BSA324, glass problems, 30 September, 2017

rendered in arnold

Mantis said that if you turn the reflective weight up to 100 and the opacity off in the ? tab and arnold  settings of the material you can get glass to work.  The white is still a question mark and the glass jars are now silver.  So there's more work to be done, but at least I can see the socks in my board.

BSA303, Tale Enders internship, 30 September, 2017

Today I kept working on scene 21 and focused on getting reactions between Dan, Izzie, Amelia and Lucy as they go into his house.  It's lots of tiny moves and timings to get it working.  I loaded playblasts of the earlier part of the scene up onto Shotgun.   

Rachel may have a play with the scene to get cameras in or to tweak the movements.  I have to say that this week's moves are very messy on the timeline.  Probably because there are so many itty bitty moves that have to counteract each other.  I hope that's the reason things aren't cleaning laid out every 10 or 20 frames. 
5 Hours:  11 to 5 with one hour for lunch

BSA303, references, 29 September, 2017

Prototypicality Among Metaphors: On the Relative Frequency of Personification and Spatial Metaphors in Literature Written for Children Versus Adults

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327868ms0102_1


Toys in the Attic 2009 review
https://film.avclub.com/toys-in-the-attic-1798174083

BSA324, IW decoration, 28 September, 2017

 Why doesn't that bear skin rug have more texture on it?  Decorate shelves

Hedge texture too shiny: fixed.  Put leaves texture onto vines.  Decorate shelves.

Put clothes and hats onto those coat trees.  Put a smooth node onto the coat trees.  Darken up mirror. 

Why is Arnold so grainy?  I like it... but do I LOVE it?
To make: lamp shades, lanterns, etc. to hang over little spot lights. Put in "bluff sign" with signs that say "puberty, first kiss, astro ball player this many years away" etc to hang from center of warehouse.
check through pinterest folder for any ideas that have been forgotten or back burnered for too long. 

That's supposed to be glass on that sock board.  But big ups for just about everything else!
I love the dark shadows under the shelves and how those same shadows are making the cardboard boxes look more interesting.   Work out why all the glass is not acting like glass (upper right hand corner jars are glowing white)

BSA324, pitch this! winner, 28 September, 2017

A very slick promo won the TAC Pitch THIS! competition at the Ottawa International Animation Festival.   They had previous funding and support from various Canadian agencies. 

It's really good.  But the competition didn't read like you needed to submit a finished animation product, just the pitch bible and ideas.  I probably wouldn't have entered if I'd know that, so just as well that I didn't!  Got my pb done, got lots of work in on putting that and Nightmare Nursery stuff together, too. 

Speaking of local funding agencies and partners:

TVNZ pitching
TVNZ children's and digital commissioner Amie Mills

Kathryn's advice in today's critique session was to edit, edit, edit!  Time to get serious and focused.  Rachel says I've got a big body of work behind me and may not need to do that whole minute plus of the opening if it's not going to be totally polished off.  Better to end on half a minute of a really good promo which also goes in with the pitch bible and promo merchandise I've been creating.  Will think on how to do this... if I could concentrate on getting the IW totally finished, I could send a camera through with Girl and some of the characters popping in and out to give a tour.  It would be a smaller intro than planned.  And then I could apply to keep working on it through SIT and do the opening.  Think think think...

BSA324, IW decoration, 27 September, 2017

BSA306, Teenybeans, 27-28 September, 2017

After starting on my presentation, I was able to see what I've done and what still needs to be done for the 3D printing project.  Some of my ambitions, like multiple characters, have been curtailed while I've been able to try different sizes and decorating styles of Jellybean.  Printing without holes is my next goal.  In pursuit of that, I have printed a "teenybean", 50mm high of Jellybean in the first position (hands outstretched).  Very successful!  No holes anywhere.  Before printing, Rachel had a look at the model in Maya and photoshop and all was well.  Or photoshop fixed something. 

Not sure how that's worked out.   Since that model was working well, I went into print2 model and took off the hands, filled the hole, fixed the geometry and imported an print1 to steal the hands.  I positioned them on the belly with fingers more closely together and Rachel ran it through all of the mesh display checks ( average, conform, reverse, set to face, vertex to normal, soften edges) then exported as an obj and an stl.  

 Lookin' good, lookin' happy.

