Day 5... Kwikweld saves the day! And a sort of tutorial

There's something I just love about the way my work area looks with these partial puppets laying around amid tools and scraps of wire and thread etc. Had to share. And I think my favorite part is all the red thread hanging off eveything. They almost look like marionettes! Above are 2 arms in the first stage of their evolution.

I've kwikwelded them into their tubes, making sure the knotted silk thread is pushed down inside and firmly embedded ino tthe ugly grey stuff. This anchors the thread, making the next steps possible... I don't think I could even attempt the next part if the thread was loose and slipping around. The thin wrapping wire is what holds the 3 strands of wire together as one entity as i work, it's discarded after the endcaps are secured in place. On the left you can see I've marked the positions for the two 'bones' (actually sections cut from nails). And at the far end is a completed arm.

Hey... can somebody give me a hand? (Sorry Shelley... I'm a jokethief!) You can see how everything fits together. I've tried to maximize the area of joinage. Look back and forth from this pic to the one below, you'll see what's going on. Below I just loosely wrapped the thread to semi-secure the hand, trying to leave enough clear area so you can see what's happening. I'll wrap it more when I actually secure it for real.


I've got all the arms done now, still need to make more hands. And I've accepted that I'm just not a Dave Sim or a Nick Hilligoss. After getting home from work I can't realistically expect to spend a solid 8 hours working. Hell, I'm lucky to get two full hours done most nights. If I can do that 5 nights a week, then I'm making some good steady progress. At this point I'll be happy if I get all the puppets done and dressed by the end of the 16 day marathon (though I might not get all the clothes done... I think that's going to be the hardest part). Anything else is a bonus.

Day 4

Damn.... ran out of my magic elixir (JB Kwikweld). Only got 3 more arms done! So now I'm sitting here cranking out little tiny hands to attatch tommorow, when I expect a shipment including more of it. Probably would have come in today if not for the holiday. Heh... labor day. Everybody I know still has to go to work and labor, it's only the union and government employees who got the day off.

Production philosophy and my newest inspiration

I recently discovered Cerebus... Dave Sim's incredible self-published comic book. I love the way it's drawn - I love the way it's written - I love the ongoing artistic/philosophical/social commentary (aside from a few incendiary issues he has). I bought the massive tome called Jaka's Story - widely considered one of the best parts of the series, and I loved it. I've ordered a few more of the books, and while waiting for them to come in I wanted more Sim and more Cerebus, so I went websurfing. And I found cerebusfangirl.com. That link will take your directly to the Letters From the President page, collecting Sim's writing from the back of the issues. He's brilliant (if somewhat twisted) eloquent and deeply thoughtful, as well as a powerful and insightful observer of human nature (which let's remember aint always pretty folks!). Ok, so in the article called Tangents he went completely overboard on a misogynistic shooting spree (hey, some of what he says makes perfect sense... but yeah, he does mave female issues).

I've read all the articles now, and what really strikes me is the ongoing sense of how hard he's working. He always mentions it, and the fact that he had to find time to write up each article in between the work it takes to produce a self-published comic book. His background artist Gerhard (who does some mind-blowing ultradetailed and often surreal drawings behind Sim's characters) lives in the same house, and is always working in the background (he gets mentioned frequently too, always laboring away as Sim writes). What a monumental accomplishment! Two guys who are doing what they love most sitting in a house day after day after day cranking out drawing after drawing after drawing, scratching out line after (ok, sorry, getting carried away)... and the result is the longest-running series ever done by the same creative team all the way through. Reading what he has to say about what it takes to do this has changed my outlook on production... it made me realize that ALL the comic books I've ever read - love em or hate em - only existed because they were finished... on time, under deadline, and complete, month after month after month (well, certain Image titles excepted). The ones that weren't well... you've never seen them. Because they don't exist outside of someone's imagination. Ok, I think I got my point across. Below is a paragraph excerpted from his article on "whether to draw comic books or become a plumber". It applies to making stopmo flicks as well:

"To start self-publishing in this day and age you have to be prolific and you have to be able to compete with the best work out there. At the time that I started Cerebus, writing and drawing comic books was something that you did until you could do something else. There are still many creators who are here temporarily, until they are lured away by Hollywood or whatever else. But, face facts. Wendy Pini is not going away. Neither am I. Neither is Neil Gaiman, Eddie Campbell, Jeff Smith, Colleen Doran, Steve Bissette, Larry Marder. (footnote) The greatest mistake you can make is to say that your work is better than a lot of the shit that's out there. No doubt. But being better than shit is not exactly a shining credential. Do you have anything to say? I mean, if I read one more proposal for a post-apocalyptic nightmare society ruled by remnants of a blah blah blah, I'm going to throw up. I mean, who cares? Likewise two hundred issue story-lines that consist of a handful of character sketches and a rough outline. I mean, so what? If someone comes up to me with fifty pages in photocopy form and the last page is better than the first, I tell them what Mike Kaluta told me in 1973; 'You're on the right track. Keep going.' I just got in the first issue of a comic called Strange Attractions ($3.00 plus postage - Retrografix, 2130 Williams #3, Bellingham, WA 98225). I read it and enjoyed it. I could follow the story no problem and when I got to the end, I wanted to know what happens next. If the work doesn't have that effect on you, it's largely wasted effort. The work has to come first. Until you've produced a couple of hundred pages, you aren't going to know if you have the aptitude, ability or inclination to do comics for a living. The work has to come first. Once you have produced a couple of hundred pages, you have to move to the next level, doing a number of things simultaneously; producing the work, reproducing it in some fashion (photo-copies, mini-comics, booklets), circulating it and promoting it. All of those things. Simultaneously. If you produce the work but fall behind on reproducing it; if you produce and reproduce it but fail to circulate it; if you produce it, reproduce it, circulate it but fail to promote it; nothing (I repeat, nothing) is going to happen. Chester Brown did a number of issues of Yummy Fur as a mini-comic and then became too big to be confined to mini-comics. That effect will happen only if you are productive, only if you circulate your work and only if you promote it. The work has to come first. If your family comes first, or your girl-friend, or your wife or your kids or socializing or drinking or drugs, you are better off learning how to be a plumber. The work has to come first. If you have a natural talent and you produce a couple of hundred pages in the course of a year, you will get better and things will start to happen for you. If it takes you five years to produce a couple of hundred pages your improvement will be slower and you will find it almost impossible to make a living. There is nothing wrong with having any of those other things as top priorities in your life. Most people do. Almost all people do. The only way to make an impact in the comic book field is to be an exception to that rule. It there is anything you would rather do than sit down and write and draw a really good page, that thing is going to be an impediment. The world is full of distractions. Take two weeks and decide to do a page a day; pencilled, inked and lettered. If you miss a day, look at what you did instead. Whatever caused you to miss doing a page that day is an impediment to your career.

