Notes from Halfland

Love in the Desert

2012-01-10T01:28:00.000-08:00

This week on Open Studio Fridays I had the blessing of Sherie from the Sea showing up to work on the desert set after an absence of several weeks. She heads up some key events during the holidays and has been booked elsewhere since Thanksgiving.

It was such a delight to see her here again. The evening took off even further with the arrival of her beau, multi-talented photographer and my friend, David Sand. I call Sherie "David Bait" and if Sherie comes here to work I sometimes get the pleasure of his appearing too.

This time was extra mega enhanced as he brought his most beautiful guitar to play next to her while she worked. He played, some of his songs, some of others, we all sang a bit, and laughed a lot. One of the sweetest things was to hear Sherie and David sing a wonderful song of David's about a fisherman. Heart Melter.

That would have been enough, except Sherie and I made great progress on the desert set design as well. She and I finally discovered how to make the "prayer flags" that adorn the sage's tent. We took apart embossed paper flowers and re-fashioned them into four-petal blossoms with frayed thread centers and attached them to wire-filled vine over the bunting.

She also added some natural palm curly fiber to her hand-made palm tree for the scene that I had found under a real palm tree while out earlier that day. The fiber looks a bit like Sherie's locks and finishes off the tree to absolute perfection.

Enjoy a moment from David's serenade to his Lady Love while I take photos of how Halflandian magical the desert set looks to post very soon...

Hay House

2012-01-05T18:50:00.000-08:00

This is what had to be vacuumed up. A few weeks back, while finishing the outer walls of the cottage and filling in the gaps of space between where the walls end and the roof sets, I went wild with straw.

I used matte medium on the walls and pressed small pieces of hay into the surfaces for a wattle and daub look. Then I used gobs of flexible cement on the tops of all the walls and sills cramming clumps of hay into it to make it look like straw had been shoved into all the open drafts in the house, as you do.

I was hugely surprised at how much "life" having the straw strewn on the cottage floor and landscape gave. It was as if someone actually lived there for the first time. It was a great lesson. If a set is too clean/pristine it is in danger of being a doll house. Give it some grit. Glue down some hay, put stuff into corners. Life is messy.

Funny note: At the same time I was doing this to the cottage I got a fantastic job with the wonderful publisher... Hay House! Best jobs I've ever had.

The Tail of Inger and the Little Devil Moth

2012-01-05T18:08:00.000-08:00

A new Halfland creature has appeared this week in the macro garden. Made by a new guest, Inger.

Dear friend and niece to another Halfland soldier, Mandy (seen below helping here early last year) is in town briefly from another state and kindly offered to spend the day helping on set (aka; a new ~~sucker~~ volunteer). The first task was to help me disassemble the cottage components in order to give a good vacuum to all the excess hay that had been applied. I need to get things organized and ready to construct the porch next Friday.

After watching her work, I felt guilty for inviting her over to slave. So, I thought I'd offer her the chance to create something that appealed to her for the film. I gave her the tour of the workshop and its reference images in case something made her raise an eyebrow of interest. Like a fish getting snagged on a hook, something did make her say "Ooo." It was a little, brightly-colored, fuzzy moth in hot pinks and sunny yellow. We set to work....

I threw her the bag of wing silk and she cut out the wing part shapes and stuck them onto a piece of clear tape to hold in place while she painted them with silk inks. The watercolor like effect of wet on wet was sensational. I think I'll make all the butterfly wings in this way.

As we were hunting around the materials for what to make into the moth's pink conical antennae, seen in the reference picture, we hit upon the idea of using the tips of white seashells. We were delighted to find that my new precision metal saw, bought to cut down armature hardware, took care of the shells just great. It cut them without shattering. She daubed on matte medium and pink dye before gluing them into the feather fluff head.

As Inger was assembling the new puppet, she commented that the antennae reminded her of little devil horns, which of course they do look like! Hers was a perfectly Halflandian observation! We both agreed the moth needed a matching devil's tail to slip into view from underneath his wings. She used silk covered wire painted pink and sculpted the tip from fluffy air dry clay and painted it to match.

The next morning after she left, I added another puff of fuzz made out of soft, yellow feathers to cover where his front leg wires were added and to match the image's hairstyle.

Auntie Mandy caught here having fun during her first (and only so far) visit to Open Studio Fridays. Hope you'll come again, Mandy... She's a sewing whiz.

A distortion macro view of the little devil moth. It's a completely charming addition to the film, Inger. Thank you for spending some of your trip here and I hope you'll find your way here again someday....

Art Bonus: Just before Christmas I met a wonderful artist nearby who inspired me very much. I wanted to make her a little something so I took an extra whimsey bottle and fashioned a scene of a cabbage moth dancing in the clouds near the moon inside. I really love the tiny theater effect of a poetic tableau like this. And how the glass distorts the scene inside into a dream-like view.

Tiny Tunes

2011-12-29T00:27:00.000-08:00

Well, I tried hard to avoid it. But I must relent. The mushroom cafe party will have a band. This is the guitar, festooned with party flowers.

I had the misfortune to have the idea that the bug party needed a "No Lady Lady Bug" smoking a cigarette, with too much make-up playing the bass cello, legs akimbo, wearing torn stockings in her high sparkling red heeled pumps.

Got the cello going and her leg armature so that her toes can tap. Planning a tom tom tomato drum, grass blade xylophone, and twig clarinet as well. The rest of the players will be as simply rendered and plain as I can make them.

Crowning Glory

2011-12-29T00:15:00.000-08:00

Had in the back of my mind a golden crown for the Queen Bee puppet to wear. Had loads of great crown reference images. But then I saw the crown that grows naturally on the top of my favorite food, pomegranates. I received a bunch of fresh poms off a local tree and one had a top that struck me like a perfect crown. I cut it off and stuck it in the freezer for several weeks to dry it out slowly. Then I painted it with frosty reds and golds, bejeweled it with real keshi pearl and gold spheres so tiny like could be pollen.

I left the sort of seedy bramble on the inside and painted each seed gold and added more tiny pearls.

The wonderful creature modelling the completed crown on the right is one of my most favorite possessions. It's a small sculpture by artist Jo-Ellen Trilling. A sensational creature, part bird, part lion, made of taffeta, painted fur, and feather, on its own upholstered plinth. I love him. And I'll love the new Queen Bee when she comes. I have her crown ready.

Architect's Brief: Memo to Charles

2011-12-28T14:35:00.001-08:00

Hi Charles, I respect your gifts and talents as an architect tremendously as you know. Thank you for your offer to come to the studio and work on Halfland! I'd most love your help building the main set cottage porch!

It's built now only to the point you see above (top) with a plank base and two holes for branch posts. The three references below show the flavor I'm hoping to get when it's finished, half Victorian/half rustic-primitive/organic.

I'd like a little overhang just over where the uprights are. At one point I had intended the porch's roof to run along the length of planking. But Cirelle pointed out it blocked the view of the cottage door too much. I agree, so, building just over half of it seems better to me now.

We can use whatever materials I happen to have here when you arrive, redwood lathing strips, scrap wood, hole drills, bolts, etc. It doesn't have to be structurally sound, and should disassemble/come away in pieces for when I'm needing to get past it for filming the cottage interior.

FYI: Each panel of the roof and each wall of the cottage already slide out and away independently for filming from any angle inside.

Let me know if this is something you'd like to tackle during your visit (we should start at 11a for something like this). If not, we can plant landscape grasses that have been made by other fine folks, more casually, if you'd prefer (starting at 1p).

What do you think?! Should I save the porch project for you?!

UPDATE: Here is Charles emailed reply:

"Yay. I love porches. Let's go for it! See you at 11."

(woo!)

6 Minutes in The Shop

2011-11-09T16:29:00.000-08:00

Here's a random tour around the workshop taken on a recent cold rainy afternoon.

Come see just some of what's randomly in-progress on the tables and in the boxes in the workshop; snails, large-scale gardens being built with composite snail trails, message leaves reveal their answers, spiders in the attic, coloring book chickens, and more!

Next Tour: The completed fully-dressed set!

The Pinpillar

2011-11-04T04:52:00.000-07:00

As Rana sits in the light of dusk in her cozy easy chair, with her stitching on her lap, we will see a large, striped, pincushion caterpillar slowly making its way up the arm of the chair toward her sewing box to offer his black-topped tailor pins.

This was a spontaneous addition to the cottage puppets, easily and quickly executed. It went from notion--seeing a hotdog shaped pincushion I had made looking like a caterpillar--to the installed critter in less than a day. upper left is the real life pincushion and a photo of a pillar along with the nubbly wooly shaped I'd sewn for something else on the project and abandoned. Below that, you see the progress after adding small dollops of crackle gel onto the heads of many 1/2" gold sequin pins, after painting them glossy black and securing each one into the wired shape with glue. I striped him after the fact with permanent marker which I do realize is the hard way as I had to touch up the pins afterward. But it was only after seeing him covered in pins that I saw he needed more cheer and color. He needed to read more like a caterpillar as well as a pin cushion. The stripes did that for me.

He attaches to the upholstered chair via matching-headed long needles as tie-downs (in silver so I can find them while animating him crawling.)

When we enter the cottage we will see him curled up in Rana's sewing basket on her chairitable. Then the next time you see him, he'll be moving on the chair. It's a small touch but it adds quite a lot of depth to the scenes. It adds to whatever is behind the other decorative pins in Rana's sewing kit which are made of ladybugs and flies as well as pearls and jewels. It adds another creature that is half organic/half inanimate; things that look like other things, etc.

And making it prompted me to have to actually install the other sewing kit on the arm of the chair, which included gluing in each of those pins as well. And sewing the shell box onnto the chair with thread that I then painted over to match where it lay. I had to stiffen up all the dangling threads on both settings and fasten them down.

I can count on one hand the number of things left to do in the cottage before it is ready to begin shooting its scenes.

Whether Vain or Not

2011-11-04T04:00:00.000-07:00

I always wondered what the weather vane atop Rana's cottage would be. A rooster, a sun, a spider I thought. But when it came time to finish off the cottage roof and to really imagine what would be there, it had to be the Writing Mouse. He is a very important Halfland character and very close to Rana. He lives underneath the cottage in his own house and writes everything that happens down. The Answer Tree above them produces its wisdom on its very leaves and he is a crucial part of all of that.

I've tooled his image as a double-sided copper figure, gazing upward to the skies, pen and journal in hand, with white and spring green patina to reveal the detail.

Having to make this line art to use as a guide for the embossing, prompted making a color sketch of the Mouse. I used two squares of thin copper and various stylus tools to essentially draw the image twice, once flipped the other way, so they could be placed back to back to get a nice dimension.

Once these halves were matched up, seamed together as one, I set about creating the directional of leaves (actual directions don't matter at all in Halfland) finishing them of with thick medium and copper paint (so it would appear to be part organic blending from the metal hardware.

I used KS metal tubing to closely fit the figure into the base stem. It can swing freely with precise control, no wobble whatsoever. I used a wood doll chair leg as the wooden base on top of the cottage cupola. I liked how it looked like a bee skep.

Ah, I see we are expecting a lovely day.

Now That's Dirty

2011-11-04T03:42:00.000-07:00

Got my close-up ground cover technique down: 1. foam roller brush on matte medium onto brown dyed fabric or direct set surface. 2. Dust with mulch (to the scale you need; sifted fine for micro scale or big chunks for macro), 3. Repeat once or twice more over that until coverage/scale desired is reached. 4. Then sit down like a fool and hand glue down stuff that's on the ground naturally, like leaves, berries, twigs, pebbles, rocks, etc.

The idea of making these cloth ground surfaces like the sand, grass, and dirt is very versatile. If I need a bit of set in a background, I can use any old things around, boxes or old drop cloths, to make a base and then throw one of the texture cloths over the top for an instant portable place.

2011-11-04T03:32:00.000-07:00

Back in August, Halfland helper Esther brought her truly darling grandchildren to Halfland for the experience. I put them all to work of course. There's always crepe paper grass to plant here.

These kids were among the most intelligent and sincere people I've met. They don't watch television, they read, and I could tell the difference. It was dramatic.They delighted in seeing everything, actually helping on the set, etc. They were full of fanciful ideas for the film. I hope they'll be able to come again.

They better hurry, hopefully Halfland will be be all lovely and done before they graduate collage. :)

Dandy Range

2011-10-10T01:38:00.000-07:00

Just a quick Note to show the range of dandelion sizes in the many Halfland sets. On the left, the micro-scale dandies in front of the cherry tree on the Writing Mouse's property (with my index finger for scale). On the right, the jumbo-scale dandies with an actual fly sitting on the flower (a real fly, not one of the handmade puppets) with a picture of a fly on the reference wall in the background.

There are a crop of cottage-sized dandies growing on Rana's roof as well. Where else will she be able to grab a hank of roots to throw in the soup pot?

Lace Maker

2011-10-09T03:24:00.000-07:00

I felt this spider puppet was a tailor. I knew I wanted the webs in 1/2L to be lace and fancier than our world's webs. I knew I wanted him in the attic space so that the window's twig mullions would cast a full web shape on the light fabric in the moonlight.

But how to show him making the Halfland lace?

It was so fun and easy. Much easier than I thought. I stacked and glued wood blocks to a small base that can be hot-glued down onto the attic floor like an independent set module. Covered the stack with a greatly textured woven fabric from a Mood remnant. First sewed a few corners of a cut up stretchy lace knee-hi down to that fabric to be the lace piece he will be making currently. And then glued down small iron tacks over those pull spots so it looks as though the tacks are holding the threads for him.

I invented micro lace-making spools and other props for him, like the dark wooden bowl of woven lace above, and a few larger lace-making tools to sit along side his set to make him appear even smaller.

When I showed the finished sub-set piece off to Cirelle last week, she was irked because she knows that all spiders we see in a web are female (!) and this fellow is truly a male. But I made her feel better by saying that in 1/2L the male spiders that make the lace are "fabulous" and talented. But then I explained for real that it's just a matter of my needing another male character around Rana as most of the main characters in the series are female. It was too weighted toward that gender for me.

When you make a world you can make up a reality however you like!

Up a Tree

2011-10-09T03:00:00.000-07:00

One of the tasks I handled recently was something I had forgotten needed doing. Years back, I had attached all the Answer Tree's leaves with hot-glue but thought I'd get a brave volunteer to use flexible cement to hide the shiny glue and quickly sculpt more natural looking transition from branches to the stems.

After the set had been moved and fortified (!) I found it very easy to climb up there myself and swab on a mixture of paints to get the tree's taupe over the cement that had been made originally.

But as I got into it--literally-- I found that nearly every leaf stem had not been sculpted yet. So I zoned out and went to work on each stem all around the tree, from tip top to bottom.

Next I'll need to hit the new white stems with more taupe paint wash, which is thankfully very fast and forgiving work.

This job may not have mattered for long shots of the set. Heck, I hadn't even noticed it was undone. But it really is important that it be done for the close ups it'll be in behind Yanu, the moth man in the tree and other tree up-shot action.

(PS: Doesn't the sky look good (upper right)?!)

Party Over Here>

2011-10-09T02:46:00.000-07:00

Here you see the taller cluster of cheerful micro-scale balloons on set during the daytime, which may announce where the party will take place that night. Yo. (You may also notice that all the walls on the cottage are now white-washed and textured with chopped straw.)

These balloons were much more tricky to make than I imagined. I made many many attempts at it, shopping the aisles of craft shops for candidates that didn't work.

I needed them to be the right size, round, transparent, lightweight, and to have a handmade look. Miniature glass Christmas ornaments worked (used two of them out of the five) with the exception of their glass openings being more broad than I'd prefer. I camo'd that with twine and cloth skirts as much as I could.

The other three were made from a child's toy packaging that I bought for a dollar. Gave the toys (to a happy Aedon) and glued the two haves of the bubble they came in together. I had to layer them with clear glue to level out the toy's name on both halves and the seam in the middle. The seam was further camo'd with hand-painted stripes.

After the clear balls were wrapped and glued with hand-painted shiny silk-cellophane fabric, they were attached to painted strong wire that was then wrapped around clusters of rocks that can be hot-glued to the party set. The balloon strings were festooned with tiny ribbons and flowers to make them more party-like/festive as well as to hide the joins of the wire strands.

I like these as the last element for the party decorations because they add a nice height to the set for the flying bugs to be seen with.

I made an additional one, a nice new shiny red one wrapped around the middle of one of the worms who will be arriving with only his stomach kept aloft from it as he inches along.

You're Invited to the Big {small} Party

2011-10-09T02:09:00.000-07:00

Delighted to report that the Bug Party Decorations are Completely Completed. Above is a quick set up just to give the idea of how the party setting looks at night all lit up.

There has been a ton of great changes to the set in the last 2 weeks. One development from the activity was the the foreground set piece is now used elsewhere and the picket fence will now run here and there along the edge of the main landscape. I was delighted by the unexpected effect this change had on the Bug Party setting. As soon as I put the larger scale fence closer to the smaller bug set, it somehow made the bug set look as diminutive as it should!

I'm using this principle in other spots in the film as well...

Next up: Balloons!

Look at dat One>

2011-10-09T01:37:00.000-07:00

Chandelier with six lighted candles finished and more importantly, affixed and installed inside the cottage. Now that the cottage roof is ohsoclose to being actually completely complete, I was able to attached the twig chandelier with wire on an eye hoof on the underside of the cuppola. I then smashed a lot of wood epoxy over the wire to prevent it from having any swing whatsoever. This will be covered with gathered silk to look like a Victorian ruched covering at the top.

I plan to use an add'l amber LED hidden in the middle to cast a warm glow on the ceiling (seen on bottom right). Each candle stick is fitted over slim balloon battery op'd LEDs with small handcrafted flames made from thread, florescent paint, and mica for sparkle.

During the interior night Act*, this light, the embers in the hearth, several other lamps, candle sticks, and mirrored sconces will add plenty of cozy warmth to the scenes.

Halfland will be divided into four Acts; Dawn, Day, Dusk, and Dark. The series ends with a bonus Scene in the dessert at Sundown.

Boys in my Hood

2011-09-28T06:09:00.001-07:00

Boys in my Hood, originally uploaded by Nobledesign.