Lookin' weird... this time in photoshop, the texture is all pixely and we don't know why.  I took it to the makerbot software to see what would happen.  I opened the obj and found lots and LOTS of holes, some I've never seen before in that program.  I then opened the stl file and found no holes.  Maybe the problem has always been that I've been printing objs and not stls.

YIKES.  No.  Photoshop really "fixed" this one and it looks like a blob of guano. I won't be exporting this.  All of the detail has disappeared!

That's better.  I looked back through the history and saw that Rachel had gone into 3D print settings.  I put the settings to high and more detail has come back. I have exported that with repairs from photoshop as jbn_tst3.stl.  After Teenybean2 finishes printing, I will print this one to compare differences.  The print time is about 38 minutes so running multiple tests is easy.
Teenybean2 took 1 hour 37 minutes to print, is not the same height (even though I could swear I scaled it up to 50 mm, and has a thicker shell in some areas than others.  I don't get it.
Teenybean 3 took 1 hour 51 minutes to print.  WHY?  And why is yet another sculpt that has been scaled up to 50mm a different size altogether from the first two?  And the details on the hands have disappeared.  Most perplexing.  Thank  God for these tiny tests.

These are screenshots of one test 4 in the makerbot software.  It's helping me previsualise what the print is going to be now that I know it's showing me problems in the sculpt.  I've bagged printing number 4 until I can ask Rachel why geometry is being added (between the shoes and goggles) or smoothed off (eyes and fingers).  I'm doing another test print, this time of #2 and have scaled it up to 95.7mm.  Between 9 and 10cm will fit into the jar downstairs.  Everything looks good according to the previs, very crisp.
I stopped the print at 47% because the crotch didn't print.  I started it again with 2 shells, hope that helps.

28th
The 2nd go at the larger print was successful in the crotch but the ears were terrible!  That was a 6 hour 43 minute print.  What gives.  Rachel had a look over the file again and ran it through photoshop where it's looking good.  Everything also looks crisp on Makerbot.  Printing it again to join the teenybean army that's developing on the shelf next to my computer.  At 90% done, I can see little holes in the sides.  It may be that 2 shells has to be the permanent setting, not 1.  And the speed isn't that much better by setting it at 1.  Will see about those ears.  As Rachel said, I may have to make ears to put onto the sculpt.  I can do that with Sculpy.
Teenybean #4 has some holes that can be filled, probably just by the nail polish, and the ears look good.  Printing on high quality with 2 shells as Kevin and Rachel recommend will also fix that error.
95mm print: somebody logged me off the computer and the print stopped mid-way.  Sigh. The holes are gone, so the 2 shell and larger print is definitely working.  I've got two Jellybean "butts" on the shelf.  Turn them into egg cups?  I don't know.
Success!  The 95.50mm Jellybean with 2 shells on 0.10 wall height? has come out brilliantly: crotch, ears, and hands are all there and it only took 3 hours 42 minutes to do it.  I've put another one on tonight. 

BSA306, I funko'd myself, 26 September, 2017

http://nerdist.com/you-should-go-funko-yourself/

I AM working on my 306 presentation, I REALLY AM.

BSA306, more photos of finished collectibles and packaging, 26 September, 2017

The toys are just a smidge too big to go into the decorated mason jars.  I will figure out what's causing the holes in the 3D prints and print smaller versions that have the hands on tummies so they fit.

Very inspiring rows of mason jars at Look Sharp in Auckland.

Printing this sculpt in a standing position, instead of on back, led to better results with the ears, but the fissure-like holes around the neck and shoes are still there. Plus that troublesome spot between the eyes!

Printing upright means no nasty rafts to sand off the back.  Elsewhere, yes, so it's not without problems.

Printing on the back of a seated Jellybean.  This Jellybean won't sit without falling over so the sculpt needs flattening or it needs a stand to sit in.  Fail.  

Little video of the whole presentation, including full run of the animatic.

BSA324, new song challenge, 24 September, 2017

Had a good chat today with Anna about the recording week after next (spinning plates!  spinning plates!) and she set me the challenge of coming up with some more song ideas so we have plenty of material to work with in the recording studio.

