CTN 2016 Preview

Well, this year has gone by RIDICULOUSLY fast. My last post was in March, so let's see...the remainder of spring and summer went to fabricating puppets for OniSan. A rare non-newsletter update can be seen on Raul's blog where he talks about the 3D printed parts that I had him help me with. I'm still chugging right along on that - progress to be featured this year at CTN.

In August Kubo and the Two Strings came to theaters - my first movie credit! I've been rolled over to the next film, presently still an RPQA. All the tiny faces!

The Costume Collaboration I spoke of last time is going strong. You can find out more about it now online through the Talking Threads Website, Facebook, Twitter, and Vimeo. We're really excited to launch The Story We Wear at CTN this year with a panel on Costume Design in Alternative Industries.

Hoping to see you all at CTN this year! :)

Collaborations and Complications

A quick doodle of me, Raul and Tito. 

My part on Kubo and The Two Strings is now complete. What started as a three month temp position stretched into a year's worth of crazy fun times - wrapping up with my department's Academy Award win! I have now rolled directly onto the next film.

I had to take a week off though right at the end of January due to sciatica. For those of you not familiar with it...please continue avoiding it if you can. Take care of your body. Hydrate with water. Be mindful of what you eat. Don't skimp on stretch breaks. Stand as much as you sit and sit with good posture. Yoga and hiking are awesome. You do have time for these kinds of things. This might sound a little lecture-y, but seriously SCIATICA IS EVIL. 

Post-CTN I was approached by fellow Oatley Academy students to participate in a unique collaboration opportunity. Jessie Kate Patterson, Maria Kercher, Blythe Russo, and Gwyn Conaway Bennison are my partners in crime for this crazy costume adventure! I look forward to sharing more about that project later. ;)

Another thing greatly occupying my mind of late is a different kind of collaboration. Last year Raul Ramos proposed on my birthday and of course I said yes. After debating it we've set our ideal date a year from now and are in planning mode. My dress has been purchased. Venues are narrowed down for tours and will be hopefully booked by the end of the month. And the invite list is more or less finished...provided people stop dying. :(

We have also been discussing the issue of "co-branding." This would obviously apply to the big event, but include other events where we display or attend as a unit - such as our shared table at CTN. With our different areas of interest and specialty, it would visually make sense of us together as a unit. If we showing separately then we wouldn't need to pack everything along - we'd still have our own self-branded things. Raul's been working especially hard to streamline his presentation lately. But mine is another matter entirely.

This upcoming status change brings the chance to really do some necessary tweaking - starting with my name. For as long as I could write, my name has been a problem. When small I never dreamed of the various details involved with fancy weddings and such...I dreamed of ditching my needlessly complicated name for something simple or at least less likely to be butchered by everyone and their "standardized" software. But now that I've gotten traction - my first movie credit for one - should I change it? The arguments for and against are sometimes heated and I'm not looking externally for answers - this is definitely a personal decision I trust others to respect once I've made it - but it is certainly something I've been struggling with more than I thought I ever would.

Can we just fast forward to the part when I get to leave for the honeymoon please??

The Life of Cut Paper

In which I ponder = coherently or not = the connections and nuances of my favorite art forms:

When I think about stop motion animation as a type of performance art, I am of course going to starting drawing some interesting comparisons: Various forms of Japanese theater influenced OniSan, including the puppet-based Bunraku.

Bunraku dates back to the late 1600s - in Osaka - and is a combination of musicians, chanters and puppeteers. That's not too far off of how we consume stop motion today - with a soundtrack, voice actor narration and animators.

Of course we see everyone on stage during a Bunraku performance, but to varying degrees we ignore their presence. For the Boxtrolls end titles we get to see Travis Knight animating in lightening speed as the characters wax philosophical about the nature of freewill - the reverse of the original intent to keep the puppeteers hidden.

Bunraku puppets utilize three actors that must be in perfect coordination for the performance. Some stop motion puppets can be acted by several different animators - but they all have to work together to make that character believable as one person.

The puppets themselves in Bunraku can be very simple and very elaborate. Some of my favorites are those beautiful ladies that have face mechanisms which reveal them to be scary demons. A particularly interesting trick they use on many female heads is a pin on the corner of their mouth - so they can bite their sleeve.