D's three (THREE!!!) boyz visited the art studio the other day.

While D helped me straighten out my set on a Saturday, his wonderful sons made many many drawings in crayon, chalks, and watercolors, drew on the floor in sidewalk chalk, tried to watch dvd's but got bored with that, played with exercise balls, ran around, made water balloons, and cooled down with watermelon.

At the end of the long day, they were charmingly delighted to take home all the art to show mom!

More on the BIG changes on the set shortly!

It's My Bag, Man

2011-09-15T07:25:00.000-07:00

My Grandmother gave me an old African? Afghani? Moroccan? pouch many many years ago. It was half the size of what you see above. Each side had the hand-worked pattern and featured five circles of mirrored glass. I covered the shiny blue mirrors with hand-painted paper flowers and sewed the two squares into one larger one. Backed it with lush woven linen and made a strap from vintage textile. Filled it with spent flower heads, flower petals, and a bundle of medicinal herbs wrapped in woven coth. I made the bag closure from a hand-carved bead (--with the EXACT petal shape motif running along it!) and miniature cloth tassel.

No one was more surprised than me that Urhu would have a medicine bag. And now it will sit next to him outside his tent on the mats while he waits for the troop to arrive seeking his help.

There's More Lute, Make a Bow!

2011-09-15T07:13:00.000-07:00

I made two additional sacred nature instruments for the Urhu character to have inside the tent. This one connects the music he plays to the idea of things growing more overtly, with its neck being made of living vines with buds of blossoms emerging on it. I love the intricate way the strings interwove themselves. The strings turn to gold when the music is played (upper right). The bow for this one has a double arch to it. I don't plan to animate these props but in my mind's eye, I can see the mysterious way it is played.

A couple weeks back, Sherie came over for an hour between obligations. Just enough time to construct the curly twig bow for Urhu's primary sacred Erhu Lute (kindly modeled on the right by my very own precious wise man.)

Come Vis Me to the Casbah

2011-09-15T06:44:00.000-07:00

New Writing Mouse Sketch

2011-09-15T05:35:00.000-07:00

So this is odd, I had 12 different things I could have worked on today and what I did instead was sketch this mouse illustration. And it wasn't even on the list.

It feels like my first illustration for some reason. Maybe because it took me so many hours.

It started when I thought I'd do a quick Google search for a mouse silhouette to use as the basis for a template for the cottage's weather vane. I instantly had several options on my screen as if my magic. (I still can't get over the web's wizardry.) I tweaked the original on the left to use as the shape for an embossed copper vane, printed it out to size, and mocked it up on the (in construction) coppola (second from left).

I could/should have stopped there. But instead I added more character props and made him resemble the micro scale 3D puppet I've had for years; a little heavier, with whiskers, etc. (middle) Then I added texture and shading. I really liked how he looked (second from right) so I went further and added more surface texture and prop details. Ending the day (er night) with his costume kerchief.

Somewhere in the middle, I mocked up a little Halfland stationery with mirror image silhouetted mice and an acorn in the bottom corner. Here it is, in case you'd ever like to send notes from Halfland...

It's Getting In-TENT-se Around Here!

2011-09-11T01:12:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends, Much much much progress has been taking place in Halfland:

• The Macro Garden set (for close work on all butterfly actors and snail evening stroll scene) is nearly complete and exceeding my imagination for it by far thanks to Carol!

• The entire main set's White Paper Tree Forest Curtain Proscenium is also nearly finished (making the landscape of the cottage and tree like looking into a GIANT magical Easter Egg scene!) Thanks to Constance's help.

• Cirelle's been coming over Saturdays to finish the Cottage's Roof. It's genuinely at 99% done now! We just sized the dove coat to top it all off this afternoon.

• And the biggest surprise to me is that the Exterior and Interior Tent set (including EVERY thrilling prop for it) for the Serpent Sage Wise Man Musician has been built as well after Sherie started it all off only last week!!

Here's a little tease of the new tent interior for tonight as I'm so excited to show you all the action that's been going on...

Lots of process shots, design choice explanations, and details about the new builds forthcoming as soon as possible. Thank you all for your patience!

xoxo, s

Rest in Peace, Jeremiah

2011-09-01T00:31:00.000-07:00

Jeremiah's is gone. Here, several months back, he looked wonderful in a cabbage butterfly crown while sunning in the window in the shop.
Our sweet boy cat, Jeremiah, died on Saturday. We took him in his last hours to a good doctor who gave him a drug-aided death. We were with him the whole time. He died with the same noble grace and dignity he displayed all through his life and last couple weeks of failing health. Not a whimper, not a mess, no complaints.

I never thought I could make a decision to "take" a life of a pet, preferring to leave big things like that to nature. But it became too clear very quickly that he was dying a painful difficult death, not from old age but from an undiagnosed major disease of some kind and letting him ride it out any longer felt more cruel.

It all started with his 100% feral/wild mother in Benedict Canyon in the hills above LA. Here she is in our backyard at the time, pregnant, standing in a tree above a couple of previous litter kittens who are eating. She was churning out kittens 4 at a time every few months and there wasn't enough food or clean water to nourish them all (not to mention the canyon was full of hungry coyote packs munching on cats at night).

Jeremiah, was a rare Lilac-point Tonkinese (Russian Blue and Siamese mix) in one of her litters. He was so small and precious and light-colored we knew he could not survive as a wild canyon cat for long. I asked Paul to capture him for us. He did, with a box rigged with a string and baited with food. After he calmed down over being inside for the first time, he started to play and splay his back legs like this. He was the cutest thing we'd ever seen.

Half-a-year later, we also captured his biological sister, from a subsequent litter, to give him a playmate and to save her life as well. They became inseparable as you can see.

We moved to several places after that and Jeremiah grew to be especially beautiful, strong, and agile. He had an amazing way of running to help another cat in distress instead of running away from the noise. For that I called him, "Fireman Cat". His jumps were breathtakingly graceful, even by a cat's standard, something to do with his strength and proportions. I noticed his "meow" sounded like the lilting ringing of a bell all his life. Yes, he was crossed-eyed.

We made a general house policy a few years ago, that we would stop spending hundreds of dollars on veterinarian care for our pets. We'd changed our financial approach and stopped using credit/debt for anything and decided that spending a great deal of money we didn't have on our animals would be unwise. So we bought the best quality food we could and let life go it's own way. They were animals after all, not people.

With Jeremiah's illness and death, however, we've come to a new understanding/learning. That if we are going to have pets we are going to have to be more responsible for their health care. With Jeremiah and his sister Isabella's being so wild (they never really tamed much) we thought taking them in for annual exams would be unnecessarily traumatizing for them. C'est la Vie, we'll take life as it comes. Not now.

Now we will take our pets in for annual exams and tests as part of their care. We still don't want to get every expensive test and medical procedure possible, and there's no guarantee that knowing what Jeremiah had would have given him more time, but we've decided to at least check them out as best we can and go from there.

Over the last year or so I can now in hindsight realize he'd been ill, he had taken to sleeping most of the day, needing way too much food (for a few years) and then more recently drinking more and more and having an oily coat. The last 3 weeks he lost all his flesh except for a bloated misshapen belly and finally could only drink water strained from fresh cans of tuna every hour. He'd look like death (no photos shown of that stage) and then would miraculously perk up and quietly cry when he heard a can being freshly opened to lap up the salty water.

Even though my mind saw that he was going and that there was nothing that could be done at this point, I still cried over his going. He was a good boy. And is missed everyday.

Dagoba, good boy.

Urhu Erhu Lute

2011-08-18T00:45:00.000-07:00

Another prop finished for the Desert Set. This, the sacred string instrument that the Serpent Sage Musician, Urhu, plays all day everyday by his painted tent in the desert.

Sherie was the "starter" for me on this (that's the designation for my wonderful project assistants who I assign to kick a prop or set off and then I can progress it easily. Project Rule #68; Rolling on a task someone has started with you is far easier than trying to start alone from nothing.) She and I decided the Sage's instrument should follow the petal-shape motif used in his tent design. After auditioning many possibilities, we cobbled together how it might work (upper left) using the bottom of an empty dishwashing liquid bottle and odd wooden shapes I had on hand, including chopped twisted chopsticks.

She started sanding and painting the basecoat on what we'd devised last time. We decided the strings would be golden to connote the sacredness of this spiritual being and his music. We made the center of the flower-petaled bridge a little window on another world by gluing a glass half dome over dried yellow dahlia stamen. Appropriate material to use, yes, but its effect is like a looking into a strange landscape in miniature. Perhaps it's a glimpse into where the character comes from (noted for future episodes in the film!)

It's a Halflandian cross between a cello, a mandolin, a snake, East Indian primitive culture, Middle Eastern primitive culture, Asian primitive culture, and a flower at essence.

The neck has faux ivory inlay details and a tuning peg near its carved scroll head stock. The body, shaped from newspaper and masking tape, was given a hollow wood instrument look by filling in the seams and cracks a few times with layers of wood filler, sanding, and painting with raw sienna acrylic. The final coat was clear natural paste wax for a soft polished sheen.

Sherie cut and fitted an oval of nude leather for the face which was later stained and tinted with Nova's rich transparent Indian Yellow acrylic, tinted, near its wood oval sound board in the middle, with walnut ink shading.

I used metallic gold thread for the strings which begin at the neck and travel around the tail piece underneath. They are held away from the body and separated by the wooden flower petal bridge. It won't actually play any sounds. But in the film will be resonate like a cello as the strings of the bow are drawn slowly across them.

Sherie is slamming on the Desert Set progress. Next time she comes over I'll ask her to make a start on the bow!

Reflecting on Halfland Posters

2011-08-02T23:59:00.000-07:00

Starting to sketch up concepts for Halfland's posters and other collateral materials.

My dream of creating ambigram lettering of sorts for the logo titles for the project began in earnest yesterday when I came across artist Rowena Murillo's profile photo at random (lower right). She had a school logo on her shirt and that got me thinking about making Halfland's lettering reflect in a mirror.

Wikipedia on a search turned me onto the beautiful rorschach ambigram paintings (a couple bottom center) by John Langdon that I roughed onto her shirt. I found that there were automatic ambigram generators online and that the very best, based on my results was Flip Script. I'm still refining what raw ambigram I'll use, but when I do, I plan to purchase the high res art to use as the basis for the rest I'll do to it from that site. So far, I've used screen grabs of the various free previews, edited their positions and added insect and human artifacts to them letter forms (above).

Here's the thing, ambigrams, a term I hadn't known before yesterday, generally read the same at 180º angles, right side up and upside down. I wanted the lettering to read when reflected in the mirror, yes, but not just that. It really also needs to be somewhat communicative without the use of a mirror, viewing right side up. So my results below are very satisfying for me. They do the trick for me.

I have since gone back to the Flipscript generator and tried all sorts of approaches to trick the code into giving me lettering that will read as "Halfland" when viewed from every direction with a mirror. Somehow I cracked the code and did it. So those results may show up in t-shirts or other items.

But in the meanwhile, I completely enjoyed experimenting with various project imagery to begin to see the world being created coming together at long last...

Some of my favorite 1/2L images are the underwater shots of the Koi of Enlightenment. Here I've paired one of them (liking how my hand is visible with it) with some of the layered painted clouds and cyc sky.

Here's a rather dark and strange collage of the character Tarn and two distinct landscapes representing her two aspects, the moon at night and the healing desert, with a vertical lettering treatment.

Bosq the Snoring Cat dreams a languid dream of Halfland as if submerged in the smeared syrup of sleeping.

PS: If you happen to have a mirror nearby you, try holding it up to the screen, either above or below any of these sketches lettering horizon lines. If you wait a moment your brain should find the language pattern in the lettering and reveal the name of our secret place anyway you reflect on it.

Getting Funky

2011-07-19T22:57:00.000-07:00

One of the background guests at the night time Bug Party in Halfland wanted to get down and then get on up again. This smooth jazz cat asked for blings on the wings and hot pink fuzzy shades. I personally wouldn't smoke anything (well, actually I probably would if it had no ill effect on health) but this guy has some kind of cigarette in a twig holder. He'll chill during the bash and groove to the music, food and wild bug company that will be celebrating all around him.

Here you can see the wool fiber smoke tendrils unedited on the end of his white wire cigarette, a close up of his painted silver head of a pin belt buckle and translucent specs lenses. It took me quite a while to figure out that two joined cells cut from aluminum mesh filled with clear glue lenses (colored with permanent marker ink once dry) would make such tiny scale shades. I kept changing the colors of his costume as he developed so the antennae got a few coats and too much texture (it's ok). The trickiest part was attaching pieces of wire to the sides of the glasses and then get them to act like over-the-ear arms over his antennae (works). Then the frames were black, then painted silver, then flock over with pink because I didn't dig the uneven texture of the silver. Couldn't get any smoother at this micro scale.

His groovy attitude came about after I positioned his legs and arms in this position. Once that happened, his character screamed to recline and kick back. You can just tell his moves on the dance floor are fierce. This Party is going to be fun.

Did Somebody Say Mouse?

2011-07-15T12:21:00.000-07:00

My feline companion and Line Producer kept looking deeply into the Mouse House set wondering why I kept giving this box so much attention. Surely I must have been waiting for a mouse?!

Check Out the Library!

2011-07-13T02:35:00.000-07:00

Illegal levels of fun, I had a ball making the miniature books for the Writing Mouse's Library. Each is a handmade journal of his, filled with the notes of daily events that take place in Halfland, in his neck of the woods.

I made 17 additional books to the 3 I'd made previously, for a total of 20 for the set. 16 on the tall shelving next to his desk, 1 on the side board, 1 on the mantle, 1 on the rug, and 1 that he'll travel with when with Rana.

I am so naively optimistic when embarking on these simple tasks, thinking I can knock out a bunch of books in a couple hours. It took me two days; 1 to craft all the covers with specific papers I had prepared in the color theme, add the end papers and headbands, cover tooling effects and then latches, locks, and hardware.

Today was for making all the text blocks for their interiors. (list of what was used above) At first I glued each page together to tame them for binding, but quickly found that the easier way was to make them as the mouse would have made real books. I sewed sets of signatures together and then attached them to the spines. I was surprised at how much the illusion was furthered by using a dowel as a mold to round the spines and then compressing them inward with clips to indent on either side. These look to me to be for all the world genuine Writing Mouse journals in his library. I can imagine their pages filled with his scratches in ink.

Especially after fabricating bits of excruciatingly small hardware to a few select volumes. I used miniature hinges bought at Kit Kraft last year, and bent them to act as string latches. (They work). I used a piece of an old earring that Cirelle donated as an, accidentally, eye-shaped (perfect!) filigree lock on the large pink book, for cozy reading by the fire. Once I'd fashioned the lock, I was doomed to make a key to fit it. And so I did, using pounded gold wire coated with layers of metallic paints and matte medium to build up the texture. It hangs from a silk hand-braided wire cord so it can swing on the back of the Mouse's desk chair as he moves.

I love the touch of a tooth pick dipped into metallic paint and carefully daubed onto the hardware for smaller-than-the-head-of-a-pin rivets. And how short thick volume, with the Flor de lis on its spine, was made from a no-reason impression I'd made years ago with iron paint that I rusted. There were four small holes punched in the design so I filled them with grains of sand as uber tiny "seeds" and then painted them gold. (Please see what a nice looking book it turned out to be on the shelf in the top photo, right side.)

I'd like to thank everyone who sends me materials, like Yaz and her sister for the amazing hand marbled papers they made in Turkey, Mark for the bar of Mast Bros. Chocolate from Brooklyn, NY b/c their wrappers are all beautiful and hand printed with great patterns, friends who included notes on special Japanese paste papers with an ideal seed pattern, a swatch of perfect green Italian end paper snatched from some forgotten source, etc. etc., for their contribution to making these books, and the project overall, that much more delicious.

Not to mention all the perfect seeds and pods Cirelle gathered and brought over, and those Marcie sends from Atlanta, Georgia. And a long "overdue" mention of the incredible hand-blown glass bottle that sits on the mantle (built especially to feature it there) that kind reader Enui in Italy sent me years ago. By the way, for anyone wanting a fast way to change the color of glass w/o brush strokes showing, I found that I could shift the bottle's pretty aqua blue color to the green I needed for the chalet by using a yellow permanent marker over the top.

I seem to get around to pressing everything sent into 1/2L. service at some point or other. Thank you, all again!

Can This Title Be Made Any Larger? [Utterly & Completely] DONE!!!!!!Mouse House World Complete

2011-07-13T01:45:00.000-07:00

In order to build in as much unity, cohesiveness, and calmness visually as possible:

1. Stay with color theme; Mud brown canvas, greens, rose, magenta, pale orange, vivid orange as accents.
2. Stay with symbolic motifs; Seeds/Pods, Eyes/Glasses, Books/Journals, Roots (Answer Tree), Writing
3. Stay with concept/meaning; Wisdom in Consciousness of the Tree, Role of Mouse as Scribe for the questions people ask, a cheerful, comfortable home sanctuary.

Follow your established protocols and then create within their perimeters. Savor the finesse. And be sure to:
Project Rule #6: Sacrifice anything that is making the task difficult.

I thought I was at 97% 2 weeks ago. Seems I was actually at 60% because I worked and humped hard yet another 40% to actually completely finish this world. So, either my 97% meter is off-range, or I made this set at 137% of completeness. Probably both things are true.

I do know that I had the time of my life making it. I stole moments doing it, before dawn and instead of doing things people were waiting for. I was possessed because of the fun it was. I really liked how it was turning out.

I learned an enormous amount about the Writing Mouse and his role in Halfland. Enough such that he could absolutely take center stage in his own illustrated story book, and may very well.

At a certain point, with enough details, a place becomes alive on its own. Here you see the Mouse's writing desk and accoutrement. To make the buried Answer Seeds I first 1. cut a hole in the set floor, installed a clump of dried kitty grass via tape on the underside; 2. painted, flocked and arranged a clump of various clay and real seeds that were half buried (with sifted mulch for soil) applied to a base of matte medium; 3. the Seed Answer mound is covered with a preserved dried leaf treated with matte medium for durability.