New song #1

“Together We Are Strong”

I see you when you’re smiling/

But I know your heart’s in ache/

You’re on the verge of complete collapse/

There’s not much more you can take/

I’m with you/

Through Thick or thin/

Just the two of us/

We can win/

There’s a layer of candy coating/

Keeping all the pain inside/

I want you to know I’ll be right here/

You don’t have to run and hide/

I’m with you/

Through Thick or thin/

Just the four of us/

We can win/

Today was tragic/

But the fight’s not over/

Come with me and see the magic/

Of a world that’s fresh and new/

I’m with you/

Through Thick or thin/

Just the seven of us/

We can win/

I see this as starting with two characters and then ending with everybody together.  It could be anyone who's having a rough time or it could be Jellybean who may need a lot of the love that is so lavishly spent on others.  

Goldie's Anxiety Song

I’ve got to be great/

I’ve got to be cute and sweet and clean/

I’ve got to be liked/

There’s just no in-between

(or There’s no room here to be mean)

I’ve got to be great/

My Mum and Dad say I’m a champ/

I’ve got to make you love me/

All this talk is making me damp!   (starting to sweat with anxiety)

I’ve got to be great/

But what will I do if I fail?

The pressure’s really got to me/

I’m going to have to eat my tail!

Flash "I've got something else to do"

I can see that you’re mad/

I can see you’re feeling blue/

But if you will just excuse me/

There’s so much else I’d rather do

Like explore the Southern Pole/

(Thaddeus Thumper’s a hero to me)/

A Hero’s Life is just a click away/

The Interweb’s the place to be!

I can see you’re full of woe/

I can see you’ve got the flu/

But if you will just excuse me/

There’s so much else I’d rather do

Like surf the mighty Amazon/

Chased by piranhas in a canoe/

A Hero’s Life is just a click away/

The Interweb’s the place I choose!

I can see you’re getting weary/

I can see you don’t get the joke/

But if you will just excuse me/

Talk about it?  I’d rather choke!

Life’s a party that never stops

When I make digital connections galore

A Hero’s Life is just a click away/

The Interweb’s the place with MORE!

Can you see I’m really struggling/

Can you see I’m feeling bad/

I ignored the adventure under my nose/

The greatest friends I’ve ever had  

BSA324, animation experiment AE, 20-21 September,2017

20th
AE character animation workflow tutorial  no sound.  will keep this link in case.

Character rigging tutorial  short and useful!

Girl Front puppet, fully rigged in AE

All of the facial expressions are attached to her head and are in place.  They can be turned on and off as needed.  The extra hands and skirts, for walking, are also attached and hidden.  

21st

Went through what's possible in AE with Rachel this morning.  All the software packages do the same thing, essentially, it's a matter of committing to one and getting to it.  In AE, the puppet pin (looks like a thumbtack icon on the tool bar) is very useful.  I thought that I might need another midsection piece so Girl had a waist for sitting but the pin means that's unnecessary.  

In spite of Girl's awkward stance, this is very instructive.  The yellow donut shapes are where the pins are.  Each of these points can be separately animated so she can look like she's sitting or her dress is floating.  I can even put one in her pigtails to get a little bouncing action.  I will have to go back to the original file and separate it from her ear where it's attached for that to work.  Animating Graffiti Girl's pigtails was a pain, but I may have learned something from that process and this time it'll be sweet. 

After animating the figure completely, I can group, or Pre-compose the layers, by hitting CTRL shift C.  They then have their own timeline that can't be messed with when I'm working with other characters, backgrounds, or lights.  

Speaking of lights!  I can't find the create lights option on the tool bar and she showed it to me twice 5 minutes ago.  lol.  I'll look that up online.  The lights can be coloured, rotated, programmed to effect the puppet and not the background, or vice versa.  Once all the layers go in there, it's a 3D playing field.  The lights can be animated on and off like everything else.

for BSA326: have breakdowns of the sets, the puppets going into those rendered layers, the effects that have been done to those layers.  I can talk about Zbrush and Maya sculpting for this class as it relates to the toys,but the 3D printing process is strictly for BSA306.

Game plan confirmed:  Slick and shiny product is priority one.  I will focus on getting the opening beautiful to work in concert with the book and the toys as I'm looking for funding. 

   Rachel showed me how to put a shadow into the background.  This will come in handy as I try to marry the 2D puppets together with the 3D backgrounds.