Look at the impediment.

Look at the work.

Make a choice."

UbaDarkLand production race - day 3

Alas, all I got done were 4 arms nearly to completion... still no hands. But I did cut and file my nails as you can see... and they were hard as steel! That was a huge job in itself considering I used only the tools you see here... should have busted out the Dremel! My hands still hurt.

The other 7 arms tomorrow complete witjh hands(day off... it's catchup time) - plus an explanation of my new production philosophy and a taste of my latest inspiration. Till then.......


Oh, and I changed the name of the race to reflect that our buddy Jeffrey of Ubatuber Productions has joined the race! He's working furiously on his entry for the upcoming round at StopMoShorts. Anybody else care to join in the marathon? Grant... Sven? It means posting daily (or nearly daily) progress reports till the bitter end.... 13 days from now.

Excuse time... I would have got the hands put on those arms, but an email came in announcing that Leevi had uploaded his newly completed film HarmoniCa to the bin at StopMoShorts, and I went in to post it for him (and of course I had to watch it!). Took the better part of half an hour. But wow, what a great film, even at the small resolution!

Darkland production race... day 2

These six heads are now safely ensconced in their chest blocks... or easily can be with the simple twist of an allen key. Each head has 3 wires coming out of it... my idea was to fold all 3 wires in half to double the thckness inside the section of tubing, so the neck wires are solidly wedged in there and the Quickweld only has to aid and abet the physical connection. I always like to make my connections as solid as possible in this manner... I don't like to trust adhesive to hold up under the rigors of animation. It turned out not to be quite that simple though... all 3 wires folded in half was just a little too thick and couldn't be jammed into the tubing, so i had to cut one shorter and only fold 2 in half. Heh... it always has to get complicated, doesn't it?

And I also made my prototype arm... very similar to the arms I made for the Catatonic Drunk puppet a while ago, only this time I didn't wrap with silk thread until After quickwelding the lengths of nail on for bones. This way the thread is wrapped inside the JB Quickweld, embedded permanently in it. And it saves me a step on each arm (and there's one less toxic substance to inhale!).

Plans for the next session... make as many arms as possible. Hopefully the remaining 11. We'll see.

The DARKLAND production race countdown.... day 1

To explain what's going on, my Sister in Stopmo Shelley Noble just announced the other day that she at long last has 16 free days to work on her stopmotion film Halfland. Well, I was just about ready to end my month (or so) long vacation from animation anyway, and what better way to do it than to challenge her to a production race.... 16 days of concentrated production for each of us. The competition can only do us good. She has a bit of an advantage in that I have to hold down the day job and can only work for a few hours each night, but then I have a good deal of experience in stopmo stuff over her, so this should be pretty close. We've both chosen tentative deadlines for our films at the end of the year, and time's a'tickin' away.... in my case I did a bit of experimenting a while back but haven't really launched into any kind of production schedule yet, and I know if I don't very soon I'm not gonna make it.

My first order of business is to make my 8 puppets. Two nights ago being the first day of the challenge, I intended to get started, so I accomplished step 1... scraping the inside of a bunch of brass and aluminum tubing with an X-Acto sawblade to rough them up so they'll grip the JB Quickweld better when I jam the armature wires inside.

...That's it. Yep, that was absotively posilutely all I got done on day 1! But of course it's not about who wins... there are no losers in this. We both benefit from the slingshot effect of each other's momentum. This is the COMERADERY/COMPETITION effect I sometimes rhapsodize about, that can spur both participants on to ever greater achievements.

post

This one's specially fer you Shelley. ;)

And for those who might be confused..... here's Shelley's last comment:

"herself said...
Post--Post--Post--Post!"

Ok, bit of Darkhumor there... but hey, at least I posted!

To fill in a bit of info - I didn't announce this, but I've been on an animation vacation for a month or so now. I just got completely burned out... not that I was actually doing animation or anything, but I was constantly thinking about it and writing about it. I needed a summer vacation. And Labor Day seems like the right day to end it and get back to work, wouldn't you say? Shelley has just announced that she's starting a 16 day marathon of pure Halfland activity, so I left her a comment challenging her to a production race. She's got the jump on me so far... I didn't do diddly last night, but tonight I'm getting my groove on.

I'm scaling back my time on other fronts.... I'm done with the tutorials and the Stopmo Handbook, and I'm resisting the beckoning of all those same old same old questions that keep popping up at the message board. I figure if I don't answer, most likely SOMEBODY will... and it seems to be working for the most part. Good old Nick is always there, but there are a few semi-newbies who are answering questions as well these days... good to see it! So now I can settle in for some actual honest-to-goodness production. I won't be posting frequently, but when i do I plan to lay some goodies on y'all. Bye now!