Here's what I've learned;
There are seven root/pod beings with faces in the chalet that represent the wisdom of the Answer Tree. The Writing Mouse sits at his desk and hears the soft voices of people whispering their important questions into the ear hollow on the truck of the Tree above.

Spent some time enhancing the root/mud/pod faced fellows. Leaves form the upper lip on the mantle guy. The eye of sauren guy has a seed jar near him with a tiny smeared, muddy paw print. The natural features on one of the roots were augmented with the Flexall and then finished with seeds, pods, and paint. Mr Pod lips now has careful color and two buck teeth made of seeds. The main face now has a seed pod pupil that can be positioned to shift his gaze.

He transcribes the answers to those questions he hears form the wisdom of the Tree onto seeds and scrolls made of birch bark and buries them in the middle of the floor of his house. They accumulate over time until the answers are drawn up into the Tree, eventually to grow out and be readable upon one of the Tree's thousands of leaves. Of course, by the time this transpires, no one could have remained that long to search among the leaves for their answer. After so long, all questions become irrelevant.

I learned that The Writing Mouse eats his meals with Rana in her large cottage, where he emerges from the tunnels under the roots of her hearth.

I learned that each chapter/tale in Halfland is entered visually through the opening of another of the Mouse's beautiful journals.

Please note that now the little side table has a tiny acorn pipe (made as a gift for 1/2L. by Sharon Ferg)that has another cap filled with orange saffron as fresh pipe tobacco under a copper lid. Spent pipe tobacco is dumped out onto a leaf. For diehard fans of Nightmare Before Christmas, you'll recall the wonderful detail they made of the back of Jack's Santa sketch made for reverse angles. My homage to that is a proper back on the Mouse's seed painting for a realistic view when seen from behind, through the tunnel. One of my favorite props so far was this infinitesimal candle flame made of florescent glitter scales glued onto a piece of mica (pencil in shot for scale).

Above the mantle is a proper portrait of the Mouse's partner, friend, object of adoration, Rana. I took her sketch and put in in a forest, shifted the colors to match his house and printed it out. I cut it to fit a miniature frame, purchased from a jewelry supply, that I embellished with small seeds and the smallest acorn and cloth leaves. Once installed, I had to knock back the intensity of the portrait colors with translucent taupe and walnut ink, so it blended into the room as much as possible, to keep it from being too busy. Canvas texture was added to both paintings by pressing a piece of canvas into a top coat of gloss medium.

Fire Making Kit

2011-07-02T10:09:00.000-07:00

Planning to send animator supremé, Nick Hilligoss, a package this week that will include some of my secret ingredients (on left) for hand made campfires*, like the one just made for the Writing Mouse's Chalet. (*I see from the link above, I still need to add some char to the ashes as well.)

Micro Set [very nearly] FINISHED!: Mouse House Interior (part 2; the Furnishings & Props)

2011-07-02T05:11:00.000-07:00

Halfland Rule #8: It is always easier build on top of something that exists already rather than to start from scratch.

Cirelle donated a precious miniature upholstered chair to 1/2L last year. I had a small scrap of colorful brocade from Mood Fabrics left over from another project that had a nice traditionally elegant pattern. I managed to piece the bit of fabric to cover the chair, although there are seams showing I'd rather weren't there. I built the chair a new larger base to cheat the overall size up a bit, sewed coordinated cushions into the lap.

The rug was an oval cut from a cream colored woven placemat hand-embroidered with custom dyed matching yarns and floss to look like a cozy braid rug.

I wanted the walls, ceiling, roots, and furniture to create a brown base/canvas that the bright greens, rose pink, magenta, and orange props could be seen. The place is underground but it should look bright and cheerful despite that.

Picked up the cabinet for $1 at a craft shop which gave me a base to work from that otherwise would have taken me a lot to construct from nothing. I painted it with oxidized copper paint and fitted it with mesh "glass" door fronts, made embellished knobs for its six doors. Made dollies from painted lace, and proceeded to outfit it with ink bottles made from random beads from my boxes. The glass bottle seen lower right with a blue tone when sent to me by reader Enui in Italy (how nice a gift!). It took me quite a while to figure out that a bright yellow permanent marker would shift the color to green, stay transparent and not leave any brush marks. (the bottle had its own spot built for it on the mantle later.) The lighter tall glass bottle filled with small gold seeds is a blown glass bead finished with other beads and findings to make it an apothecary jar. Seeds and scrolls (made by Downstairs Jean) and bundles of dried petals got crammed in all the spaces of our busy writer's den.

His chair by the hearth with tendril of wool-strand smoke on a bed of hand painted deer moss ashes. His tiny twig side table holds a portrait of a friend (thinking of changing the two portraits in the house into seed paintings instead), a candle for reading, and an acorn and vine pipe (gifted 1/2L by Sharon Ferg) with a skosh of saffron tobacco in an acorn cap bowl. (Please click to enlarge for detail)

His writing desk nestles in a tangle of natural roots and is kitted out with leaf motif marquettery box (all hardware hand made), ink wells made from the odd grebble bits from drawers in the shop. His upholstered desk chair has a simple twig back and holds up his old cane. There are Rana-scale (1:3) bottles filled with different kinds of seeds tucked into all the corners in the house because while the Mouse lives in a world that makes sense for his size, he also lives in Rana's world as well, he's just mouse-sized in it. They often pass certain jars of seeds back and forth between them to share them.

The library bookcase built into the wall next to his desk will soon be filled with miniature books like the two quarter leather-bound journals made below. One has a pocket built into it that holds a feather quill pen. These were made from an existing cloth-covered Japanese folder that I cut up, trimmed with leather, and painted to fit.

Lower right are additional fine papers I've prepared with paints and dyes to bring the Mouse's color scheme to the shelves below. They'll look terrific next to the small seed jars and other objects there...

Once the books are made, and a clay pot of mid-scale red geraniums are installed outside the left eye/window of the chalet, this entire set and all her props will not only be made but also completely installed and completed in full. Utterly.

I really wanted to begin a set (that I thought would be quick and simple) and see it through in one sweep to prove to myself that I could close a deal. Tenacity.

I think I've figured out why the last 3% on these projects seem to take 100% of the previous effort in order to finish. It's either I'm wrong that the 97% point has in fact been reached, or perhaps that I do these projects at 150% and the last 3% is in reality another 47%. I think it's a little of both.

Having the time of my life with it all though.

Micro Set [very nearly] FINISHED!: Mouse House Interior (part 1)

2011-07-02T03:48:00.000-07:00

Oh, hello, Would you like to tour the newly finished Micro Set of Halfland's Writing Mouse House Interior? Follow me... First, we'll go back a bit...

Constance started me off when I assigned her to take the raw box materials (upper left) and the furnishings I'd made and arrange them to reflect how the Mouse's Chalet Exterior was configured (top center). She began installing the mantle and cutting away the tunnel and windows, which became the Answer Tree's face, and wiring in various roots for this subterranean lair.

After she left, I started plastering the interior with Flexall (flexible cement) and with leftover sanded grout when I ran out of Flexall. I tried to "build-in" the furniture and features as though the walls were earthen. I added slopes and bulk as needed with newspaper and masking tape and plastered over the surfaces again.

Next came several layers of acrylic paint in raw and burnt umber and terra cotta for the "flesh" areas. Highlights and lowlights were added with pastel chalks/pigments to emphasize the Face without being too direct. I like to keep everything as ambiguous as possible so the viewer can see at least two things at once in each element. Halfland.

The mouth/tunnel leading to the underside of Rana's cottage hearth as seen on the finished set, as well as during the progression of its development underneath. The lips were constructed out of some of the root pieces I nabbed on the curb after a tree removal a few years back. The teeth were a wired strand of natural beads called Job's Tears (nature already makes them all with holes for stringing!) that I'd tainted with a paint tarter patina.

The large scale main Face as finished (upper left) whose right eye is the Mouse's sleeping nook lined with colorful shred. As I went along building the root shapes and decorating the Mouse's house with stacks of seeds throughout, other less obvious faces started emerging as well. Their character was accented with various natural seeds, caps, and pods.

A large seed pod had several white and one black Job's Tears arranged inside of it in order to halfway suggest an iris and a rare pair of century-old eye glasses were wired over the opening (upper right). These glasses may be the only earth world scale actual objects used in the making of Halfland. The eyes on the creatures top center and lower left are natural b/w coloration (!) on the Love in a Puff pods that Halfland's Official Naturalist, Marcie sent me a few years back. Their teeth were tiny hard plant pods pickled with white. The red hair is Eucalyptus brush filament with another species of Eucalyptus button as a cap. They are eating red peppercorns.

The Writing Mouse wears nano-sized tiny specs himself as he spends his days listening to the questions asked of the Answer Tree in order to translate the wisdom of the crowd that personifies the Tree's roots. He transcribes the answers onto birch bark paper and seeds and buries them under the roots. In time, the answers he's written will grow out onto the leaves of the Tree. Of course, by then, no one will care what it is.

In Part 2; the Story of the Furnishings...

An Actual Note: Tarn Wing Idea

2011-07-02T03:16:00.000-07:00

Found on recent online wanderings, these spectacular examples of fringed scarves as "wings" could be a way for me to suggest Tarn's human arm as a wing. (forgotten source for image on left, the one on the right I recall came from a Tumblr called White Witch.)

Larger Than Life: The Macro Garden Set Begins

2011-06-21T17:47:00.000-07:00

A quickie mock up of the Macro Garden underway. The large snail puppet will make his way through a grassy trail dotted with over-sized dandelions (the one above is the size of a plum) and other flowers. See some of them below...

On the left, Carol helped me decide on the initial placement of the tall grasses for the large ambling snail puppet to stroll home through one rainy evening in the film. We found that if we positioned the tall foliage behind the cottage it couldn't be seen in the long shot of the cottage front on the other side. Carol does a great deal of gardening in real life and so she is a natural at taking whatever greenery I give her and making it look just right and completely natural. She's into it and comes every Friday that she's able.

Carol has begun the Macro Garden Set-on-Set on the far side of the cottage. First she coated the area with matte medium dusted with mulch and then when dried, vacuumed up the extra. Then she took pieces of scrap wood and started attaching large blades of faux grasses I had been collecting with hot glue and long staples.

A bonus accident was that by making these greenery tufts on moveable/tie-down-able pieces of wood I can take them away when the extreme scale of the giant grasses isn't right/or would show for a scene. A very flexible effect!

Carol also made these breathtaking Peony for the Macro Garden. She took palest pink doublette crepe paper (from THE source for crepe, Castle in the Air, owned by reader the marvelous Karima!) She cut all the peony petal shapes and shaped and formed each by hand. While she was gone I used the sun to gently fade the color even further. This gave delicate variation of shade to each petal so that when Carol put the blooms together, the effect was pretty life-like. I used Google to get reference images to copy the flocked floral center (center bottom).

I tried some too for no reason but my crepe paper colors were not as fugitive as the pale pink's and so the sun didn't change the colors at all. So I whipped out some bright fuschia silk dye powder and sprinkled a bit onto alcohol dampened petals for a variegated look. may or may not use them. I made larger flowers to get more familiar with the material and so might come at it again for the garden later on.

Meanwhile, I made a few in stark white as I thought a good way to transition from the macro garden scene might be to have the landscape turn to white (just by panning the camera across from full color world to an all white area) as we fade into Rose Red's (Jessica's) white paper puppet version of Halfland at the very end.....

It's the Answer!!

2011-06-21T01:35:00.000-07:00

I've been processing photos of the unexpected progress I hinted at the other day in the tease. Got so many photos, there's no way I can tell the whole story tonight. But---wait no longer for the Answer (in so many ways)...

Surprise, the secret is (Yes, Nick!) the interior set for the Writing Mouse's House--built in a box. Seen here sitting on the work bench at night looking like a small world that dwells along side our own.
What started as a random cardboard box, saved roots, tape, and tubes, is turning into the little Mouse's house inside the roots of the Answer Tree. Much to be said about the fine furnishings as soon as possible...

A midway progress shot of clumps of newsprint being added to shape the coving on floors and ceiling as well as facial features of the Answer Tree's persona in the back right-hand corner (not fully seen in this shot.)

As the flexible cement and sanded grout was applied, the (plastic bag protected) furniture gets sculpted in among the roots and "mud". The tunnel inside the Answer Tree's mouth will make for some nice reverse shot cut aways of the Mouse walking across his living area from deep down inside of it (center image). The marvelous acorn tea set made for me by talented Sharon Ferg in New Jersey, looks perfect at this in-between scale on the Mouse's sideboard, a cuppa waiting to be enjoyed by the fire. I used mesh plastic bags painted with copper base metal finish for the glass insets on the sideboard's display doors. I found that touching each juncture of the mesh with a toothpick dipped in morecopper paint added just the right scale effect to look like solder on metal for the door fronts.

This post only teases the fun further I'm afraid, but the next moment I have, I'll be thrilled to share the rest of this Mouse's tale. I had surprises myself making this set. One was the face that appeared as Constance began to layout where the furniture and features (like windows) would go. This screamed to evolve into the persona, the actual facial personification, the face, of the Answer Tree above. The tunnel through its mouth leads further into the Tree and emerges next to/behind the hearth inside Rana's side of the Tree where it is always toasty warm.

I can't wait to show you his library.... Seeds are Books you know (at least there are now in 1/2L!)

Wallflower

2011-06-18T13:04:00.000-07:00

Before I go on, I have been encouraged to show more of what's happening here, more often. (Paul was showing the blog to someone at his work and mentioned to me that I hadn't posted in a while when he got home. He's into it!)

So, in that regard, here from two months back, the finished wallpaper in Rana's bedroom with the rose vine growing through the trellis-mullion window and ending their life as images in the pattern.

Carol helped me place the full-color-fading-into-sepia toned bedroom wallpaper pattern that I had printed out onto inkjet decal paper. This is a material I was hoping would be easy to apply to the wall in tiled sheets, thus eliminating the decal material border around each rose shape. I had designed the pattern to move across the wall in a certain way, that would appear half organic near the 3D prop vine and halfway looking like straight ornate botanical vintage wallpaper. However the plaster texture of the wall wouldn't allow sheets of the decal to disappear and they trapped air bubbles in the pot holes.

We cut out each rose to place by hand instead. And it wasn't an easy method either. The decal print outs required a convoluted method of applying an adhesive sheet on the back that caused me to waste over half of each sheet in making mistakes. But I was in too far to turn back. If I was trying to do something like this again, I'd ORDER A YARD OF CUSTOM FABRIC INSTEAD!!! and apply it easily to the wall!!! It would have cost the same, and looked a bit better in the end.

Not to dwell though. The wall in the bedroom is done. I used tulle netting as a top layer, applied with matte medium, to lessen the halos and to even out the texture. I saw a real rose bush with rose hips and thought Halfland 's Tea Cup Rose Bush should have one too. This one, seen upper right, made from a hand-blown glass bead.

Do You Know The Answer?

2011-06-18T01:45:00.000-07:00

Do you know this fellow? He has all the answers.

This is a teaser shot of another set-on-set near the end of it being completely built and done. It was started from zero just the other day. I've been obsessively working on it straight through, grabbing moments here, hours there, days too.

Whose house is this? Is it made of mud and roots? Is it furnished with hand-crafted traditional furnishings? What goes on behind the eye on the left? Where does the tunnel mouth lead?

All the answers to your questions will be revealed in the next post...

Let Them Eat Cake: Rose Scented Fare Ready for the Bug Party

2011-05-28T02:04:00.000-07:00

The bugs at the bug party are excited to sample the little cakes I built as one of the last props for the big event. (click to enlarge)

The cake stand was made from a slice of branch, the stem of a seed pod, and a coconut button on the bottom. The cakes themselves were cut from small pieces of foam with flavors of paint and heavy gloss gel frosting and filling. I sliced up the cakes to reduce the scale of the filling layer. It took 3 coats of frosting to cover the foam texture.

The frosting flowers were made from small paper roses and rosebuds coated with clear heavy gloss gel to lessen their detail and make them look as if they were made of frosting. I also used sesame seeds, pressed, preserved and painted mini rose leaves, paper punch shapes as smaller leaves, and real micro pods painted to make them look like scale rose buds for the tops.

I made two cakes of about the same size as well as a few slices and lumps that will later be seen on the white spot plates on the mushroom table settings as the party goes late into the night. To present the cakes, I punched small holes on painted real leaves to suggest the paper dollies that typically line cake stands. I wanted it to look half like fancy cake doily and almost as though the bugs ate the leaves in that pattern for the party. They are going all out for this.

Everyone will be invited to taste a little at the party. Gretchin Lair suggested having small rose scented cakes for guests at the Halfland launch party! Brilliant idea! Done!

How will I ever catch you up?: Cottage Nightstand

2011-05-03T04:16:00.000-07:00

I don't think I ever got to show you this piece of furniture for the cottage? It's a little side table for Rana's bed. It will hold the oil lamp at night and a bowl of yarn balls where the Knitting Beetles will be busy at work.

It was made from miscellaneous wooden shapes, glued and melded together with cement, sanded and painted, and sanded, patina stained, etc. The top was lid of a square box with a hole cut through to house the light works for the lamp. There are ants marching around the table base, as if they are carved. Can you spot them?

Preview of how the little setting will look next to the comfortable bed. The right hand shot was taken through the hole in the roof where the tree's branch extends over the bed and grows through the roof.

Sand Zoom

2011-05-03T03:47:00.000-07:00

Wow! Action packed progress on the desert set for the foreground in the final scenes of the film series. Sherie has built with and for me this incredible palm (with purple dates wink wink, Sherie) and the Serpent sage's beautiful tent seen here still in progress on the new desert sand fabric being made below.

Sherie started Friday night by painting the cream flannel queen size flat sheet retired for this use. It struck me recently that rather than trying to build another enormous desert set for these scenes I could instead simply finish a piece of fabric with real sand and then drape it over crumpled paper to alter the dune topography at will. No more heavy, unwieldy set pieces to build and stow. This one can easily roll up on a cardboard tube and be put away when not in use.

So far it's working really well. I need to go buy more matte medium and bags of pale sparkly scenic sand for finishing off a top coat.