BSA303, new website address, 20 September, 2017

https://meekandwildcreatio.wixsite.com/traci-meek
Rachel suggested that I change it because "mysite" doesn't look as professional as "traci-meek" on a browser tab.
This will mean going back and changing all of my CVS in photoshop, so mustn't forget to do that, and soon. She also helped me figure out why some of my internal website tabs were mislabeled.  I haven't worked on the website in a while and it needs to be done now that I'm looking for work.  And I'll get to update it soon with Doodlebug video!  That will be so much nicer than what I have now.  No sound is better than the sound I had, which was bad, but isn't as good as a nice song that ties the whole thing together.

BSA324, shot list with assets, 20 September, 2017

LOTS of everything here- shots, backgrounds, puppets.  I've guessed at what's easy (close ups) and what's hard (one-off puppets and lots of movement for extended periods, like Girl telling Jellybean about the problem).  Even through the Prickles segment looks easier than the opening, that's where the Imagination Warehouse song goes and that's where the showstopper stuff is that introduces the characters, concept, and themes of the piece.  If I can get that done, and well, then I can use it to promote the song and the pilot.  I can keep making the episode via animatic so people get the gist of what's happening in the first episode.  

BSA303, comedy for animators research source, 20 September, 2017

http://comedyforanimators.com/
Rachel pulled this site up for Reuben and Doug.
The post on sub-verbal characters caught my eye for Jellybean.

BSA324, new opening to animatic, 20 September, 2017

https://vimeo.com/234589775

New opening sequence in the animatic scored with "Imagination Warehouse".  I've got the basic moves in there with timings and now it's time to get the management down (how many shots, how many frames, what assets are involved etc) and get to work animating.  I'm still distracted by the upcoming recording stuff but I should be able to put that on the back burner until closer to the date.

BSA324, Anna van Riel collaboration, 20 September, 2017

I've locked in a radio interview with Darren from RadioSouthland for 10am 4th October.  Anna and I will sit down with him for 10-15 minutes to talk about the project and especially the music, which Anna will perform.  So excited!

We need legal contracts that outline what we're doing and what we're allowed to do with the material we collaborate on in future.  Anna should be able to perform the songs as part of her touring and recording and to use my animation, if she so chooses, to promote them.  I should be able to use the songs as part of my 3rd year project and with the show as it progresses and is sent around the world in search of funding and broadcasting.  I should be able to use the recordings that are made in conjunction with the episode script I currently have and others that may be written in future.  I'd like to animate for the "Today's the Day" and "Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know" songs.  I've joined APRA AMCOS to get co-songwriter credit for the lyrics I contributed.    

BSA303, dissertation writing, 18 September, 2017

enabling a person to discover or learn something for themselves

Project genesis

In 2009 or 10, I asked some of my freelance mascot clients who make tv if they’d ever thought of doing children’s television.  It wasn’t really their thing but it set me to thinking about what I’d make if I could do my own thing.  And a kid’s TV puppet show that taught anger management and conflict resolution really struck a chord with me.  I trained as a puppeteer and costume designer at UCONN and I’d recently gotten back into puppetry via mascot making.  I’d always loved the Jim Henson shows and movies when I was growing up and still felt a deep connection to the art form, even if I wasn’t practicing it in any significant way.  This would be a great way of getting back to it and I would make the puppets.  My next thought was that what would REALLY be great would be to do a show about what happens behind the scenes of a children’s tv show that teaches anger management and conflict resolution.  That set me off on years of writing, designing and planning.  I developed a whole series one arc of stories around this fictional tv show and the people who worked there.  I tried to interest other people in working with me on the project (two writers, a producer, etc.) with no luck- it was really my passion project.  The producer suggested that if I really wanted to make the show, the for real children’s tv version of the show, I’d need to write and publish a book about the characters and that would build interest in turning it into a series.  I designed many puppet characters for the behind-the-scenes tv show from the stance of what would be funny?  So there was a binge-eating possum, an ostrich with its head literally up its butt, a snappy crocodile (based on two friends in particular whose anger expressions used to bother me, but more on that later, especially my own anger expressions), cat and dog lawyers, a corndog police officer, an English bumble bee robot, and after looking through my old sketchbooks, an armadillo character I had been playing around with since going to art school in Tennessee.  The armadillo, which will be referred to as “he” for the time being, has been a 2-meter-tall foam core painting of an armadillo on a trike for Beauvais Lyon’s 2D design class, a ceramic figure that tragically cracked to pieces in the kiln, a hand puppet christened Jellybean during my time at UCONN, and a globetrotting adventurer in the educational clip art I was making with my sister.  He isn’t my muse but every time I go back to my sketch books to harvest old ideas, I always land on the original sketch and am retaken by his asymmetrical eyes under driving goggles and puffy lower lip. 

