It's Character Building

That's how I feel about standing in lines, especially long ones to reach nifty places or meet cool people. I could list at least two or three examples of what others might think were waste of time, but they were in their own ways defining moments. Lines are important. As slow as they are. As painful as they are. I know everybody's in a rush to get through them these days, but about half the time, if you are actually conscious of being in them, you'll come out of it with a better understanding of other people and yourself - and this applies to those metaphorical lines as well. It gives you time to think. To observe and consider. To live and experience. Yes, it's uncomfortable...but being thrown out of that comfort zone makes you really notice things. Little things, that distinguish ourselves as the unique characters we all are. Reactions. Emotions. Influences. The way he rolls his Rs when he says his name but not when he says mine. The way she turns a page if she's really invested in the narrative. How a person's body language changes if they see someone they like or love versus someone they're unfamiliar or at odds with. How many people jump when they see spiders.
So many variations. All interesting and unique. Lines are important.
They communicate to us if we're paying attention. 

That said. The last few weeks I've been doing some character building. Metaphorically and otherwise. I've been fairly unhappy with how my current focus character has been falling flat and so I scrapped a bunch of work to start over. Time for lucky Version 5! I have thus far one (of three or four) pages of development ready - but I want to release them as a set. So I will post production shots and side projects until then. Here are the first process shots: 

 

 

She's about 9.5" tall and I am really freaking proud of how those hands are coming out so far. I had to amputate fingers a couple times because one wrapping felt too much like sausage and didn't give me any mobility and the other method wasn't strong enough. I got two books for my birthday (off to the right there) about Stop Motion animation and puppet building and while I initially planned on building a full puppet...this would be the first time I cast anything other than my hand making the Live Long and Prosper sign or my nose, and so we're going to try a few smaller scale projects with that technique before a full puppet. This will be a mixed media sculpture like one we did for Joan Kresek's Illustration Media class - I even contemplated donating my hair to the cause, but it doesn't even hold a curl on my head so I figure there's a better way than opting for a 1920s pixie bob first go - and the scale drawing blueprint is slightly off left. (Back drop is a portion of the library) She's got a mini fan too that was pretty fun to glue together, though a test to fold so many tiny creases. ><

Another quick note before I turn in: I'm very privileged to be reading through the second draft of B. Erin Lounsbury's first novel right now. So good. Be jealous. :)