When the paint was dry the next morning I set about laying in patches of matte medium and sand that Sherie (my accomplice) and I stole from Santa Monica beach where we were attending an annual Easter event. It also happened to be my AnniverSherie as this time last year is when I meet Sherie and invited her to help with the project. I have assigned her all the desert set elements because it seemed a fit for her and boy, was that right. She's done so well. Without her coming over when she could, I know for certain none of the desert set would have been built. Now I can't imagine them any other way.

Normally, I am truly loathe to do anything against the rules such as stealing public sand from a beach, even the single zip lock bag full I did. I realize that if everyone took sand off the beach there'd be no beach. I had already bought a lot of sand for this, all of which was too coarse for this application. I had one small bag of fine sand like I used on the seat of my Day at the Beach chair last year but I couldn't remember where I got it at the time. I really had to wrestle with my sense of principles and values. I had to reflect on what rules would I follow and which I wouldn't. It got way philosophical for this set building discussion.

In the end, I decided to opt for the modest thievery with gratitude to the beach for making a contribution to the project. I promised it fame (among dozens) and a kind of lasting adventure not too many grains, except those that get to ride in our cars after hiding in our shoes, get to experience.

After a couple days of coating the cloth with medium and sand, sweeping off the excess half a dozen times, it's got its complete first layer. In the lower right hand image above, on the left hand side you can see a paler patch that already has the softer second layer applied.

When it's all done, I can install the palm and tent through cut slits in the fabric and place gentle rolling paper shapes underneath it all for contouring. I was going to go make two more sheets at the beach (via a quicker method of soaking the sheets in medium and then rolling them into the beach itself.) to use as distant dunes. But will likely instead use composited stills of this same sheet, in differing hill shapes, for the background(s).

Dandelying: part 2

2011-05-03T03:00:00.000-07:00

One of my new jumbo method of Dandelying stuck in a pot of real dandelion leaves that I grew for reference. I'm not trying to recreate the world in Halfland, just a kind of crude handmade sketch of it.

Making these "God's way" is so much easier! I took the faux grass seed heads like before only this time I glued individual natural paint brush bristles into the nap of it. I took a couple of passes at sticking these in on each jumbo dandelion (for the macro large scale garden on set). It didn't take long, certainly not as long as the method from part 1.

Next I tipped each bristle with glue and daubed them with cut fibers off of a white faux fur. Couple coats of that gave a nearly full globe shape. It's not perfect, but I was quite thrilled with the results and how natural they look. It was a little wild, while trimming the fluff into a round shape, to objectively look down at my table now and again to see these in their stages of being made. I felt a wee bit like god (little g) producing the natural world.

(left) shows a jumbo dande with the Halfland smaller scale dandeleaves. (center) shows small dandeleaves in the making. (right) shows where the small dandes will mainly grow, on the roof of the cottage over the kitchen. The roots seen previously there are, it's now decided, dandelion roots.

For the leaves, I took flat dried real dande leaves that I had picked while out weeks back. I'd sandwiched it in clear contact paper to preserve/strengthen it. I cut a small one in half vertically and used it as a pattern to cut out many copies in lightweight green tissue paper. Thin green wires were sandwiched in between two of each cutouts (seen center image on the left). Then these were all painted between my fingers with acrylic paints (seen center image on the right).

Also being finished are flat yellow flower heads to be part of the dande cluster and lots more leaves in various sizes needed. We're going to have dandies over here anywheres we might want, yo.

Dandelying: part 1

2011-04-27T01:42:00.000-07:00

Spent a lot of time building small dandelions to be planted in a cluster in the grass growing on the cottage roof above the kitchen as well as in spots in the landscape. The results seen here were from my first batch. I was happy with them but not fully. In the next post I plan to show what method gave even better results.

The first batches were made around "seed heads" made from German model railroad grass glued onto wires, then painted with browns and yellows on the tips. Next these were either flocked with hand-cut feather flufff or natural wool roving fibers.

I was most interested in capturing the feeling I get when closely looking at a globe dandelion in nature. The smaller seed head inside what appears to be a clear round bubble covered in fluffy white tufts in perfect symmetry. I know there is no invisible ball around the seed head, but that 's the experience I have when looking at one.

I ~~spent~~ wasted? a lot of time making a hollow ball mold and casting either hot glue or other non-toxic translucent material into into it and carefully joining the two halves to make a ball (seen lower left with paper calyx ready to be flocked). I then placed tiny dots of glue to imitate the tufts and daubed them with chopped fibers. This gave the feeling of dandelions. I was happy with the effect and felt they fit in Halfland. Handmade. Detailed. A sketch of real nature.

After all of that, I thought to myself, you know, how much more difficult could it be to make these dandelions the way nature actually does it? In Dandelying: part 2 you'll be able to see.

Micro Set FINISHED!: Mouse House Exterior

2011-04-26T23:39:00.000-07:00

For scale see the geraniums on the stump through the gate next to the smallest of the dandelions. And also see the uber small twig bench under the cherry tree, after I filled-in/covered the cement joins underneath it and the tree roots with finely sifted mulch as dirt. (clicking on all photos enlarges them enough to see details much better! Clicking is good!)

Spent some time pushing to complete the Writing Mouse's House exterior set-on-set. It's in the micro-scale (there are three scales on the main set; Halfland scale [1:3], Macro scale [1:1], and Micro scale [guessing.... 1:12?] It's tiny!

When I painted the landscape a bit a while ago I used a big brush and several colors of green paint that will work ok for the distant parts of the set. But it wouldn't work for the micro set areas that will need to be seen in macro close-ups. I took some time and covered all those painted areas back up with matte medium and mulch to break up the painted look. Above on the right, you can see a cluster of Halfland's smallest dandelions. There are dandelions in each of the three Halfland set scales now. (DandeSaga in planned for next post.)

I find, and maybe you do as well, that it takes more energy to push through the last 3% of a project than the first entire 97%. Been trying to figure why that is. All I could get is that at 97% the finishing touches seem so obvious that they can seem inconsequential but in fact when actually making them they are surprisingly still as challenging as the earlier parts. Whatever the reason, it seems to be an issue of mushy perception. Some people know how long and how much energy and effort will be required to fully complete things, either from experience doing it or from a facility for gauging it. For me it's a constant surprise.

But push on through I did. And now I get to mark off another project completion off the shrinking list.

I added micro flowers to the Mouse's flower garden. I finally finished his ironwork upstairs balcony. I make fine work in jewelry but found making this little railing so difficult I resorted to tying the swirls on with black thread and then painted the entire piece with iron paint and rusting it over.

To get the ground cover texture for detail shots I pulverized the same crepe paper used as grass throughout the larger landscape. I lay down a coat of matte medium and sprinkled the hand cut fine paper pieces as if sowing seed, let dry, adding yellow highlights for a meadow effect. The larger batch of greens cut down by hand from grass-making scraps took :30 minutes to make and will cover the entire other micro-set area, the mushroom cafe.

You can see some of the vegetables, tomato vines on tiny twig trellis on left, squash (with grains of sand painted as seeds) next to them, carrots and cabbage on right, etc. a "bit" better in the shot above taken with the film's FZ50 (perhaps click to see even closer). But I will need to figure out how to get even closer macro detail and keep a sharp focus for these micro-set scenes. Will experiment with extremely shallow depth of field as shooting them begins.

The reason this set warrants this much attention to detail is because when we first arrive in Halfland, this set is the first thing we see (after the glimpse of a long shot). The audience will be forced to assume that the entire world of Halfland is this micro scale. How thrilling it will be to blow peoples minds as the camera swings back for the reveal of the much larger cottage and all its detail.

Flowers for Justin*

2011-04-16T12:22:00.000-07:00

Justin Rasch is one of the truly luckiest men on earth. That sparkle of love you see in these lovely ladies eyes was all for him. Shel and Aedon share a giggle over sending their sweet thoughts to daddy while he's away on his Stop Motion Mission.

Last Saturday Shel and Aedon Rasch came over to visit and play. yay! Lucky me that Shel found herself with a little window of time to come over, something I always want more of. And even though she's still (RAPIDLY!) recovering from knee surgery she still managed to climb the many flights of stairs here, did my dishes while I rushed to finish making lunch (! The horror of Shel as a guest doing that! But she couldn't stand to see all the dirty dishes staring at her after a while. note; Dish stack pictured not the actual stack washed by Shel but that's what it looked like. HA!) I had been trying to tidy the place up before she arrived but I was cutting it close and she arrived while I was still in my typical slept in dumpster look. Sigh.

Shel and I cut an acre of crisp crepe paper grass for the set after lunch. Later, I thought Shel might like to try to make some bright flowers with the new doublette (2-color double-sided) crepe paper I just bought from Castle in The Air (owned by reader Karima!) She made truly lovely blooms (seen in the top photos) for the macro garden in Halfland and even showed Aedon how to do it too.

Aedon was a blur of animated joy and creativity the whole visit. She seemed quite happy to make things in the shop, hunt for the hiding cats, and catch an episode of the Brady Bunch, make squishy foam fish puppets and adorable clay figures.

As always I found them both so easy to be with, great to share with, inspiring to be around. But wait there's more...

In a fantastical instance of Life Imitating Art, as they were leaving Shel and Aedon rescued a very lost, skinny, hungry, desperate little puppy on our street. I was sad to see it looking for Cirelle, whom it had met the night before in our parking lot. But I was just going to once again shake my head in sadness and go on with my life. Not our Superhero Shel! Once we saw the little guy holding his paw up on the corner hoping each passerby would care for him, Shel called for him and as he cheerfully ran to her she leapt out of her van (!), assessed he was safe to interact with, told Aedon they would bathe and feed him but that he was not theirs to keep--got the agreement, gathered him under her caring arm and was off with him is under 23 seconds! Swoop! It's a wonder her cape doesn't get caught in the car doors!

He is happy, on the way to healthy, has a haircut by Shel (photo from her mobile phone above) , and is currently in the heart and home of.....

CIRELLE! Hopefully more photos to come soon>>>>

UPDATE::::: He is a fantastic dog! So adorable. Here are photos taken at his home after he'd settled in to his new happy forever love home with Cirelle....

Thanks for being our Hero Shel.

*A postcard from home for you, Justin.

A Blade of Grass

2011-04-16T11:46:00.000-07:00

Update of Party Bug building from last week. The battle weary dragonfly above now salutes the guest of honor with a sword made from... what else but a blade of grass! I picked a tiny bloom, dried and painted its calyx to center in his golden pod crown. The hilt of sword is some strange dried plant material I found here and coated with the very sticky last of the now gone forever Petal Porcelain which was also used on the real blade of grass as well. Both were painted after being preserved.

I worked many hours on making balloons for around his waist as I'm sure he can't fly quite as well as he used to but the miniature glass Christmas bulbs I used as their bases, under hand-painted cellophane silk, had a too wide an opening and it *just* missed looking like balloons I think. Although as I typed that I realized I should try lowering the knot and see...

These are more Party scene extras. The top guy with the crooked antennae is wearing purple pants with an Elvis-like white belt and gold belt buckle made from the head of a sequin pin to offset his yellow pollen shoes. Schnazzy.

The middle guy is blind in the eyes but sees well through the bulbs on his antennae. I like the texture the yellow flocking gives his body and the gentle iridescence on his wings from a paint that has been discontinued by Nova Color :(

The bottom guy on the left is just a small translucent and pink with polka dot fuzzy wings dude. And that's "Buck" on the right. He's super small and yet has such a fun personality! The droopy eyes and protruding front teeth! And sassy pollen clump shoes!

Having way too much fun making these.

Redux: How to Make Courageous Butterflies

2011-03-23T03:40:00.000-07:00

While making various more humorous Bug Party puppets recently, I hit upon the way I can create the more serious Courageous (formerly known as Handicapped*) Butterfly characters that had vexxed me so earlier.

Rima and everyone were right, I'll be much happier with these puppets when they aren't human forms with wings, which looked more like comical fairies to me. But rather more delicate insect-like suggestions of human limbs on decidedly more bug-like bodies.

Above you see the figure on the left that gave me the answer. I was building up the wires with matte medium when I noticed the legs in back were starting to gently suggest human-like legs, albeit with distorted/exaggerated proportions and positions.

Point is, after making several flies and bugs legs this week, I've gotten a certain new level of comfortableness with playing with these shapes and now feel much more confident that I can strike the right mixture/balance of bug to man. The answer I think will be in making the balance shift more toward the Insecta.

Thanks for watching and waiting while things emerge here.

*Still searching for the right name/term to describe these creatures in 1/2L. They will be missing limbs on their human aspect but yet there is nothing diminished about them in this world. They fly gracefully and are noble and elegant in every way. They are not disabled. There are not impaired. They are not hobbled, or gnarled, or handicapped. They are lopsided and misshapen but that doesn't convey their nature.

I'm trying to represent the attitude of individuals who are physically different from the norm, and yet towering over people with all their faculties intact, due to their inner strength and personal courage to be all they can.

Writing this post gave me the answer. Thank you. I love it. Courageous Butterflies, it is.

And the Guests Keep on Arriving

2011-03-23T02:09:00.000-07:00

These are further bug party invitees that are works in progress I wanted you to see... Look for the finished versions in the film!

This absolutely cracks me up. The puppet is an earthworm being built being carried along--sort of (Ha!) by a balloon! You see I was trying to create a way of making the hollow-looking part of a dandelion for the film and I was experimenting with methods and materials (finally sorted the solution out today! A: plaster globe mold and hot glue over the inner seedhead) to make transparent globe shapes when I put one down next to the puppet in progress. (A connect-->the-->dots moment!) I laughed out loud at the sight of him!

The next day I set about making several brightly colored pink and orange balloon for him to use at the party! Took forfrickingever to figure out a way to make them. Finally today figured out how! A: Ice Resin-ed colored tissue paper wrapped over clear acrylic marbles on wire!) I've since finished this puppet off too. His organza wrapped body now has metallic thread stripes tightly over-skinned with fine metal mesh. And the iron wire rusted from the wet matte medium, looks so natural and great!

This pupp is being built upon a [shudder] store-bought decorative dragon fly (who used to look like this) I gave him hand-painted eyes and a gash mouth that makes him look grumpy--all the bugs at the party are. And when I added bits of wire to extend his leg length, the position he put himself in looked to me like he was a very old and weary military general from the bug wars! So, I've decided to tie colored balloons around his middle too and to put a wooden sword in in right front leg! Charge! His big golden crown is made from a myrtle pod.

I made so many extra small cabbage moths while making the halo crown that I've adopted a few to finish for this party scene. Here you see how I'm using either matte medium or thick white glue applied with a toothpick tip to slowly build up the wire armatures with the shapes and attitudes I want. They will be finished with paints and fiber textures. The guy on the right will have a funny large proboscis. While the fellow on the left with the currently bright rice paper wings will wear purple pollen pants after his belly gets big (read funny) enough.

There will be a few other moths to come along with their tango partner (!) caterpillars. And I mustn't forget to mention also the first, a plaid sweater wearing millipede named Herman!

Project Rule #3: There's never a good enough reason to feel bad about anything. Enjoy every part.

Snug as a Bug

2011-03-23T01:09:00.000-07:00

So glad to share this with you. I got lucky with the light the last few days which enabled some proper great shots as I was delightedly making and/or finalizing these tiny bug puppets for the mushroom cafe night time party scene in the film.

(And this post will be especially useful for Cirelle as a helpful guide to the emerging bug characters at the "Mimizard's Birthday Party" storybook she'll be writing with the same cast too. I'm going to show you the finished bugs here and tell you what I know about them and then she can take up the story making from there as she likes!)

This guy is either a beetle or a roach made from a natural seed pod body and has micro twigs for legs. He wears a golden pod cap with leaf pennant as all the party guests are decked out in their nature's best finery. His mouth is a very small stem end painted with nectar as he's been enjoying the party fare.

This guest is the largest and looks the most important. He's brought a wrapped present on a leaf and wears a small gold calyx crown. His wings sparkle from the front and are more moth like from the back. I call all the party bugs "Drab Bugs" in special party wear. They all should be rather dull, not flashy in their day to day lives, but dressed up with great excitement for this big event. I used pressed plant material for the phalanges on his back and carefully flocked the transitions to his body. His wire legs are positionable and his head turns. I think he is high ranking in this bugdom. Well regarded.

Distorted view through a magnifying lens of the spider guest with gold microbead cluster eyes and two flower petals tied onto his back like a cape. He is also known as a performer and came to the party wearing eight tiny sparkly tap shoes!

Under him we see one of the caterpillar guests, there will be several there, inching their way up the mushrooms for a seat for the festivities. He's got a gold crown too, so I'm thinking these are like party hats for them. I made him from a purple and black silk selvage wrapped onto a twig shaped like a worm coil that had all the weft tips painted with florescent orange. I put three eyes on him, two visible in any position he might need to be in.

Hopper is the waiter for the catered affair. He is serving fresh pollen cupcakes with tiny mushroom decorations on his leaf tray and wearing his crisp white apron. His legs are made to attach to the overhead party lantern streamers as he offers a cake to bugs at each table. (I should be using exclamation points after each of these--so fun will this be to see!!!!)

This fellow you've seen in the post about making his bouquet, but here's a better view of his now woolly body and damask pattern wings. He has two mates with him at the party, like attendants fluttering in the background. His legs are posable and he's on a wire to fly.

Here's one of the flies, an enormous one, ten times bigger than the ones inside the Time Frog, with peacock fond feather hairs on each of his six legs. His front four legs are holding the striped straw he's using to get all the delicious nectar from one of the tea cups at a mushroom table. His wings are made from a dried leaf (reinforced with several coats of matte medium or as I call it, Halfland magic maker.) And he's sporting a rather hilarious bright green curly mohawk. Paaar-tay! w00t!

These two clumsy flies were from my first attempts at Musca Tempora making. I made them into background party guests rather than to waste them. They are a couple. I added tiny blossom party hats and one is in a seated position sipping her nectar tea. The other can applaud all the dance performances with his two front legs I figure.

More background extras as it will take a lot of bugs to make a real full party scene. The top guy uses a pair of the initial Handicapped Butterfly wings (I have decided to scrap those puppets and have finally figured what I want them to look like and how to build them (brief peek in next post). His repurposed drab-a-fied wings are hinged to open and close and his woolly body made with snipped fibers from a wool sweater is finished with yellow pollen SHOES! (couldn't help adding that "!" because I love the idea of some of the bugs using the pollen to make dressy shoes for this! Ack!)