A friend from church, Naomi Toilalo, was doing children’s tv for MaoriTV and we’d talk now and then about what she was up to.  I wrote up a script for the first episode of the show (having long since moved away from the adult show as being unfeasible) and pared down the large cast of characters to a more manageable 7:  Klohwii (meant to be a pisstake of the current trend of bizarre spellings parents take on for their kid’s names), Jellybean, Goldie the still binge-eating hamster, Dr. Picklesniffer (a name that I had spontaneously given the dog I had just adopted to make my co-workers laugh.  This same dog is the inspiration for the Dr. puppet’s look), Coco the crocodile, Flash the rabbit, and Prickles the puffer fish.  Naomi and some other friends and I did a reading of the script, which helped me to hear what was happening but that was the last that I did with it until I started my 3^rd year project.  I considered a few other ideas for my project but rejected them in favour of pushing my passion project further than it had ever gone before.  I couldn’t do a pure puppetry project because as an animator I was obliged to produce animation to graduate.  Instead, I wanted to make a mascot Jellybean and composite him into a combination of animation and live action.  The backgrounds would be still-frames of scenery like those sometimes used in the German film “The Nasty Girl” 199?  I couldn’t decide and couldn’t decide how I would do it because I was very attached to the mascot but had to use animation… but knew I could use motion capture and 3D and green screens and all of the things we have at SIT to make it come to life.     

Characters

Girl:  There was never a question that the main character, the human, wouldn’t be a girl.  I’m a female and I think we need more girls and their stories on TV and while I have opinions and could write about a boy’s experiences, why can’t I write from my own worldview?  There is a photo of me growing up that I refer to in my art from time to time.  I might be around late 6 or 7 and I’ve got mismatched long socks on and asymmetrical pigtails.  I’m standing with somebody, maybe Heather and somebody else, on Nordale St in front of our house in Anchorage.  It’s summer because there’s no snow and I’m squinting into the sun, my head cocked to the side.  It’s an iconic image for me because it expresses an utter disregard for the conventions of clothing or expectations for dressing to impress others and I’ve either just suffered the event that scarred my psyche or it’s about to happen.  It’s a bubble moment.  That kid has lots to say and that’s what I based my girl character on, though I did decide to make the socks striped tights to simplify things.  She was called Klohwii with an umlaut over the o for a long time to take the piss out of people who spell their kid’s names “uniquely”.  Her little brother was “Czuqii”  (Chucky) but it would have been an inside joke because the names would never be spelled out.  I dropped Klohwii when I decided to take her seriously and gave her the name Girl so she wouldn’t have the baggage associated with any other name.  She couldn’t be Britney, or Tammy, or Sammy or anything because we all have ideas about those names based on people we’ve known in the past with those names.  Everything is loaded and “Girl” will be loaded for somebody out there, but it’s a fresh start and a clean slate for this character right now.  Maybe only the imaginary characters around her call her Girl so it could be how she refers to herself in her head, if you really stretch the idea.  Girl is creative and loves to make art.  She prefers to be home where she can really be herself.  School is full of people who have expectations and judgements of everything she does.  While she loves to learn and would never NOT go to school, the learning is the draw and not the people that fill the corridors.  I’m American with a dual citizenship with New Zealand.  Because I’m here and making things, I do think about making the show feel like it’s here and other places, too.  In America, Girl’s dress would be called a “jumper” and her tie and tights would make her a quirky dresser.  In NZ and other places with school uniforms, it’s sort of a generic school dress and the white shirt and tie make it a little uniformy.  The tights are always going to be uniquely her.  The hair is orange, yellow, and brown making her on the redheaded side.  Let’s have more redheads on TV!  She has glasses and a gap between the front teeth, a family and a personal trait until I got braces to straighten them.  The accent of the voice actor will really place Girl and for this project, that accent will be Kiwi.  But it could be from anywhere.  With the right stories and a change of skin tone and hair she could be living anywhere.  For now, though, she is a girl with a creator who is international with ethnic European roots and a fondness for ginger hair and she reflects that.  Girl is spontaneous in the way of children but also thinks deeply, hence her retreat to her room and her old beanbag to puzzle over the problem of the day.  She has acted or spoken hastily during the day or maybe has been stifled by a concern into silence and now has the chance to work through alternates to what happened.  She can interact with the personification of different human ways of dealing with stress in the form of her imaginary friends.  It shouldn’t be heavy or “wrong-making”- each of these characters has strong suits and flaws that get them in and out of trouble so Girl can see what works and what doesn’t without being judged. 