Stop motion puppets are getting more and more advanced, with tricks like Neil's belly-mover in ParaNorman or the watch-like facial mechanics in Corpse Bride. I was very impressed with the glow of the Boxtrolls' eyes - when you snap the faceplate off it breaks the circuit and the eyes dim, but when you snap the faceplate back on the circuit completes and Ta Da! Glowing eyes!!

What other connections do you see? How do your favorite mediums compare or contrast? 

Sketch Dump!

Time just keeps slipping away...so this calls for a sketch dump! These are some of the ideas and such that I've been playing around with for the beginning of this year:

Settling in fine to Oregon life. Working very hard at the new job, but trying to have some fun too. It's a world of unexpected craziness and bizarre inspiration that's for sure. Anxiously awaiting the rest of my furniture and supplies - which should be here towards the end of next month when the lease there ends...especially looking forward to the return of the bed. Missing friends and loved ones, but I should be seeing them before too long. :) 

OniSan Update!!

He does exist!! 

I just finished sculpting him last night, so I should have him painted by next week. It's been nuts fitting him in on top of everything else, but he's finally making some head way. Raul has been working on his face sculpt - while it won't be ready for this puppet version, it will for the next. Both Oni and Julia (The new one!) will be with me for CTN - which draws ever closer and ever more intimidating and ever more exciting! :)
More to come soon, for now - back to work!!

Month 8 Tree Lesson WIP + Godzilla's Origins in Classical Theater

I thought I'd take a few days to try and catch up a bit in Magic Box before leaping into Painting Drama. (Both very excellent classes offered by the Oatley Academy of Concept Art and Illustration) Don't worry, I'm still chugging along on that OniSan puppet and hope to have another update soonish!!


There's been a massive amount of content added to the lessons since I was last able to spend time in the Secret Lab, so I picked a month more or less at random to resume. I will go back and complete all the lessons eventually. So much learning!
The WIP is for month 8 – on various ways of handling trees as part of the Environment Set.
The idea is to tell a story where the tree(s) features prominently – no skirting around them in this exercise. If I have time I might render it in the three different styles we've been looking at as well, but that greatly depends on the master time table for this year. It's crazy to think it's already almost half gone.


My tree piece was inspired by a comment Chris made about the tree as a Sun Worshiper. The last time I was in a church I observed many people raising up their hands and crying out. This startled me at first because I has been raised in a different denomination (And even then a seldom participant...I don't even remember why I was at this particular church in the first place) and thus unused to anything other than quiet kneeling and sitting in contemplation, the occasional reserved hymn-ing. But I certainly see nothing wrong in expressing such joy and devotion in this more open way. I had been doing sketches of Japanese Maple trees (I love their vibrant colors) and I imagined my maple as a radiant follower of Amaterasu – Shinto goddess of the Sun.


Originally my composition was larger and I explored secondary elements like a fairy village and a maiden – in accordance with the Kwaidan story of the girl with a tree's soul – and other such yokai, but I felt that took the emphasis too far from the tree itself. If I'm going to focus on the tree might as well cut the filler and just do it. So then I sought to balance my tree's gesture between what a maple looked like (Some of them are pretty gnarly) and how a dancer moved (Aiming for a sprightly sort of grace). I'm really excited to jump into value and color studies. A little nervous about the rendering bit, but much more confident with the first 3-4 months worth of lessons under my belt.


As a parting note, and not to spoil things, I was okay with the new Godzilla movie. I wish there had been more Godzilla in it, but I was not quite so bothered by the design as some where. I liked that he still moved like a man in a suit. There was in fact an interesting documentary on Youtube that Raul had me watch beforehand, on the suit actors themselves. Many of them were Kabuki actors, so it was a fortunate overlap in interests for the two of us as he watched to assist in designing a kaiju for a contest and I watched to see the poses, movement, and storytelling. I had already been looking closely at Kabuki demon masks when designing OniSan, so it was great seeing them in action. And I can totally understand why they would enlist Kabuki actors to play the monsters...some of those traditional costumes were absolutely nuts.


If you've got time and love seeing crazy cool stuff:

Godzilla Suit Actors Part I 

Godzilla Suit Actors Part II


Kabuki


Bunraku Puppets