Below him are two little horrible bedbugs or fleas with petal wings and sparkle eyes. These are crude bugs and will gossip in the background as I first made the bodies with thick silly wire waaaaaaay back in 1993 (!) for this project. I didn't know about the party back then but I knew that even the bugs in Halfland would be puppets. I used paperclay which I now know sucks for most puppets--too fragile and back then I didn't know wire came in different gauges.

I like that I've used nearly every single bug body that I started way back then, nothing has gone to waste. I've found a way to move everything forward. I think I'm a lot more skillful with my hands than I was back then. (I think it's all the tiny Christmas presents I made back in 2007 that did it.) I feel as though I can build anything I want, the way I want now. At least to my likes.

Tinting Tenting

2011-03-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

A very beautiful shaman's tent in progress next to the desert palm from the front and as seen from above, with its Flower of Life motif that will be visible in the very end of the film series as the Tarn character drifts up above the desert sand.

Very proud of this. Actually ahead of the game a bit with it. I've been tasking Sherie with the far away desert set building when she comes over. First she built the amazing palm tree seen above, then she and I started in on the tent. We labored hard over making a muslin pattern to get a paper pattern for the six tent segments to scale. It needed to look right next to the palm, be big enough for the puppet character that lives in it, and be hexagonal like Rana's cottage (don't know why that shape is a 1/2L. theme but it is).

I snatched the flimsy cotton cloth table skirting around my worktable that was already sewn half orange and yellow, and had David and Sherie start cutting out the six segments from it, along with dozens and dozens of heavy canvas petal shapes to use as appliqué on each side.

The tent belongs to the serpent sage musician who's body is half snake and half powerful man. He sits and plays sacred music alone in the desert like a wise man. His music has a habit of causing flowers to begin to grow from his head and those who listen to it. The tent's pattern motif had to convey both serpent scales and floral petals (Cirelle's wonderful idea!) and I worked very hard to get a pattern that suggested both at the same time. It also has a slight Eastern flavor to it that works.

Sherie helped me sew the appliqué pattern onto the base. I felt the colors were too clear and the fabric too cheap looking. I wanted the tent to feel like an old oiled circus carnivale-type shelter. I tried various overlays but found the perfect solution was the simple tulle netting that a friend gave me from her old wedding dress. I matte medium'ed it over each panel and then the girls pitched in with using dilute acrylics and pigment chalks to shade and patina the now heavy canvas-like cloth (see middle right photos close by clicking)

I went over them repeatedly to unify the coloration/shading, pinned the panels together and used the machine to stitch and then top-stitch them into shape. It fit perfectly onto the support structure we had built, with a tweak here and there. I have to finish the very top and continue to design the rest of its construction, including the many prayer flags, saffron yellow satin cushettes, and carpets suitable for serpent sitting.

Rana's Halo Crown of Moths

2011-03-17T20:36:00.000-07:00

Seen on the Rana sculpt in progress and when all finished on me.

Putting Ice Resin on rice paper got me excited to dive into the small cabbage butterfly halo/crown that hovers around Rana's head in the film. It's meant to indicate that she is a sacred creature rather than a pagan witch (not that there's anything wrong with that.)

It's just that I see 1/2L. walks a fine line between occult symbolism and how I mean it. There are archetypal figures and loads of what could be described as polytheistic nature worship in it because everything in its nature is conscious and sentient. That association would be inadvertent. The characters and story come directly from my own imagination and are intended as an original folktale. In as much as these tales dwell in an imaginative realm, it can be said they tap into common mythology. But it is important to me that Halfland stay firmly grounded in beauty, upliftment, learning, joy, the qualities of a positive side of things. Hence the nearly-holy crown.

Constance started things off adorably by modeling the wire halo rigging I had prepared for her work. It was the flexible lip of a soft plastic take-out container, painted black, pierced and looped with two rows of 32 gauge black annealed wire. She then needle-felted fuzzy little moth bodies to wire the rice paper wings and wire antenna onto. I had tremendous fun gold leafing, painting, and speckling all 23 of the moths.

Each moth has a heavy foil "hinge" (seen well in middle right photo) that enables them to open and close their wings while being positioned in any direction by the wire loop attached to the plastic ring.

I plan to animate the halo separately on black velvet and composite it over Rana's head for a brief moment when we first see her standing. She also has spiders for jewelry.

Another thing the halo/crown does is to utilize the sacred nature-over-head device that will be used in later Halfland scenes during the Flowering Thoughts acts at the end.

It's so pretty almost everyone loves to wear it!

Meet The Time Keepers

2011-03-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

Had a total blast making tiny fly puppets for the inner clockworks and for The Time Frog puppet. I had to make a few very small flies to fit inside the Frog's paper gear clock works. The flies are swallowed by the Frog and they in turn operate the gears and give us all Time as a result. My hope is that everyone familiar with Halfland will wonder, just as a passing thought, whether they are seeing one of the Time Keeper flies when they see a common housefly in their real world lives.

Got the small flies and a few more for the Time Frog's pond scenes, one for close-ups on the big pink rubber tongue, etc. And at least THREE extra that I've promised to Mike Brent, Nick Hilligoss, and young Mariah for helping me especially with the production.

I wanted a mesh effect over the bright red fly eyes but I didn't want the mesh to be flattened out by glue. It was tricky to work out a technique for wrapping each micro glass bead in various types of silk tied with thread and glued from behind only (bottom left). At first all I had was red seed beads, but then I found smaller still delica beads (compare bottom right). On the puppet guts sized flies I just went with small dots of glossed paint as the whole fly would fit on your pinky nail.

I wasn't trying for the stunning realism that grand insect artist, Graham Owen gets in his astounding work. I needed these to look hand-made like the rest of Halfland and to have more comic character as puppets. But I did employ as much of Graham's techinques as I could manage to construct them. I learned from him about using Creatology Fun Foam Sheets cut into small strips as a base under it all. I tried to replicate the fine hair or lanugo of insect legs by wrapping different types of single fronds from feathers onto the leg wires. I found that making my own flocking fibers, by my roulad slicing method at felted wool, gave a nice hand-crafted look.

OH! And the BEST FIND of all was that Ice Resin, mentioned in the window pane post, when applied to all kinds of papers makes them perfectly transparent and yet completely stable! I slathered Ice Resin onto every kind of paper I had here--just to see what happens. And I was DELIGHTED at the various glass-like effects! For the fly wings, I found the very best of all tried to be common cheap white tissue paper! The nerve! I used also Ice Resin on white glassine above but it was the common gift wrap filler that was sublimely sheer and yet fully durable enough to be incised by a pin point! See what I mean upper left, click to enlarge, as always.

The fly hind segments were painted with Pearl Ex Duo Green-Yellow pigment that looks for all the world like real fly backside. It is a true duo-chrome which means it's gives a certain shimmer that is neither just "iridescent" nor "opalescent". I can't explain it except that it looks like a fly. I saw it in an art supply store 17 years ago and bought it EXACTLY for the purpose you see above. Talk about having and holding a long view!

Feeling the Pane

2011-03-17T17:57:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest laughs I've had on the project was when, years ago now, Mark Fullerton, my hero with the laser cutter, generously sent me a variety of laser cut acrylic forms made to my specs. Some were in an intact form while others were incised/etched, etc. On the bag that had all the individual window panes cut out he wrote (seen above top) "Are you Crazy? Don't even try this (but it would be the coolest)" It was such a sweet and funny comment. I loved that he wrote it. It only took me a nano-second to know which set I would have to use to get that special Tudor window sparkle from each pane being set slightly off from the next.

I had worked out a method of making the three panels two years ago but the problem with such a long term project as this is that I totally forgot the method by the time Carol showed up to help me build them. I had hand painted all the panes with either clear urethane (in nontox glue form) or with tinted gloss in the colors of the cottage. I'd long ago glued down pressed rose leaves and other inclusions and decided that the mullions were to be cut straight twigs to give the half organic/grown--half traditional architecture feel. But when Carol started in to assemble them with hot glue the other day loads of difficulty showed up. It was far too ramshackle (HA! What do you call Rana the goat woman's cottage? a Ram SHACKle--lol), I thought as I watched her, to hot glue the twigs to a single layer of panes. It was aright, but it wasn't working well enough for me.

So I continued my window making saga for days after. I have been barking up the wrong tree on this cottage feature over and over (see waste-of-my-time old posts on the subject) but I'm happy to say NOW THEY ARE ALL DONE and they look beautiful to me. (final installed shot coming in future post)

I went NUTZ and decided that the windows had to be double paned (and it was a double/triple pain indeed) I took real butterfly wings that Constance had brought to Halfland (from where they died natural deaths in her window at home). I used the wrong stuff for this, acrylic gel, which unexpectedly bubbled in the low oven when I had to heat them to get them to dry clear. Some panes even slumped (too high too long toxic--I know--won't do that again.) Didn't matter to me, I was on a tear. I was using these mofos no matter what. ONWARD! In the end I'm glad because now they windows aren't all the way transparent which means I don't have to build a backdrop to cover my computer from that angle on the set. Light gets through but not direct image.

With double thick panes, filled with leaves, wings of all sizes (one with even a natural sheer window in itself), and silk threads in color, Cicada wings from Halfland's Official Naturalist in Georgia, etc. it was far easier to puzzle together the panes and twigs.

The first step was to make a paper pattern directly on the previously built bay window of the cottage. These were in no way regular shapes, more like torqued trapezoids, and each of three were utterly different. I used my hand to press brown paper into the openings as a way of getting an accurate pattern. Even so, I can't recount to you how many mistakes I made turning the panels around the wrong way or mixing them up. I am no Andrew Fucking Brown, let me tell you. (Hate his flawless set building ability with a cold passion.)

Great New Material Alert: Ice Resin

Here's what saved the day, non-toxic jewelers-grade clear resin called Ice Resin. It's a careful measure 2-part gel--but no harmful fumes. I wore gloves and used near open window for good measure because I trust no one. But I have to gladly report that this stuff is absolutely winning. (used it for other things too, details coming)

I blue-taped the mosaic as it was built to hold it in place, turned the panel over and poured a small batch of the resin over the whole face of it. It takes three days to dry chemically. Unfortunately the tape was not enough to seal every seam and so great pools of (rather expensive) resin collected on the undersides. This ruined my bare twig mullion idea and somewhat squashed my sparkle pane hopes as it essentially made a solid piece of resin out of the panel, at least on one side.

After painstaking removal of the blue tape (why it came off successfully at all I won't know) I rallied once again and hand painted the mullions with matte medium to differentiate them from the glossy panes a bit and struggled to hack-saw the excess edges off each panel to size. I also had to carve out the wood casements in spots to make it all fit.

Next came shoe-molding as further casement framing as the three panels were finally installed in the bay. As I look through the window from the interior, with it's hand-dyed vintage fabric cushions and warm woolen blanket, I am immediately transported to Halfland and can actually feel the urge to curl up there and take a nap.

Halfland Character Collection Book Giveaway

2011-03-06T17:02:00.000-08:00

Took a couple hours and put together a 20 page soft cover collection of all Halfland character sketches and development to date, to have their development documented all in one place as things progress.

UPDATE: OK--HALFSTERS! It's the Ides of March and still no actual urls?! wha? You have until midnight tonight....Ok, perhaps the contest involved a question that didn't beg to be answered? No problem. I'll go ahead and leave the post open and if people/persons ever do answer the question in the comments (not even a video required now) I'll choose a winner to get a copy of the book as their 1/2-gift. (The book is also available for order (at actual cost of printing) from the link below for $12.79 until March 23 in case you must have it.)

Giving away a copy (!*) to the reader who can express what YOU might like most about living in Halfland in a very brief yet sincere (and ideally) entertaining video posted to YouTube by March 15, 2011. May use any form of artistic expression, animation, live action, painting, song, poetry, etc. Post the video's url in the comments here for all to see. Winner will be notified via an update to this post. (*I totally just spontaneously made this giveaway idea up as I was typing.) YAY!

Click here to view this photo book larger

(Feel free to use any imagery from the book or this blog in your entry! Don't take much time away from your own projects--can really just be a sentence or two. Good luck! xoxo)

Day Has Dawned

2011-03-02T02:22:00.000-08:00

Here's the latest plan of action...

It's been great to actually set a date for beginning filming. It's been a concrete external push that's ramped up the progress significantly. I did see the dawn yesterday morning as I toiled away many hours building the cottage windows to finally get them finished and installed, for example.

My initial thought was to hurry up and finish the set, build two of the main puppets during February and begin shooting a small scene inside the cottage on March 1. I kept humping toward that as quickly as I could but didn't want to break the required tasks down onto a schedule toward that end. Instead wanting to follow its natural flow. But even if I had made a daily plan, I could not have kept to a schedule due to weird health challenges. Nothing serious, just had to watch as my treasure of time to work on the project drizzled away like incontinent urine into a towel. Just saying. You might say I pissed the time away.

Between that, ballet, home life, and design projects that I only obsess about instead of actually get to, I might be the most stressed out yet least productive person on earth.

Plan B was to finish the nearly made Time Frog puppet and top off the pond set, oh-so-nearly done, and shoot a little underwater frog action. Neat idea, because that scene would only need the lights I have on hand and would be a nice way of getting my feet wet. Hardy har har.

But the windows became a real saga of I'm nutz, post coming next.

The Plan Now: Breathe/relax/enjoy each moment of this project. Visit Darkstrider's blog archive for the notes on what lights and analog camera cable to get again. Install those amazing windows, finish that beautiful frog, start shooting. Woefully unprepared--but why not? Just to get going. That first scene can always be re-shot.

For those that have been anticipating, sending good thoughts and notes of kind support, for Halfland's start date for shooting, I thank you and hope to share what's in store very soon...

Don't Just Stand There... Move Something!

2011-02-28T18:52:00.000-08:00

Friend of Halfland, animator, and armature fabricator supreme, Sven Bonnichsen, is launching a new animation festival, the NW Animation Festival. He's opened it up to entrants from all over the globe and in any form of animation.

Here are the details from the site:

The festival will be held on June 3-4-5, in the heart of downtown Portland Oregon at the historic 5th Avenue Cinema.

This is a festival created by animators, for animators, and all lovers of animation.

We are people who hunger to see MORE. Not just the year's top 10 shorts... We want to feast on the year's top 100!

We've thrown the door wide open for submissions. Films may come from anywhere in the world. You may submit films made at any time during your life. And you are free to simultaneously show your work online or at other festivals.

We know that great animation comes from all levels. Contributions from students, independent artists, and professional studios are all valued equally.

All types of animation are encouraged: hand-drawn, computer-generated, stop-motion... We attempt to program shorts blocks focusing on each method separately—both to educate, and to satisfy each methods' enthusiasts.

We strive to pack the weekend with as much animation as possible. But the festival is still bigger than just this. Select films go on to become part of our "Best of the NW Animation Fest" traveling show, which will tour the region during the following year.

For more, visit: nwanimationfest.com or contact: director@nwanimationfest.com

Best of luck with this, Sven! I'm encouraging all the animators I know to submit a short and I look forward to submitting scenes from Halfland myself to the festival next year!

Bringing to the Fore

2011-02-18T04:09:00.000-08:00

Here's a WIP preview of the sort of effect I'm after for the foreground set; inviting white-washed gate and fencing and a bough of leaves frames the scene. (Giant resting line-producer cat not to be included in final version of film. :-)

Dear Constance has begun construction on the foreground set. Last session, she began by hand cutting a stack of 24 pickets out of cedar shims and discussing what the ornaments might be on the gate.

In the days that followed, I built the gate, stained all the pieces brown, and then again with pickling white wood stain after that. I chose to top the two newel posts supporting the gate with matching wood and iron acorns. I placed them on the ends of a small wooden spool I cut apart on top of softened square stock ends. I really like how they came out. Making the miniature gate with working hardware (the gate will be opened during the shot) was satisfying.

Making these wild flower tufts was rather quick and easy and should look quite pretty in the foreground around the fence I think.

I wanted some weeds and flower shrubbery to grow around the fencing so I picked up the clumps of DEAD kitty grass usually laying around the place (finally a use for these), dyed the clumps green and let them dry well. I then hit the tips with matte medium and sprinkled them with small pieces of colored paper while wet.

I have found a FAST and easy way to chomp a lot of paper into very small pieces is to fold torn pieces in your color group choices into a "roulade" (a tight roll used to make it easier to finely chop fresh herbs in cooking) and keep it in one hand whilst I repeatedly slicing at it between that thumb and forefinger. There's no danger of being cut because you can go slowly and make sure you are slicing only between fingers. But this method means that you can have the smallest pieces as you could wish in less than a mere 20 slices.

Last Friday, Constance was a huge help in helping me find a good position for the foreground set piece for camera POV, etc. She then papier mached the underside of the whole piece all alone! She also began installing the finished gate and fence by making holes in the set and macheing around each picket. It's looking fantastic and should come together well soon. Thank you, Constance!

Unnecessary Flowers

2011-02-18T03:38:00.000-08:00

I auditioned several of the party-going bugs to hold this tiny bouquet of flowers but the damask butterfly above won the part because it just strikes me really funny somehow. Something about a mean-looking butterfly bringing a cheerful bouquet to a birthday party is cracking me up. :-)

This prop and the other tiny flowers made last week are entirely unnecessary to have been made. And I have learned well on this project that making teeny tiny things not only takes as long as the big impact large things, but it often takes even longer. My mind says it shouldn't. Small things are small and should therefore be fast to do. I have found this to be completely wrong. Rule #31: BEWARE: Tiny Can Take More Time Than Big. I still have no idea why that is.

This time it started when I was making tons of little flowers to grow along the new picket fence (please see next post) and I thought hey, I wonder if I used my teeny paper flower punch on sheer tissue paper colors (see left above) and layered them if they would look like petaled flowers too? Kinda-do!

I flocked the itsey centers (top) and attached each blossom onto fine dried twigs that were then painted with green tissue leaves added. I painted the bouquet with liquid porcelain and then repainted it green to have it be like a ceramic sculpture for no reason other than I love liquid porcelain, also for no reason.

The rest of these crazies daisies will grow in the Writing Mouse's Front Flower Garden to fill it out a bit more. An unneeded touch that I'm a little happy about.

And also for no damn good reason I took small pieces of hardware and fashioned them into tiny terra cotta garden pots for mini-mini red geranium props for outside the mushroom cottages. Above you see me attaching a painted cardboard slice onto a small piece of painted brass tubing with a tack as a saucer. I made 5 like this in various teensy sizes for use in the smallest Halfland set scale, like the Mouse's House Exterior and the Bug Party Cafe.

On the left you see the smallest real clay pot I could make a while back for this. But with this new batch I could get easily 1/3rd that size. The two smallest pots, made out of mini metal grommets, flanks another mushroom door and shows how the Village Landscaping will look when further finished out.

Breakthrough: Shadow Play

2011-02-18T02:43:00.000-08:00

A few weeks back, while on the phone with Paul, I suddenly noticed that the figures on a ceramic vase on my desk cast a perfect shadow onto the Halfland painting that Sven made for my birthday last year. It looked as though one of the figures was sitting under the Answer Tree! I tried to keep it together during the conversation because it would have been a long story to explain and it was late at night. But I realized what needed to happen somehow at the end of the Halfland series, when my beautiful live actress (the one who is not a puppet) Rose Red plays with crude white paper versions of the Halfland characters, giving the impression the world here only ever existed in her mind.

This accidental concept should really give the film a more interesting finish.

To blur the lines further, I noticed the the large paper trees that Peggy drew for me (seen lower right) make great shadows on the new paper partition that now runs the length of our place. Above you can see the bamboo set in soft yellow morning light and with crisp strong halogen worklight. Unrelated but another cool thing about the partition, the Sumi-e warrior figure from a martial arts book on the lower left was made via an overhead projector. We can change the imagery in various ways.

Through the Roof!

2011-02-02T08:22:00.000-08:00

Things are happening in the roofing dept in Halfland, happy to say. The second panel is done thanks to Cirelle and all we need do is plant the crepe paper grass on its dirt patch.

I took some time to add a few roots growing through the rafters into the kitchen so that Rana could reach up and break off a bit to throw into her soup pot. Why? Because....

During the heavy rains here a few weeks back a few parts of our ceiling fell down. Above you see our wonderful handiman, Damian, halfway (HA!) through patching a hole over my desk. When I saw what was underneath the ceiling layer, the lath and plaster layer, with its visible rafters, I had the idea to make a similar hole over Rana's kitchen so that roots growing on the top could be part of her dinner.

I loved the idea of a damage-caused skylight in there and how it alludes to a bit of the cottage construction. Cirelle shaped the hole by copying the one over our bed and I used broken shims and iron tacks to make the patch.

The real fun started when Constance brought me a special order root from her garden to use as the start of the detail. It was the most perfect root for this. It was fully dead and so very rugged and didn't require any preserving, the structure was exactly the size and shape I was after, etc. It's so nice to have a bevvy nature devas to work for me! Brava!

For the earth over the open patch, I painted large clumps of upholstery foam brown and then hit them with matte medium and dirt. This gave me plenty of flexible dirt pieces that wouldn't fall through the cracks in the rafters, yet would look like natural soil when seen from below. This technique is a keeper. Word.

Once the roots were in place and trimmed a bit, I painted on a top coating of matte medium to strengthen them further.

I love what they add to her home. And you can begin to feel how the cottage will feel with its roof fully installed; safe, quiet, nurturing. A place with great soup simmering, and a blanket for your legs as you sew by the fire.

Make the Moon

2011-01-17T23:26:00.000-08:00

In a recent post about Yanu's bamboo grove set I showed the finished Moon Lantern prop in the green forest. Here's a recounting of how Constance made it with me.

Job one was to determine the size to make the moon. I wanted it large enough to seem like the moon in the night sky yet also like a paper lantern hanging in the Answer Tree. It needed to be small enough for the mothman puppet Yanu to carry through the grove at night, to get that great light-moving-through -the-stalks shot, yet not so small we wouldn't know somehow it's also more than just a normal lantern.

It had to read as BOTH moon and Japanese sort of luminaria. But not so obviously the moon as to have photographic moon topography reproduction on its surface. (I plan to briefly superimpose the moon surface onto the lantern in post, like a glimpse, just to play with the misperception further.)

We started by taking (--ok, stealing.) We stole a small black rubber exercise ball from Paul's workout gear, covered it in plastic with masking tape, so it wouldn't get dirty. She wound a kind of brown bark-like paper wrapped wire in a spiral shape around the covered ball, then secured these ribs with thinner cloth covered floral wire as vertical supports.

This is where it gets tricky mentally. We decided then to cut off this wire cage off the ball in order to papier maché the plastic protected ball underneath with rice paper, a few layers think. Once dry, this paper shell was also cut open in order to get the original ball out. Then Constance carefully replaced the wire cage around the now empty paper lantern shell, seamed it up with more paper.

Lastly, we both took turns making a final layer of absolutely moon-like paper (see above right image) maché top coat in about nine shaped paper sections.

Cram the shell full of battery op'd lights and voilà!

In Halfland, the moon is like a lantern hanging from a friendly neighbor's porch. Both a figurative and literal metaphor. Here is a sketch of how Yanu will look at night, illuminated by just the Moon Lantern, as he slowly brings it home to rest for the night in Rana's tree (image concocted after being inspired by the amazing creative image maker Joel and his moon image.)

Catching You Up: Honey, I'm Home!

2011-01-08T00:44:00.000-08:00

A while back I completed another detail for the cottage interior, the honey comb installed in amongst the Answer Tree roots, just under the hearth. The honey slowly drips out from the comb into an old waiting ceramic dish for Rana to sweeten her tea.

It started with a lotus blossom pod, with all its lovely organic shaped chambers and cells, sent to me by Halfland's Official Naturalist, Marcie, in one of her amazing packs. I coated the paper thin piece with the discontinued :( product Porcelainize It which makes it hard as ceramic when dry.

Then I carefully fitted each cell with a gate of oil paper set in place with more liquid porcelain. A few of these chambers were then pierced to reveal drops of royal larva, flecked with gold, cocooned in multi-colored layers of flower petals. This because I had read where they've just discovered a species of bee that makes these sorts of petal cases for its young. I put pollen behind some cells and egg-like beads behind others. I used glossy transparent non-tox urethane glue for the dripping honey at the top.

A Storybook for Cirelle

2011-01-08T00:19:00.000-08:00

One of my absolute favorite shots ever of Halfland. It's of the fairie-like creature that comes here regularly to help with the project, Cirelle, lost in her imagination, examining the Mouse House under the Answer Tree on the set in progress.

Some of the drab bugs, dressed in petals and other finery for the do, already made for the party on the left so that Cirelle can see each one here, name it, develop its back story a little, etc. (Herman, the argyle sweater-wearing caterpillar pictured here.)

So, this whole "Bug Party Escapade" is looking like it really wants to be its own side project illustrated picture storybook and Cirelle has engaged to give writing it a good go. Hooray!

I was working yesterday on the bug's party decorations (seen above on right at their beginning stage) making oh-so-charming little floral and seed pod pendants when it occurred to me that this was no ordinary weekend party these bugs were having. Oh no, this was a highly swanky affair (for bugs) and some really important person was going to be feted for sure, but who?

Then it dawned on me, Cirelle's own Halfland character creation, the Mimizard, the little lizard with heraldic butterfly wings! He must be the VIP everyone is decking out, bringing gifts, and serving cake for! I was thrilled with that idea and told Cirelle this afternoon. Now she's got to get that puppet finished! (It's already, sculpted, molded and latex-machéd!)

The Writing Mouse is the star of the tale however, and it's his home we get to see as a secondary location after the party. Above, I've begun taking snaps of the set from various angles and started playing with illustrative texture to give a sense of how the finished pages might look. Here, you can see, from over the crest, the Mouse's front yard, with its two large fruit trees and new twig garden gate.

A lot of finishing has been done to the mouse's house, since you've seen it. A twig bench under the cherry tree awaits a weary gardener with a small broom. As he climbs the steeply-strepped hill to tend his new flower and vegetable gardens just beneath his front door. (details of what Cirelle and I used to make some of these tiny props just below).

Cirelle, you are a wonder and delight. Magic follows wherever you go. Thank you for coming here.

Meet Constance: Bamboozled in the Groovy Grove

2011-01-07T23:37:00.000-08:00

Sweet and shy, Constance peers through the Bamboo Grove set in progress.

Constance has been coming to Halfland for months already and this is the first chance I've had to introduce her and some of the marvelous contributions she's been making here.

Here she's reinforcing Peggy's cardboard trees with scrap lumber so they can be made to stand as scenery flats.

She's one of the rare go-getter-people who dives right in and gets a lot done with focus and enthusiasm. It's really rough though because we want to work on Halfland and get great things done but then also just sit, laugh, and talk, and enjoy the delicious coffee she brings from the farmers market and the produce from her own garden. I find her company charming and intellectually stimulating. Her sensitive insights are a joy to discuss.

She's also wryly funny and quick to joke, here she eyes the camera through the Time Frog's belly in progress.

One of the first projects she tackled with me was the Bamboo Grove that will be the setting for Yanu the Luna Moth Man to appear in carrying the Moon Lantern through at night. Here's the How-to:

33 slim, 8' pieces of emerald green bamboo, heavy with natural resin, were given to me from a nearby meditation garden. We took a scaffold plank I had here and cut it in two to ease moving this mini strip set around. Next we used various sizes of hole saws to drill down about 2 inches into the planks 33 times. The round cores left in the wood had to be chipped out by hand. Each piece of bamboo was fitted with wood inside the base as tightly as possible (see lower left) so that the screws from underneath the planks would have something firm to bite into. Next each hole was fitted with a slice of cardboard tubing that fit its interior diameter to act as a support collar for the bamboo.

After each piece was secured by long wood screws from under the plank up into the (now) wood centers of the bamboo, we slathered on batches of anchor cement in and around the tube collars like little mounds of ground. With this method, as described above, even though it may seem laborious (and it definitely was!) we created a very secure, solid, stable 6' wide, 8 ' tall bamboo curtain that can have an afterlife as decorative room divider in our home after filming is complete.

We knew the lovely color of the boo couldn't last over time so we mixed a glaze of wood dye, ink, and and matte medium to paint the grove a few coats. Then Constance added hand-cut crepe paper leaves to the natural vines throughout the grove. We finished it off with a brown bag paper maché base around the collars extending beyond the plank width, covering that in dirt, and hand-gluing forest debris in place.

Please see photos below for previews of how the moon lantern (also already beautifully built by Miss Constance) will look as the light interacts on the surface of the bamboo stalks as Yanu passes through them...

Constance, you are an amazing assistant here and I can't wait to see what butterflies you come up with!

I'm so lucky to have your help.

Meet Carol: Tea Cup Roses Finally Bloom

2011-01-07T22:33:00.000-08:00

Carol in initial grass proving grounds, two upper left shots, then in charge of the roses on the right and bottom left. It takes an extra artful eye to create something beautiful while under interrogation-style lighting at night here.

I've known Carol for over twenty-five years. I knew her as the always well-dressed woman with the artful eye making interiors, cakes, and gardens, look professionally designed. But one day not so long ago, Carol asked to come along to Halfland with Sherie on Friday evenings after their workday was done. I coldly told her to have a look at the blog and see whether this madness was remotely anything she'd like to work on. And to my amazement it was! o.0

I put her in grass-making purgatory at first, not really yet understanding the depth of her talents. But right away she rocked the grass so heavily I was taken aback! She took it to a whole other level of realism and beauty that will become key throughout the set landscape.

The roses growing outside the cottage on the right, and being placed on the interior wall upper left and from Rana's bed lower left.

I soon realized that Carol was going to be a huge boon to the set building and thought to give her a fun, plum job that I'd been relishing the idea of doing myself, the Tea Cup Roses. The tiny cups had been thrown and made to look as though they were growing on a bush, the coffee filter roses had been made and were painted in soft pinks and corals, even the twig trellis and silk rose vines had already been painted and prepped. All that was left was the task of taking those elements and making them look as though they were growing outside the cottage bedroom window and then right through the window and onto the interior bedroom wall.

I'm trilled with her results. And Carol has gone on since to design and create the drapery around the bed using fabrics with various seed pods! I'm going to ask her to complete the Tudor windows next and then... Who knows, but whatever it is she'll do it so beautifully I'll be amazed!

So happy Carol is here!

A Real Halfland Discovered!

2011-01-07T13:18:00.000-08:00

photo by Carsten Peter for National Geographic

In case someone ever wonders, "Where is Halfland?" I always knew that the Halfland we see in the film series, with Rana's cottage on a little hill next to a stream, was on a large island, in a huge sea-like lake, that's in the middle of another island, that's in the middle of yet another huge lake, etc. (there is such a thing by the way, Goggle ette!)

But just this week, folks, I heard about a brand new remarkable true life discovery that gave me a bit of wonderment shivers. Um, yeah, so I can't really imagine anything more fantasy storybook like than what actually apparently exists. I'm now thinking that the entire set of islands and lakes described above, is ultimately residing within AN ENORMOUS UNDERGROUND CAVERN! Can you deal with this?!

From the National Geographic article by Mark Jenkins:

...Hang Son Doong, or “mountain river cave,” in a remote part of central Vietnam. Hidden in rugged Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park near the border with Laos, the cave is part of a network of 150 or so caves, many still not surveyed, in the Annamite Mountains...

...There are actually wispy clouds up near the ceiling...

...swifts are diving and cutting in the brilliant column of sunshine. The tableau could have been created by an artist imagining how the world looked millions of years ago...

...The whole region was squeezed upward when the Indian subcontinent smashed into the Eurasian continent 40 to 50 million years ago,” he says. Hang Son Doong was formed two to five million years ago, when river water flowing across the limestone burrowed down along a fault, scouring out a giant tunnel beneath the mountains. In places where the limestone was weak, the ceiling collapsed into sinkholes, creating the gigantic skylights...

...Below the opening is another mountain of breakdown with a jungle of hundred-foot-tall trees, lianas, and burning nettles...

The mind boggles at this astounding world.

Countdown to John Ikuma's Fund Raising

2010-12-30T17:43:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO CONTRIBUTED TO JOHN'S FUNDRAISING, LOOKS LIKE HE'S MADE HIS GOAL! Thanks to all! The film promises to be fantastic and I hope John will let us know if he needs anything further to git-'er dun. GO JOHN!

In addition to creating, writing for, editing, and publishing Stop Motion Magazine, John Ikuma has begun directing and producing a documentary all about the rolicking stop motion vibe happening in Los Angeles right now. There are so many fantastic projects underway and John has taken it upon himself to document as many as possible to share with the world.

He's interviewing many people you know and love {like. cough. me.} and might like to see more of. He's got $1,530 already raised for his $2,000 goal to fund the film. There's just 30 hours left in the campaign. Are you interested in donating too? Viva la Arts! Hop to it!

John thanks you I'm sure! (nicest guy in LA)

The Ugly

2010-12-30T16:20:00.000-08:00

Talking to my dear friends, Darkstrider and Yaz via email, across the country and across the globe. I wanted them to see a dilemma I'm wrestling with regarding the set. Shot a few shots of the backside of the set (that which is not-ready-for-publication) to kind of give them a feel for what it would be like if they visited here in person.

I'm hoping they'll tell me what to do because this sort of thing is not my area. I decided to make it a post instead, to let all the ugly hang out for all to see. If I don't show all the challenges with the project as well as the triumphs then what good is it?

I'm not after making the set "properly built" or even remotely professional. What it lacks in construction will be more than made up for by the overall effect of the film by the time it's done. Creative shot set ups due to set limitations, erasing major uglies in post, etc.

So, thank you for taking a look and telling me what you'd do... (hopefully type/notes are large enough to read when clicked on?)

Field Report: My Annual Spiritual Pilgrimage

2010-12-10T18:11:00.000-08:00

Wednesday was KIT KRAFT DAY, people! you know, the one day a year I'm in the area for another reason and can actually get myself to Kit Kraftapolooza in person! Sure their website is easy to navigate and their order processing is the fastest in the business, but nothing beats spending 3 hours there, poking in every single corner, checking out the new products, picking up essentials, finding creative inspiration.

Their sales people are sincerely cheerful and utterly non-pushy. Here the fabulous Sarah rings up my order (booty). It was a lot (I opted to grab 25 lbs of Ultracal to start to make the puppets in earnest) but Mike was great as usual and made it easy for me. With all the fun bits I bought, all I could say when I got the total was that that is a LOT of fun for that money.

Owner Mike Sitkin once again kindly shipped my Christmas card collaboration package down to Mark Fullerton. Why I always happen to have that vital and timely holiday package in my hand on Kit Kraft Day I'll never know. But Mike uses his Super Shipping Chute to get Mark the Xmas materials super fast. I just subscribed to their new bad ass blog too.

Check out the very cool Nightmare Before Christmas Trading Figures and Scenes he's got. They looked really neat and the price was good too. Great to grab if you're a collector.

Thanks, Mike and crew, Hope to see you next trip!

Sparsely Parsley

2010-12-10T17:11:00.000-08:00

Cirelle and I collaborated on a way to integrate grass into the cottage roof on the low side that nearly blends into the hillside, which will have matching grass planted on it. She and I got as far as cutting fitted foam core to fit the gaps left in the shingled panel and covering it with paint and a layer of dirt.

I took it from there the next day and discovered several cool 1/2L. ideas in the process. That's often the magical gift of Cirelle and the other wonderful workers that come over to contribute, they resolve a solution with me and then I'm free and clear to simply create. They get me over any inertia and confusion and keep the project moving, inch by inch.

I've given the team the holidays off and plan to resume, with my strength restored, in January. Until then I'm on my own in Halfland, wanting to go 50 directions at once with a terrible yearning.

Mark Fullerton and I are collaborating and making Xmas 2010 in the meanwhile. Woot.

Halfland Special Guests: Sweet Hearts

2010-12-03T00:15:00.000-08:00

Had the special treat of a rare visit from Portlanders Sven Bonnichsen and Gretchen Lair of Scarlet Star Studios. Passionate animator friends and supporters of art and artists. I've known them both for years online, had met Sven once before in 2007, but never had the delight before of getting to fleshy-see the darling Gretchen.

They were at the tail end of an epic Stop Motion tour through LA stop motion houses during the holidays and stopped overnight in Halfland before heading back up for home.

Two nicer and sweeter people you'll never meet. They both find magic everywhere they go. If they found themselves in Hell they'd admire the pretty colors the flames were reflecting against the hell cave. They're thoroughly charming! (As it was we nearly froze them out here during the night in this big drafty heatless loft. We gave them every blanket in the house, a hot water bottle, an electric bed pad and the poor dears shivered trying to stay warm using a paltry heating pad. But other than that they had a marvelous time with us! brrrr.) Being Gretchsven, they made the most of it. I'm so glad I got a chance to sit and visit and get to know them both a wee bit better than the internet will allow. Sensitive, thoughtful, sweet-natured, intelligent.

Have these people over! They bring homemade caramel sauce!

Sven was gripped by the armature Yuji made in Tom B's workshop.

Sven caught taking photos of other Halfland visitors.

Come again soon, you Darling Lovebirds!

Topping It Off

2010-11-24T05:00:00.000-08:00

We are in the midst of constructing the cottage roof and it's coming out so wonderfully, it may take the whole place into a whole new level of cozy richness.

Cirelle and I have been struggling to install several roof joists in the cottage based on discussions I've had about it with Yuji and Shel during their visits. It's a complicated task as I need each panel of the roof to be removable for filming access and yet be independent from the walls in some places--nevermind it's nuts. To make matters worse, I started off by using free hardwood scraps I picked up from a scrap bin and they have been tough/impossible to get screws into, etc. but I'm too stubborn to replace them now.

What has worked is making a paper pattern for the space between the joists and using the pattern to get the odd shape in cardboard. Cirelle painted each side of the cardboard with a wash of brown (inside side) or redwood (topside side). She perfectly hot glued on cedar shims for the interior of the roof that I stained the next morning with various shades of wood dye and walnut ink (seen above on left looking up from the floor with the first panel set above the bed, behind the new red canopy being built beautifully by Carol.)

Cirelle in in the process of hand placing each cut and stained cedar shim shingle using a clever pattern of her own design. The giant pail of shingles I've had ready for the whole roof have nearly been used up on just the first panel... so, I'll need to get about 10 more packs to cut down and get ready for the rest.

One of the problems with a long term project is that I forget ideas by the time the build time comes around. I recall preparing to use redwood lathing strips for the interior rafters. But I actually think the cardboard covered with shims end up looking nicer, thanks to Cirelle's skill.

Halfland Character Development: Tarn

2010-11-12T09:33:00.001-08:00

Halfland Character Development: Tarn, originally uploaded by Nobledesign (please click through for larger view).

fyi, Moo.com (a great custom print company) is having a 72 hour sale on all printed products so I thought to grab the opportunity and get a set of miscellaneous art cards made up.

Each card can be a different image with them (!) so I chose a few random art images from the project and others to have made.

While I was looking for character sketches, I came across the development folder for the Tarn sketch. I thought you might like to see some of the intermediate stages of transformation from human to Halfling that took place in Photoshop via layering, coaxing, and finessing.

Halfland Puppets: Handicapped Butterflies

2010-11-02T23:31:00.000-07:00

I always envisioned Halfland's Handicapped Butterflies as beautiful and winsome creatures with exquisite wings and clearly human bodies. They are called handicapped because their forms would be misshapen, deformed, or disabled in some obvious way, not to be crass or insensitive. I wanted them to make an elegant statement as they silently flew past us in the garden that while their human bodies may be impaired, it didn't matter at all because they were quite gracefully able to fly. My point was that a hampered body need not make one useless or of no consequence. As a matter of fact, in Halfland such things are perfectly accepted as part of normal wonderful life.

I used hyper lightweight air dry fluffy clay mixed to a light flesh color. It took me and Constance a while to get the hang of how to sculpt such a small figure. I was after the impressionistic style of form that my friend Ronda was known for in her ceramics (see the vase she made for me in the middle behind the foam block, the one with women sitting around the top.) I found the best way for me was to make the bodies in sections; legs, torso, heads and arms, that would be attached with 34 guage wire after they cured the next day. Minute details like vertebrae, calf muscles, knees, elbows, nipples, heels, etc. were added under magnifier with small brush and Omnigel.

Constance delved into Google to find us a selection of butterfly wings that we printed out to scale. I used Omnigel coated wax paper as their material and traced their patterns in pastel chalks and flocking powders.

When I finally paired each finished nude human body with each finished set of wings I was disappointed that they looked too much like fairies, which wasn't what I was after at all. I wanted a more Fine Art, serious result and these were coming out pretty cutesy-pie. Frustrated, I went back in with a vengeance with a blade and hacked them all into slimmer limbs and smaller faces. I glued legs together and flocked their bodies in an effort to make them cross back over into being more insect-like in the bodies. Added and hand striped my finest wire as antenna, which photographs as still too thick.

I'd say that only 2 or 3 survived the make-over as viable characters. I set them on Carol's stunningly lovely finished Teacup Rose trellis on set to see if that helped their effect somewhat. Still not sure.

I did my absolute best with them, although I'm not sure I succeeded. I learned a lot about sculpting tiny figures and am much more adept at it after this experience. While I'm proud of the success of such tiny sculpts in general, I'm not sure they are up to snuff for the film.

I made them so small that I wonder if the effect I wanted would even be possible at this size. I spent so many hours making these over the last two weeks that I have to declare them all done at this scale for now, try them for distant shots in the garden, and may end up trying to make them again, larger for close-ups, after everything else is done.

Read Her Palm

2010-11-02T22:42:00.000-07:00

Isn't this gorgeous?! It the finished palm tree that one of Halfland's Angel Army made during the last few months of her Friday visits. It's just exactly right for Halfland, hand-made, almost real looking, made from humble, simple materials through artistry. It'll look amazing next to the Serpent Sage Musician's desert tent in the film's last scene.

Sherie from the Sea, a very special regular Halfland Helper, started making the desert palm with me last summer. We cut leaf shapes out of ordinary brown grocery bags and layered them over iron wire and painted them rich greens. Many lent a hand cutting each leaf into fine angled fringes.

We covered a series of cardboard tubes with rustic brown papyrus paper, found at Pearl Paint, to simulate loose striated bark. She took her time add carefully added tiny strands of coconut fiber in between each fold of the bark. She collected fallen bamboo husks to use as the bottoms of fronds at the top of the tree. She finished the look perfectly by adding dyed corn husks over the palm date clusters. Speaking of them...

Dates happen around here. In the middle of all this creativity, my friend, (the talented photographer who shot the image used in the new banner) David stopped by to shoot the goings on and promptly got his heart completely stolen by Miss Sherie. (Who could blame him?! She's divine.) All everyone here knew was that David sure enough hung around that night after the shoot "helping" Sherie by painting the dates purple for her tree! (that's him auditioning them for her, bottom right) They closed down the place, talking, laughing, and giggling for hours, and then grabbed a coffee together after I threw them out--I mean asked them to leave! I got a one-word email the next day from David, "Wow."

Halfland dating indeed! l'Sigh. l'Amore. Muse R Us©.

So now with the tree all done and marvelous, I've assigned Sherie to start construction on the Musician's tent next. I've already dyed the old clothes that will be its fabrics in deep yellows and pale saffrons. One of the first tasks Sherie ever did here was to overpaint a collection of brocades several shades of bright orange for this same character's costume. The desert scene (Film 3 in the story outline) seems to be a perfect-fit niche for Sherie.

I Call Her

2010-11-02T20:34:00.000-07:00

Only about 6 months LATE! I can now tell you about a special Halfland guest artist from last June.... Mariah! At the time she was just 14 (3 YEARS YOUNGER THAN HALFLAND ITSELF!!! please never speak of this again.) Now who can say how old she is. She probably has 2 kids in college. Nevertheless, it was very special having her here because every time her uncle Peter and aunt-in-law Pauli (in yellow below) would visit her family on the East Coast they would regale Mariah with tales of Halfland and it's magicalness.

As she grew, she become fevered to come and visit this place she could only see on the blog. One day last summer, she and her mom made their way out to the coast to visit. Being a great host, Pauli gave Mariah a long list of fantastically fun tourist destinations for her to choose from to do during her week-long visit. She requested to only come to Halfland... to work.... TWICE! (sigh, I could not have been more delighted!) She's the kind of young person I admire! Why sit on a beach sipping tea or go shopping for cute things when you can build a mushroom village?! Exactly.

Pauli (dear long time friend of my husband and myself), Mariah, and her lovely and funny mom, Margi, spent two days here cutting all manner of vegetation and telling funny stories. They are a total blast to hang with and the girls in blue above live far too far away.

Mariah was happy to really get involved in the set building. She helped me add tiny doors on mushroom houses and landscape their porches with small geraniums and stones. She darn near built the waterwheel that powers the bug's party lights in the stream by herself too. (see her concentrating on it like a maiden in a classical painting at the top) Margi and Pauli wailed away on the crepe paper grass planting on the meadow.

More than anything else it was so encouraging to have someone like Mariah interested in spending her vacation time on the project. I found her to be at once knowing, innocent, honest, and charming.

I'm tardy in saying so here, but I want her and her cohorts to know that their coming here, appreciating and helping build the set meant the world. Thank you, Dears, thank you.

Next time you're out this way I hope you'll stop by and see what we're up to.

Birthing Yanu

2010-10-05T08:16:00.000-07:00

Meet Yanu, the owner/wearer of those lovely silk Luna moth wings just made. I wasn't expecting to make him now and then BAM! Here he is! Very quick sculpt. But then, Halfland is all about transformations. The transformations from one thing into another, like the caterpillar to a moth, like day into night, like a lump of clay into a living creation.

Tape and wire armature attached to wooden square stock on base. Paper wings that were used as the pattern for the silk version were attached for scale as clay musculature was added in layers.

His face went through several transformations, the last a surprise to me. (Click to enlarge for reading notes.).

It was a challenge to articulate facial features the way I wanted on a sculpt the size of a walnut. I finally resorted to a magnifying visor worn over my specs and knit cap. I may look funny but I'm thrilled that Yanu has arrived.

On a Prayer and a Wing

2010-10-01T03:01:00.000-07:00

Constance and I dove right into making Yanu's Luna moth wings and started working out a technique that turned out so well I believe I'll make all the rest of Halfland's insect wings with this exact method.

This could be my favorite Halfland build so far! After Constance and I built the bamboo grove set (I'm so behind in posting you likely don't even know yet about Constance, or the bamboo grove!), we started constructing/designing the illuminated moon lantern that the Mothman character, Yanu, will carry through the grove in the dark (you heard me!) Then somehow, one thing lead to another and all of a sudden Yanu himself started wanting to be finally realized in the flesh.We started puppet building with Google, calling up as many images and videos of Luna moths as we could wish for. (The age we live in offers increasingly awe-inspiring privileges in its making it so effortless to have all that we need at hand to create.)

I strung an old piece of silk voile on a large quilter's hoop and secured the fabric all around with tape. Affixed scale print outs of the character's wings to acetate to the underside of the fabric with more tape. Next I used fine (34 metric gauge) gold wire lengths and positioned them as "ribs" in the wing structure, using the print outs as the guide. These wires were held in place with the use of straight pins pushed through all the layers, to make the ribs curve and stay close to the silk.

Then several coats of matte medium on both sides were applied to adhere the gold wires in place. I mixed a custom florescent UV reactive paint, to capture the Luna moths' elusive, delicate blue green color, and hand-colored the wings on both sides over the dry matte medium layer. Walnut ink and dye was used to tinge the edges for an organic look.

To securely sandwich the wire structure between 2 layers of silk, I brushed on a flood of matte medium, carefully pressing down the new top layer tightly around each little wire. The resulting durable wings are animatable, due to arcs of aluminum at the top of each wing part, and the thin gold wires supporting well the shape. And yet it's all still nicely translucent as well (see back lit photos just above).

Then came my Graham Owen-inspired moment. One of the reference images I had from a moth and butterfly macro photography book showed the phenomenal feather-like texture of these wings, including the elaborate mosaic that make up the four "eyes" on the wings. I started painting the ovals organically with yellow paint (as seen doing above) and used many colors of flocking powders and chalks to emulate the eyes on both sides You can see the feathery texture the flocking powders give when seen through a magnifier above. I dusted each segment of each wing on both sides with white flocking powder, to avoid coating the wires.

Once fully painted, I freed each wing part from the hoop by cutting around the paper pattern shape I had been following. I layered the top and bottom wings, shaping the frill of the tails with the wires, and was blown away at how beautiful, natural, and functional these came out. My newest 1/2L thrill.

Fireside: No Chat

2010-09-13T22:55:00.000-07:00

No time for much detail. Things busier than ever, even. Preparing for giving art workshop for 60 "non-artists" this weekend, great madness. And still the Halfland Army marches over here to work on the set twice this week as well. Old friend from New York visiting, finishing book project, etc. Had to pop in to show something in Halfland that was finally finished a while back, before the fray.

I'll let the photos tell the tale of the beautiful cottage hearth. Crepe paper, chalks, paints, super shiny threads from silk cellophane glued on. Deer moss painted with florescent ember colors, hit on the surface with ashen grays. Sewn onto wire mesh base as ashes. Mini firewood made from dried twigs hand-split with hammer and chisel.

Iron crane swings kettle in and out for heating water for a cuppa. Made very stable and smooth moving by forging custom metal mechanism and attaching it to the hearth with Sugru silicone. Hearth is lit inside by special candle flame bulb fitted and connected to an outlet via hole cut into set underneath the tree. (Bottom two right hand side images taken by photographer friend, David Sand. More great stuff from his visit here in store.)

Lookie there, I talked even when I didn't think I could.

Where the Bugs Go

2010-09-03T07:05:00.000-07:00

The Halfland garden needed mushrooms. The mushrooms needed red plaid tablecloths. These made it look like a cafe. The cafe needed tiny cups and saucers for the cafe and to appear as spots.

It went on from there folks!

Since the photos above, the entire outcropping of mushrooms became instead the bug party cafe where grasshopper waiters swing down from the buggy paper lanterns to serve nectar and pollen cupcakes to the drab insects in fancy dress petals and dancing shoes!

The entire matter is OUT OF CONTROL adorable and will require being made into it's own puppetry illustrated story book as soon as the film series is completed.

For how I made the tea service check the Paper Forest blog....

Halfland Army

2010-09-02T22:44:00.000-07:00

An absolute troop of wonderful people have been coming over to Halfland regularly to help build the set(s)! How can I express my gratitude? (Dusting off this precious blog to dash off a peek of part of why I've been away so long!)

It's an incredible turn of events over here. Without my doing anything to promote it, there have been a steady stream of great people lending their time and talents here over the past few months and it continues!

Some are professional animators, some just like the creative outlet, some come twice a week (!), some come once a week, some come in the evenings on Fridays, some were up here installing lighting fixtures and were recruited for a minute, some (a teenager!) requested to visit here (twice!) on their family trip to Los Angeles!

As this small sampling of photos suggest--things are happening!

It's more than what the people accomplish during their time here. It's the effect of their coming over that causes me to get organized and very clear about what needs to be done, and who could help with what. What are the things I need to do myself so that the film remains my personal expression. And what tasks can be collaborated on and in some ways delegated gratefully to my awaiting, newly-formed Halfland Posse.

All this human energy is getting transformed into this film series while genuine friendships, kindnesses, (even romances!) are happening along with it. Los Angeles readers of the blog are welcome to join in Friday evenings from 5 – 8 pm. Contact me with a request.

Quickie*: Exterior Miniature Landscapes (in progress)

2010-07-13T20:27:00.001-07:00

Quickie*: Exterior Miniature Landscapes (in progress)
Originally uploaded by Nobledesign

Cirelle is a goddess who knows nature by heart. She explained about Riparian plants near water as we built this setting for the amazing Time Frog puppet.

*Fast talking, brief vid grab of current batch of progress on Halfland set. Still photo posts with more detail are planned.

Quickie*: Cottage Interior 1 (in progress)

2010-07-13T20:24:00.001-07:00

Quickie*: Cottage Interior 1 (in progress)
Originally uploaded by Nobledesign

The birds need help. But since they were made I got better tactics for making the pupps. May try again to get it right.

*Fast talking, brief vid grab of current batch of progress on Halfland set. Still photo posts with more detail are planned.

Quickie*: Cottage Interior 2 (in progress)

2010-07-13T20:19:00.001-07:00

Quickie*: Cottage Interior 2 (in progress)
Originally uploaded by Nobledesign

The list is getting longer instead of shrinking but I can't imagine cutting out any drop of this fun.

*Fast talking, brief vid grab of current batch of progress on Halfland set. Still photo posts with more detail are planned.

Quickie*: Attic (in progress)

2010-07-13T20:17:00.001-07:00

Quickie*: Attic (in progress)
Originally uploaded by Nobledesign

A lot more to document but it's THRILLING to see it all come together now.

"A 20 year sprint" is what I'm calling it now.

*Fast talking, brief vid grab of current batch of progress on Halfland set. Still photo posts with more detail are planned.

Quickie*: Left Bank (in progress)

2010-07-13T20:09:00.001-07:00

Quickie*: Left Bank (in progress), originally uploaded by Nobledesign.

This is the kind of thing that moves me most. "Is that what I think I see?" Halfland let's me make my own illusions in nature, physically with my own hands.

*Fast talking, brief vid grab of current batch of progress on Halfland set. Still photo posts with more detail are planned.

Quickie*: Bug Party Set (in progress)

2010-07-13T19:59:00.001-07:00

Quickie*: Bug Party Set (in progress), originally uploaded by Nobledesign.

Wasn't on The Build List but sort emerged itself. Mushrooms, plaid mushrooms, plaid mushrooms with tiny doors and porches, plaid mushroom houses with tiny plates and tea cups and saucers for spots, a cafe. A cafe for bugs. A cafe for bugs to party at night. A party for bugs with tiny paper lanterns shaped like bugs as if made from old chrysalis, petals and seeds. Party lights powered by the stream via a water wheel... you get the idea!