Jellybean:  In this show, Jellybean is no longer a he but is gender neutral.  Jellybean is the unconditional love and support that Girl needs to develop into the fullest and best version of herself that she can be.  Making Jellybean gender neutral is so, like with Girl’s name, the character gets a blank slate and a fresh start.  The viewer gets to decide on the sex of the armadillo because maybe they need their best friend to be a girl or a boy.  Love shouldn’t be confined to one sex or another.  I slip up all the time and even with this philosophy refer to Jellybean as “he”.  This is probably the sex that I need more support from.  Jellybean’s size might strike some as masculine while the flamboyant purple and yellow colouring might strike others as feminine.  Perhaps the two together will lead others again to assign sexuality to this imaginary character.  Nothing is neutral, everything is loaded and the show isn’t afraid to make some strong design choices. Jellybean wears socks and red and white sneakers and takes great pride in tying those shoelaces just so.  Jellybean lives in the aisle with a giant tree and flowers at the end.  The tree may be any season of the year depending on how Girl is feeling or the needs of the story.  Jellybean doesn’t speak, only honks.  This is a choice that again resists putting gender on this gentle giant and opens the possibility of using sign language in addition to Girl’s translation of the honks for the viewer.  Rather than being a hindrance or laughable, Jellybean’s “language” should be treated as an opportunity for patience and for growth from the others.  There will always be an undercurrent of internationalism in the show and this is another place for that to show up.  When under stress, usually overt, Jellybean rolls up into a ball like the armadillo.  Jellybean can be coaxed back out again.  What are Jellybean’s flaws?  Jellybean wants to protect Girl and will try to figure out where trouble is coming from before Girl gets there.  Sometimes this can lead to important information being isolated from Girl’s understanding.  Jellybean is not shy about pointing out that something is wrong but is often startled by the vehement reactions of the other characters and hides away until tempers calm down.  Jellybean can grow by not running away and exerting a peacefulness upon the scene when others are in conflict with each other.  Jellybean’s goggles and gloves are a holdover from the trike days.  Gloves are also traditional hands dating back to the earliest days of animation.  It is thought that white gloves made it easier for audiences to see the hands and any gestures being made with them.  Also, they cover up the knuckles and nails and makes drawings hands smoother, a definite plus for any artist.  Jellybean is soft and furry and is made of the old beanbag that Girl thinks on in her room.  Turning from beanbag to big mascot is the first step in Girl’s mental journey into the Imagination Warehouse to think. 

