get over myself and continue creating, I have noticed something interesting.

But first, let me say that my view of the creative process up till now has been you hole up by yourself. You write/photograph/paint/sew/edit, etc, until whatever it is you are creating is polished and good. Then you present it to the world and get your kudos and praise from regular people and stone throwing from the trolls and voila you have success. I love to get feedback and encouragement as I go. My experience has been that when you ask other people for that what you actually get is thier vision of how your project should be. My mother was very fond of molding anything I did until it was no longer the personification of the vision I had for it. It was then her project, and she expected credit for it.

When I decided I wanted to write I started going to writing groups thinking that I would get the encouragement I needed, only to be shot down horribly by members of the group. Any time anyone had a good idea or an engrossing story, instead of encouraging the writer they would pick apart the petty details that didn’t matter. They would shoot each other down with scathing remarks about things like a writer’s choice in clothing for their characters or pick to pieces the choice of titles. I watched them all do this to each other and left in frustration. This was not helpful to anyone nor was it encouraging. It cemented my theory that creativity is a lone animal.

However, as I read more and more about what successful creative people have to say about it the more I am inclined to think that creativity doesn’t happen in a void. Yes, certain things you have to do alone. But it seems that creativity begats creativity. How many artists have said they saw the Mona Lisa or some brilliant art piece and were inspired to go home and do something themselves? How many writers tell about the daily activities that triggered an idea for a story that developed into a book?

And they also had someone, somewhere along the line, who told them they were good and gently steered them in the right direction.

In my opinion most people, even experienced creative types, don’t understand how to critique. Critiquing isn’t about saying “This is bad. I don’t like it. You need to change X,Y and Z.” It is about looking at the beauty that is already there and making little suggestions that will enhance that beauty. It is about putting aside your personal taste and looking at the project for what it is. Not a lot of creative types do that instinctively. We tend to look at a project and begin assessing what we would do if it were our project.

There are people out there who can objectively critique and help. They can look at a piece of art and explain to the artist why the overall design would fit together better if they used a different color, instead of just telling them the color is off. They can read your story and tell you why this paragraph breaks up the continuity of a story. They can look at your movie and explain why that last scene didn’t work with the rest of the story. And most importantly they can express what they like about a project.

We need more people like that. That is what helps creativity to thrive. Though we can’t change how other people do things, we can change ourselves.

We need to step back and think about how we felt when we first started, and explain our critique in a way that is more of a learning experience than a destructive experience. We need to ask ourselves “Is this really a valid criticism, or is this just my personal taste?

This is how we can help each other through those damned walls. If I had people like that to show my work to during the polishing process, I wouldn’t be so disinclined to show anything to anyone ever. That little voice inside that likes to pipe in with “This is shit. Why are you even trying?” would be easier to silence.

Hmm…well, it’s just a theory. I welcome thoughts on the subject.~

So, that said...Thoughts? Agree or disagree? Why?

So, remember a while back when I was posting about Chris Hardwick and the RL-RPG thing? No? Not surprised. It has been ages since I have posted about it. I haven't stopped working on it, but I really haven't been talking about it much either. One of the goals I set for myself was to write and learn how to perform as a storyteller. I have spent a lot of time listening to other storytellers and analyzing their styles. I have worked on writing out several stories. Now I have decided to move on to the next step. I have contacted Kevin Allison from the Risk! Podcast to negotiate one-on-one sessions. The price isn't too bad. I have decided I can afford 2 sessions a month. That will give me time to polish between sessions. Now that I have started the processes, I am a tad freaked out. This shit just wandered into real territory. I will be investing money into getting better at it. Someone else will be listening to my story and telling me what they think. I can no longer hide safely behind my computer, wondering if I could have been or what I could have done. I will have to shove myself out of my comfort zone, out of the little self-coddling cacoon of safety I created for myself while I was feeling it out. I will have to put aside my feelings of self doubt. I will have to stop fearing the possibility I will fail hard, and know that when I fail hard I will have someone to help keep me from failing so hard the next time. it is scary and exciting all at the same time.

I miss the stage. I used to love performing. I still feel at home just standing on a stage. When standing on a stage, my instinct is not to go "oh my god, people are looking at me" but to go "I need to do something". For too long I have let fear take over that rush I get when I am actually on stage. That self doubt that crept in there when I was dealing with abusive situations and difficult people has made it hard to get back to a place where a stage is a stage, and what matters is the performance, not the person. Performing is fun. It is a huge adrenaline rush. Yes, for me performing is a selfish thing. I like to give people a good show, but the rush you get when you have been practicing hard, and the performance is going well, and there is good energy coming from the audience, and you feel it and it feeds your energy, and you finish with a huge applause and this symbiotic energy that doesn't go away for hours, sometimes days. It is the best kind of high. It was the kind of high I thrived on in high school.

No matter what else is going on in my life, my mind is always on stop motion. What I can do to make an idea work, a short storyline idea, looking at the different elements of life and wondering how to make them work in stop motion - all always running around in the hamster wheel I call my brain. I see something in a tv show and think "How would I do  that and make it look natural?" Or "How could I make that in miniature and still allow the moving parts to move?". I suppose I am slightly mad. And also very frustrated. It is frustrating that I don't have the funds to try many of my ideas. It is frustrating that my camera is an inconsistent point n shoot. It is frustrating that I can't afford to pay someone to teach me how to light a scene properly. It is frustrating that I can't afford the proper materials for creating my own puppets. Or afford the waste that will come while I am learning how to make my own puppets. I just want to make movies. People say that money doesn't buy happiness.  Seriously, if I had the money to buy what I needed to do more stop motion I would be happy. Well, more like content.

On another note, I am looking into alternative video sites. I like You Tube, I guess. There is just so much there to wade through. And people can add random ads to your stuff without your permission and without paying you. That is frustrating to me. I am looking into Vimeo. I have been watching Vimeo videos for a while now. They seem to be better quality. It seems to me more of the videos available are done by people who are serious about making good content. The number one reason I hadn't gotten a Vimeo account is they did not support mobile devices, while You Tube does. Now it seems they do. I just watched a video on my android phone the other day. So now to figure out what the length limit is, what the upload limit is, and if I have to get a paid account if I go over a certain amount of videos. Of course, I could monetize You Tube, while I am not sure I could do that with Vimeo.

Well, grounds for contemplation.
I leave you with a random act of photogging: