If You Had Known

Tarn gets a surprise crack open, like an egg shell.

I kept walking past the Tarn (crow woman) sculpt and wishing that the human side was not as small in relation to the crow side. The crow side which was a pre-made, hollow rubber black crow decoration that you may recall was my clever way to get the bird part to feel and look right without the struggle of trying to start from nothing. But as I revised the female side to the way I liked it, the bird side was now not right. So, I cut it. Yep. Got the trusty blade out and sliced the whole rubber crow away. My plan is to re-sculpt the crow side to fit the human side better. This won't be as impossible as it would have been without the crow doll as a training sculpt. I can do this now on my own.

Which brings me to an obvious thought. If I had known in advance that creating one of many characters for Halfland would take so long, be such a back and forth process, be something that worked best to do a little at a time, sit with a while and then revise, etc. would I have embarked on this enchilada? If I had known that each aspect of what was a single flash of thrilling inspiration would turn into a 5' deep mud slog wearing a diving suit experience, would I even have entertained the thought of ever in my life making it? The sculpture, the mold-making, the casting of puppets, the dressing and finishing, the set building (so that it can be taken apart for shooting to make it even more complex), the story, the animating, the equipment and software choice, the learning curves, the editing, etc. Each aspect its own universe of unanticipated difficulty and effort.

I resent having to learn about house construction to build the cottage. I wish perfect custom steel armatures were $24.50 and that Phil Dale-QualityÂ? performance was magically automatically within me to do. I wish I had the latest editing software or even had a clue what I needed. (I'm waiting to see what shows up when I'm ready to edit as they keep inventing stuff while I work on this thing, you know, like the Internet for example! It was 1992-3, do the math--oops.) If I knew I'd still be invested so intensely in this project all these long years later, would I be able to enter into it in the first place?

All those complaints and a few more aside, even being at this beginning stage, looking down the barrel at the whole long rest of it, I would. I would, and suspect you would yours. I would because when a little advance happens and the realization of the project is a bit closer, it's a rush. And because when a small breakthrough in understanding happens there's nothing that compares to the thrill of it. And, over time, those small advances and understandings add up to something, the ability to do all those things that were unknown before I began.

Then there is the pleasure of the doing the art and craft of it. If I can back off from rushing, the process of sculpting, for example, is a contentment in and of itself. How about you, would you do it, if you knew?



The white sticky paper the precision laser cut quarries are arranged on is the size of the actual window panel. Saturday plans include hot gluing the leading to both sides and seeing how it moves in the light.

I had to cut a few pieces and leave a few pieces out to reshape the tiles to the panel size but it will work fine. I could NOT have done this without your kind gift, Mark. Thank you again!