Dr. Picklesniffer:  This name just makes me laugh and I will run with it until I am told in definite, no uncertain terms that it will not do.  Then I will change it to “Dr. Bezansniffer” which is German for Picklesniffer, per Google translate, anyway.  The doctor was a Chihuahua/dachshund mix with a red cross on his back and a monocle originally.  He had a German/Spanish accent because in the adult show, there was some unfortunate joke about Nazis escaping to South America after the war.  My friend Gaby from Mexico’s grandfather was German and when I found that out, I was instantly contrite.  Terrible, terrible joke.  He will now have a kindly, adult male accent of some variety, TBA.  The doctor is made out of medical junk that might have been carried around by a country doctor and more bits are secreted in the bag.  The monocle gave one of my American friends a “Dr. Mengele-vibe” and may need to be changed to reading spectacles after some more market research.    Why these bits of things and not others?  I looked up medical kit pictures and chose objects that would make sense for his different body parts.  The shaving brush was hard because what about it is particularly medical?  I chose it after much thought because it could be used by the doctor who once owned the kit to shave his own beard or to lather patients up to shave them prior to surgery.  The head is an old leather canteen/bladder.  It’s an odd choice, but it looks like a head and fits in with the medical bag.  It could be changed to a hot water bottle or to a metal canteen with a leather or canvas cover.  The doctor has a very masculine “fix it and forget it” approach to problems.  He’s got an answer, he delivers it whether it’s been requested or not and then moves on, confident he's been listened to.  It’s always greatly perplexing to the doctor when his very sensible advice is ignored or is, gasp, NOT the right solution after all.  The doctor is avuncular and arrogant in a very nice way.  He’s the logical and confident part of the human stress response that is positive that there is a solution to every problem.  One of his ears is a fake telegram with my mother’s name and birthdate on it.  My grandparents had a photo of the telegram my dad sent to them announcing my birth and I liked the idea of combining that with my mother.  The other ear is a prescription for something involving marshmallows, a funny throw away detail that doesn’t mean anything.  The tail is a thermometer which Douglas Bishop asked was a deliberate choice- I think he meant was it deliberate that the thermometer was coming out of the butt?  I had not thought of the proximity of the thermometer to the dog’s behind and it’s sometimes insertion there to read temperature.  It was just a familiar looking medical object that could be turned into a tail that is sometimes curved, sometimes straight.  Putting the doctor together was time consuming and tricky. He had to be dignified AND cute and like he was made out of doctor stuff.  He’s little but like my beloved dead dog, has the confidence of a much larger dog.  He knows he’s important and enjoys a good pat from Girl but does not puff himself up like Prickles does to hold his own against bigger characters.  Like a Chihuahua, though, he will shake when stressed out or excited or cold.  The doctor listens to the other’s hearts with his stethoscope to hear how they’re really feeling.  He serves a very important diagnostic and get-to-the­-point function in the story because people often lie about how they’re feeling and he can tell.  I considered changing him to a NZ pekapeka bat (the ears certainly would have made the transition flow) but I LOVE MY DEAD DOG and I don’t have anything to say about bats, even ones that sing to their mates.  Plus, it was hard to get into the groove of drawing a bat.  Not my jam. 

Goldie:  She is the worrywart of the group and binge-eats when she can’t handle the stress.  This is a holdover from the edgy adult show but one that seems to have hit a nerve with adult females who have often remarked about how some girls will self-harm when they hit a certain age.  Goldie certainly does inflict a great deal of damage upon herself when upset compared to the others but constantly regenerates.  It should be comic and poignant, too, when she starts to eat or cook to relieve anxiety.  Each of these characters should cause people to say “I do that” or “I know somebody who does that”.  Goldie was a hamster until very recently when I made applying for local funding a priority for the project.  Hamsters are a childhood pet in the US but don’t show up on this side of the world due to quarantine laws.  I did a search of NZ animals and settled on the possum for the cute factor, it’s similarity to the hamster and by happy accident, it’s tendency to eat its way through NZ forests to the detriment of local species.  Possums are protected in Australia but are pests and thus subject to eradication efforts in NZ.  Goldie will not be hunted but WILL be an immigrant- how recent has not been determined.  Her family might have been here for many generations and insecure about her sense of belonging or she might have an Australian accent and be a recent newcomer who must struggle to learn about the new culture she’s living in.  I am a dual citizen but I will never truly be Kiwi.  And it’s not necessary for me to be.  Immigration does not mean absorption or suppression of the old world it means a combining of the two; a new creation, a strengthening.  Goldie is very concerned about the happiness of others and how they’re feeling.  She worries about EVERYTHING and it is exhausting.  Her concern for how she looks to others and what they’re thinking about her leads her to suppress her feelings and give up quickly during disagreements to keep the peace.  It’s an endless cycle.