*Fast talking, brief vid grab of current batch of progress on Halfland set. Still photo posts with more detail are planned.

No Internet for a bit: Working on Halfland

2010-06-26T16:22:00.000-07:00

Cat vomit + surge suppressor + my ham-fisted attempts to reconfigure + no one handy to help deep tech = no internet at home for a bit.

BUT!!!! There's so much action going on in Halfland, I'm a just little wee bit glad!

I was showing Sherie around the progress last night (after she and I were building an incredible paper palm tree for the desert set!) and I was taken aback by what I was showing her. I mean I've been having the time of my life building things for the project but to see how much has been actually done now and how truly pleased I am with the way its all turning out was kind of an objective progress report. One that I am surprised at loving this much. My only regret at the moment is not having the ability/time to document it here. It's a criminal lack of wonderful information at this point! Photos are archived already of each step however.

I'm hatching a slick, fast plan to catch readers here up on (what I feel are) the AWESOME results!

In the meanwhile, trust that I'm wailing away on all fronts of it in bliss.

Be well, each of you, and may you enjoy these precious days of making your art. I remain your fan.

[written from dear Paul's office laptop]

Flash Post: Spider Lives in Attic

2010-06-09T17:56:00.001-07:00

spider lives in attic, originally uploaded by Nobledesign.

I loaded all the attic goods into the loft shelf and secured them with hot glue. I noticed that the sacks of fleece would make a good background for the Knitting Beetles. And also that there was a cozy spot behind everything where a spider could live and work. If I make twig and wire mullions in a certain way and aim a strong direct spotlight at that window. an illusion is created where it looks as though he is in a full web, half the web made from shadow. I just need to raise him up on something (here in the above mock up I'm using a lump of stuffing to test the shadow)

Flash Post: Mouse House Exterior

2010-06-09T17:55:00.001-07:00

mouse house exterior, originally uploaded by Nobledesign.

This elaborate exterior landscape for the Mouse's house was entirely unplanned, FAST to make, and so charming as part of the larger set! I plan to show the details of turning dead house plants into mini olive and cherry tress, planting a mini raised bed veggie garden, and tiny roses for the bramble gate and fencing.

Exceeding fun limits over here.

Flash Post: Cottage Loaded

2010-06-09T17:50:00.001-07:00

cottage loaded, originally uploaded by Nobledesign.

Really helpful placing the furnishing and props into the cottage interior. It not only looks amazing when I turn around from my computer to get up and am smacked by this TOTALLY REALIZED LIFE that some small being is dwelling in. After getting everything in but the food, I can see that the place could really be lived in, if one fit. Cooking could be done. Sleeping, sewing, resting, thinking, visiting with friends, enjoying the fire, etc. It's all there now.

Discovered a few things; one, is that the Marching Ants would be by far easier to animate across the sturdy cemented window sill rather than the awkward to work on slat flooring. Two is that slat flooring actually makes creaking sounds exactly like a real old floor! (note to the sound dept.). I learned I need to lower the chandolier slightly. I learned that the table and chairs should be right in the middle of the space instead of against the bay window (removed from set above).

And most importantly of all, I learned to STOP making things now! It's full. Fully packed with detail, marvelous detail and vignettes. It works.

All I need still do to the interior is:
Install tufts of grass along the floor's edge.
Finish the bed canopy.
Install the Bee hive under the roots.
Install the Bird's nests.
Make the Caterpillow for the bed.
Finish the rose wallpaper panels and blend that treatment into the wine color of the rest of the walls.
Glue everything down.

Add a roof and coppola to the exterior, pickle it in white, rig a water bucket pulley, construct a porch, and calm the Signs of the Apocolypse around the globe, and we're ready to start shooting!

Insane Gains: Peak Progress Peek

2010-05-30T03:42:00.000-07:00

Been working on graphic projects, a years' worth done in a few weeks, and getting more done on Halfland than in a year at the same time. Loads of solid satisfying progress and ideas gelling together. These photos only hint at what fun's been going on over here. Just couldn't wait any longer to at least give a peek... Details, if important?, later on. That's the plan. Hoping you all are well!

How will I ever catch you up? Puppet Building Underway

2010-05-08T16:58:00.000-07:00

Finally, after many long years, I finally have an animatable Pink Snail puppet completed. It's all entirely flexible and can ripple at the edges.

Two important things about this post. One is that puppet building has commenced in Halfland in earnest. Making the Koi puppet from foam ignited my ability to make all the characters EASILY! EASILY EASILY! No sweat whatsoever, just the fun parts. The four main characters will still be cast from molds (more on the wild method/material solution I've been using in the next posts), but now the rest of the cast won't be. Heh.

Using the build-up method instead is not only knocking out these long-standing puppets but also giving me a chance to test material and techniques for the more featured puppets later on.

Built around two tie down points, this foam fellow has twisted wire inside its length (finishing at the lower lip loop), and metal gutter mesh on the underside all the way to the fluted edges of the sides. I used two glass beads for the eyes, from a pair of earrings Cirelle donated, secured into rubber tubing eye stalks filled with wire. It's all one piece deep within the wooden head parts. The top layers were paint, flexible cement, and heavy gloss medium.

It's embarrassing to say, but I'm choosing to say everything here just as-it-is regardless. It's not deeply meaningful or anything profound to me, just a throw away subconscious joke, like the Knitting Beetles, or Lightning in a Bottle, etc., but the Pink Snail with the home on her back, is partly meant to be female genitalia-like, as well as just storybook sweet.

When I was young, a girl was joking about girls leaving snail trails if they were dragged along (I know, sorry, but it stuck in my subconscious), and the whole sort of slick glossy pink undulating flesh thing that snails are, added to the feeling. The shape and two ovary/fallopian tube-like eyes cinches the metaphor for me.

I was really worried about having such an overtly sexual element in this (notwithstanding Yanu's visible hoohah and the whole snake/male muscle deal with the sage.) I think I'm a prude really. So as I was making the puppet above, I thought of changing the color to a more realistic color and avoiding the whole treacherous vagina idea... then from the Weirdness Dept.... as I started to paint the finished puppet with a WHITE base coat [see lower right above], W H I T E mind you, no color at all anywhere on the brush, water, table, etc. it brushed on PINK!!!! On its own. I swear it's true. The pale color pink you see in that photo appeared on its own. I took it as a sign to go ahead as I'd always intended and I just went for it, even telling you all what she/it represents here. So, there it is.

Probably the best news is that I not only finished the puppet at last, but also her house to a 100% level.

I rigged her porch lantern with a yellow painted balloon LED (My favorite little special effect trick b/c they're so cheap and easy--that's doesn't sound right given this post). I painted her window box with more colors. I added fiberfill smoke wisps to her chimney. And although it won't likely ever be filmed, you should know that inside her tiny floral wall-papered house is a painted portrait of her mom.

Already begun construction on the large scale garden path near the cottage for her to lumber through in the evening rain.

Halfland Hommies*: The Fringe Element

2010-05-07T02:03:00.000-07:00

Last Friday was a very special Girl Friday. Not only could Cirelle make it, but also Nancy and Sherie! They all rearranged their schedules (one took a half vacay day!) to generously contribute to Halfland. They all have worked together in the past, get along fantastically, and are glad to see each other here. I can't describe the boost they gave me and the project by coming en force and launching the "Big Planting" of the set.

Cirelle & Nancy car-pooled and arrived for the first few hours of the day to have lunch and start cutting the crepe paper greens into beautiful grass fringe bundles. Then as Sherie arrived, it was time to start planting the tufts. Each Hommie was given a set of gardening tools to poke a hole in the set landscape, hot glue a drop in the hole, and hold a bunch of blades in place until secure. Immediately I noticed how much a few sprouts made the whole terrain come alive.

A lot of progress is happening here that I hope to get to post soon, all while I'm otherwise busier than ever as well. I have to think it's the quality of these extraordinary people lending their refined energy and support that are helping to make things happen.

In one of my favorite photos for the blog, Downstairs Jean, an avid Notes reader, shows off her wacky sense of fun perfectly.

AS if that wasn't enough, our fabulous downstairs neighbor, Jean, allowed herself to be kidnapped for a bit for grassing purposes on Monday as well. She made ideal turf tufts and planted a wee hill with them. While she was here I got to brain storm methods and materials for blending these tufts into the bare soil easily so that less tufts will b e required to get the effect over all.

I used bleach and other mediums to try to manipulate the crepe paper blade tips. The crepe paper looks great as grass. The texture, the tensile strength, the loft, the light translucency, all conspire to fool the eye in the right way.

Be careful everyone, if you live anywhere near Halfland you may find yourself helping to build a tiny world.

Thanks to all my Tuft Tuffies, Halfland Hommies, Poking Pretties, Hole Hens, and Wild Grass Gardners. You all make mounds of joy.

(*So named after Nancy mis-read my "Welcome Halfland Hunnies" message on the kitchen chalkboard! Loved her version better!)

Catching Up: Playing Koi

2010-04-30T02:29:00.000-07:00

The pond is turning out so well, it called for a single koi to be seen rising from the murky depths to the water surface. Behold the Koi of Enlightenment. These underwater shots knock me out!

I had in mind to make a koi that looked like Chinese Joss prayer papers, all bright oranges and shiny gold. I meant this to be quick but it became intense yet incredibly useful. It was such a total blast making a puppet with carved foam that it got me hopped up to make most of the supporting puppets this way. (More on them as these posts roll out.)

Using that toy fish, that was in my mouth in earlier test shots, I snipped out a fish shape from a scrap of upholstery foam. Slit it open to insert and secure a simple twisted wire armature for fishy tail swishing. Here's where it all get ingenious by accident. I used the right-sized mesh nylon tuile applied with heavy gel gloss medium all over which looked for all the world like fish scales when painted. After my cat's eye paint failed to give the illuminated effect I wanted (post on that later) I gold-leafed his top-half (the eye was covered in gold leaf here, but his real eye underneath (see photo below) was made from gluing an acrylic halfdome onto a piece of real joss paper gold giving a most effective illusion of illumination in them)

This is where it got fun. I started hitting the scales with the orange paints and chalks, lightly over-brushing with white for definition. I could have/should have left him there. He looked cool and pretty. But oh no, I had to try new things and go too far. Heck, it's all a new thing, how could I know how far too-far was?

In any case I dropped tiny beads of clear glazes onto each of his scales which gave him a lumpy grotesque look rather than mystical. I then toned all that down with (of course) walnut ink which made it now no longer pretty, even when I tried brightening him back up and filling in his surface terrain with layers of clear medium until it was flush. I added matte medium to real orange feathers for his fins, fishy moustache, and tail. I could have worked his tail further to get that great graceful billow koi tail often have but I'd learned my lesson. In some cases, good enough is great.

Hey, what do you know? This is the Koi of Enlightenment after all! I discovered the technique I'll want to use to create the main character Kyra the mermaid's aqua blue tail now!

Catching Up: Growing a Backbone

2010-04-30T02:01:00.000-07:00

(SURPRISINGLY TO ME) Puppet Building has begun in earnest recently (more on that as the next few posts unroll). I bought this tortoise shell on my cross country drive in 1994 for the Torhare character which is a white rabbit with a tortoise's shell that Tarn uses like a horse. I bought it in New Mexico I think for $15. I always thought of using it to cast the character's shell, but it occurred to me to just use this real one and paint it with prettier colors.

I removed the grotty remains of the poor turtle ( you can see the way his spine is part of the shell itself (upper left) as I painted the shell opaque white. I then built up layers of color using finger rubbed chalks (upper right). A jewel-like iridescence was added to that with my special ceramic pearl waxes in lime green and emerald (lower left). The natural veins were made smudge brown via umber chalk after a tone-down with walnut ink solution.

Here the finished shell, ready for the rabbit foam build-up puppet to be made using the pure white rabbit skin bought in New York for the purpose.

Catching Up: Getting Sorted Out

2010-04-30T01:35:00.000-07:00

Things have been really rolling here in Halflandville over the last month. These next posts will be my attempt to catch you all up with all the headway.

Everytime I think of some concept or practical method of doing, having, saying, or making something for the film I jot the idea down and stick it in a box. This had lead to an avalanche of notes unread for years, and some very good ideas possibly being missed out on, connections in the story I'd made being buried, etc. Well, I sorted it all, all of it, every scrap, again. I even sorted and pasted up hundreds of image grabs from the web or print material onto more reference boards. It was madness.

I kept thinking I had "issues" but dear Paul, after having to step over them for weeks, laughed and decided the outcroppings of several sorting circles I was making all over the house were my art installations, bless him. I have given this a great deal of thought lately and come to the conclusion that I indeed do have issues but that I have found a way to direct them in a way that I feel good about. I seriously wonder what difference there ever is between an artist and a crazy person except the application. Word.

I was surprised by a few things during the organizing process. One was how many notes I had about the meanings and allegorical aspects of the project, soundscape ideas, etc. The other was how small character details connected in ways I'd forgotten.

I just remembered that one of the notes suggested "Lightning in a Bottle" (see previous post) So, that's how I got onto the idea! The fact that I had co-incidentally found the roots and put them in a bottle only made the dots easier to connect.

The other big innovation that came out of this exercise was that I finally got the idea to write the ideas directly onto the reference images! I can't begin to describe how completely cool this is. I grab a handful of scrap notes and go to the reference images on the wall the relate to that idea in each note and then write it down on the image collage wall. Doing this puts all the concepts for each aspect of the production in one place. When I build each puppet, set area, or prop, and refer to that area of the giant collage, I have all the ideas for that item right there to incorporate into it. Solid gold money idea, folks.

Animator Jessica Koppe and her code-friend and I are developing a project productivity site (maybe that's what got me going on getting the piles and stacks cleared out and in shape). I was testing an online tool for that and got all my current paid graphic jobs organized and scheduled, including all the remaining items needed for the project listed and on the fridge.

Rock, roll, and go go go>>>>

Catch Up: Catching Lightning in a Bottle

2010-04-27T03:11:00.000-07:00

I pulled up some dandelion weeds along the street to use their sturdy roots to grow through the roof of the mouse's house. I stuck them in a glass jar for safe keeping and thought they looked really interesting (left). Somehow I got onto the idea of having "lightning in a bottle" on the shelf in Rana's kitchen.

It's an old expression which loosely means doing the impossible, like catching Lightning in a bottle. At first I thought of printing out an image of a lightning strike onto a sheet of acetate, rolling it up to slip down the bottle's neck and there be unfurled with long tweezers, etc. But the effect didn't read properly. There wasn't clearly an actual lightning strike in there when I tried that. Then I thought of the roots...

I painted them pure stark white. They were flexible enough to slip down and durable enough to keep all the fine veining attached. I added a stormy gray wool cap and a focused balloon up light.

Here's a faint faraway test of how it looks when the little light is flashed quickly underneath the painted roots in the bottle. Please cue your own thunder sound effects in your head while watching the storm in the upper right hand side, thank you...

Halfland's Smallest Puppets:The Marching Ant* Mechanism

2010-04-14T16:00:00.000-07:00

The main character Rana will be the largest puppet in Halfland I think. She's about 13 inches (33.02 cm) tall. The Writing Mouse puppet is super tiny for a mouse at only an inch long in the body. But The Marching Ants will have to be regarded officially as the smallest ones built.

I started with tiny 1/2 inch HA! (1.27 cm) black plastic toy ants, normally used for funny picnic table decoration (seen center bottom of the Raschs visit). Using them as a base allows me to keep the entire row of them pretty uniform in size. I tried several ideas, but what is working for me now is to attach 3 pieces of 34 gauge fine black wire to each pair of insect legs, one wire running across the body at each pair of legs. A little, and I mean little, drop of glue to start, and then securing the wire to the toys by tightly winding with black sewing thread until the entire bug is covered well.

These bases will likely be finished with black iron paint and a touch of rust solution, kept fully flexible by mixing with heavy gloss medium, to reinforce their industrious industrial natures.

I plan on having about 10 of them made for a row. In order to animate all of their 60 tiny legs--in unison!--I devised a technique of attaching the long ends of the wires through balsa floorboards to be installed in the cottage. Each Ant will be firmly secured (tied down, attached) at intervals across three separate slats, all right front and right rear legs on one plank, center legs on the second, left set on a third. By alternating each plank forward a bit in turn the ants should hopefully appear (enough anyway) to "march" forward together.

Here's a little preliminary test video to check whether the feet sort of march as I push the floorboards in sequence. A row of finished ant puppets, attached to the slats in the same way can be animated all at once at floor level this way, hopefully, as I get more adept at it. I'll be sliding the slats through a guide to keep them flush to the surface later.

*Extra points to anyone who gets the joke in their being called that!

Pond Bottom Cam: Frog Belly Reveal

2010-04-14T03:18:00.000-07:00

Test shots for an under pond water pov concept I had as a way to bring greater dimension to the landscape itself as well as to show better what the Frog character is symbolizing. I tried various amounts of tulle and lighting to see if the concept worked, which I think it fully does!

(The bottom right shot makes me laugh. It's of my head, holding a rubber goldfish in my mouth HA!, captured during the test by mistake. As this was just a quick test, I didn't want to keep crawling under the set so I'd I just reach under the pond with my hands and couldn't see where I was aiming. I got better, you can see the fish "floating" in the lower left shot).

As soon as Cirelle and I installed the moss green ultrasuede-like fabric to the bottom of the set's pond, I realized I could shoot the reveal of the Time Frog's Belly Works from underneath by positioning the camera between the birth canal-like folds of the fabric and shoot up, through layers of sheer tulle water, to the sunlight above the water's surface.

I think it'll be a marvelous way to get a shot of the Time Frog's belly, to reveal the clockwork there. It will be hazy, but not as silhouetted as these tests. I can use a small underwater (:^}) directional spotlight to show off the belly area more clearly.

I've already begun designing the frog's clockwork and eyes. I plan to use photographs and cut out paper gears instead of real metal watch parts. I just want to suggest a working mechanism, not actually fiddle with making one.

Soon I hope to show you how kick-ass fantastic the pond is coming along shore-side! We're having so much fun with it.