Flash:  Is a rabbit who runs away rather than stand his ground.  He’s always been the joker and the addition of computer components and technology makes his coping mechanism grounded in concerns that I never had while growing up.  These days, kids are exposed to others all the time through devices and the internet.  Even if you never post a silly picture of yourself online, your parents or anybody else might and it just won’t go away.  The Bullies can get to you even while you’re trying to go to sleep.  The interconnectedness of the modern world is a strength, too and if Girl and the others have questions, Flash can always get them the answer or an expert who knows what’s what.  Flash is relentlessly curious about the world and wants to know what’s going on.  Flash wears two witbits so he can keep track of his JPM (jokes per minute).  The jokes can be hurtful, though, and his tendency to perform for a crowd will need to be tempered by his friends who will remind him that he doesn’t live in an echo chamber with appreciative fans; what he says has consequences.  Flash’s teeth are USB sticks, his eyes are webcams and his tail is made from plugs.  He’s the most outward focused of the group and escapes onto the internet and conducts research- he’s truly a strength and a weakness.  As important as he may be in this description, I don’t spend much time thinking about him or drawing him.  He’s not a priority right now and may not be as much a secondary as a tertiary character.  This will keep developing. 

Teppy:  formerly Coco the Crocodile.  I wanted a “Girlie-Girl” character and with her long fingernails, big eyelashes and shiny braces, Coco was it.  I talked to woman who created characters for hearing impaired awareness, I think? And she said that having clearly defined archetypes for each character was important.  In keeping with her croc nature, she snaps at anyone who challenges her and then tries to smooth it over with a charming smile.  This is a shout out to all my cranky bitch friends and I was sure that this was something OTHER people do until I did it a few months ago.  I knew the second after I had done it and cringed.  I am them and they are me!  All of them.  Coco became Teppy, a tuatara, when I changed Goldie to a possum.  Tuataras are native to NZ, especially Southland, and are lizards so the transition felt right.  From what I’ve observed, tuatara freeze and wait for you to bugger off which is bad for drama so I kept the croc reactions.  She’s hard as on the inside but warm on the inside so I made her out of two tarnished and discarded pieces of silver, a teapot and a sifter spoon.  That was another hard one but it works.  The pieces will clank together when she walks and it will be FINE, really it will.  She loves shiny things and will collect them enthusiastically and will also spend a great deal of time polishing her butt or admiring her reflection in her tail.  Teppy is confident, sassy, and stubborn.  She is loyal to her friends and in charge at all times.  She has real leadership potential but can sabotage herself by refusing to allow dissent or brook compromise.  She gets right in there when she wants something and is totally willing to play on people’s desire to please to get her way.  Teppy brings up questions, like Goldie and all of them, really, about negativity and gender stereotyping.  Why have I chosen to pair these traits with these genders?  I could swap and you’d still see negativity and in some cases a fake neutrality because some traits are socially acceptable for boys (assertiveness) and others acceptable for girls (nurturing).  The key will be in making each character a full person with good and bad traits and not stereotypes. 

Prickles:  After seeing the Czech stop-motion film “Toys in the Attic”, I was inspired to push my character designs further by taking them from conventional puppets to something with more visual interest and make them out of junk.  It took a while to work out who would be made from what.  I considered making Prickles out of kitchen utensils, but this didn’t shed any light on him.  I lit on a ball of yarn full of knitting needles because Prickles is soft on the inside and pointy on the outside and this is a combination of objects that occurs anytime a knitter sets down their project; the needles ALWAYS go into the remaining yarn.  Form follows function and this assortment of objects also lends itself to Prickles’ expansion when he puffs up to protect himself; the yarn expands, the needles get longer and more protrude making his little mohawk even more alarming during his tantrums.  Prickles is the littlest of the imaginary characters in size and age- he throws some real toddler tantrums when crossed and has a very black and white view of the world.  In an early version of the script, Prickles can finally admit that he throws big fits because he’s little and nobody would notice him if he didn’t make a big deal out of everything.  He really wants to be friends with everybody’s best friend Jellybean but doesn’t know how to express himself.  He gets embarrassed when Girl points out that his outsides do not fit his soft insides but is secretly pleased that he’s finally being understood.  He collects socks, SINGLE socks, and is genuinely surprised to be corrected and told that they really come in pairs.  His Sock Museum is a monument to OCD and the single mindedness of the collector who doesn’t let reality impact on his adoration of the object of his desire. I don’t imagine that bird and bug collectors think that they’ve killed the thing that they purport to love above all others but instead consider that they have elevated and preserved it.              

BSA324, Critique 4, 17 September, 2017

OOOH, this needs work!  I feel like I'm starting to get to the heart of the project in terms of subject and research topic, so I know that I'll have it sorted out by the time I present.  Well before that as I have to submit a rough draft of my dissertation to Ruth before we break for the "holiday".