october 31st 2006

october 29th 2006

say hello to tammy tomato, timmy tomato's HOT HOT galpal!
the tammy on the left is a non-operational tammy stand in doll and the tammy on the right is a functional puppet.
the tammy in the middle is for certain scenes which call for a smaller tammy tomato.
tomorrow it's back to drawing up a storm. i am looking forward to painting some more.
have a pleasant evening.

october 28th 2006

today i got a few things accomplished. the first accomplishment came as a complete surprise.
that surprise being an entire box full of human hair wigs at goodwill. these weren't on the menu when i left my home today
but seeing how useful a wig i already had was with the hug smuggler (see a few entries below) i decided it was something i couldn't pass up.

sven - electronic drums

lars - keyboards and programming

deiter - lead vocals and backup vocals

hans - keytar and 12 string bass

frank - electric bongos

this is my cats reaction to having a german industrial band in the kitchen.

the gang finally got their escalade today. they are now ready to roll.

and these are 2 mini-basketballs which will both become tammy tomatos. tomorrow they will be snazzed all up good like.
tonight they are drying.

october 27th 2006

today i painted a few pieces of chipboard i got from work. i have been thinking about this little dungeon for a week.
i do believe i'll give it a few outside elements to bring a more 3-d element to it but it's pretty much the look i was going for.
a few rocks here, a piece of branch there. it'll look all dungeony in no time. dungeony and a little less "birthday-ee"

october 26th 2006

today was slow at work so i sketched a whole lot. then i came home and painted heads while
watching the kids in the hall. i cut everything out and put it in an envelope. tomorrow i draw and
paint more. have a nice night.

october 25th 2006

october 24th 2006


today i drew up some heads and bodies for a character. i think i'm going to save the main characters
until the end for when i've got making them down to a science so they look very good. now i'm going to bed.

october 23rd 2006

today i had an idea on how to paint my characters. i would just use acrylic paint over sketches and see how it looked.
i made a sheet with a few heads of my buddy the bear here.

after i painted the sketches it was time to cut them out.

after all the pieces were cut out i put magnets behind them to attach the limbs and head

here is another pose.

here is the back of the bear with magnets. i will have to use smaller magnets because these ones have too much power
and arms want to stick to heads and all that jazz. no good. plus i won't have enough to do all the characters. i'm thinking about having
mounts on popsicle sticks so they can stand up. well, my main goal was to see how the paper would fare to me slopping
acrylic paint all over it cause if it didn't work i would have to find a tougher stock. it worked very very well.

october 22nd 2006

today i began experimenting with drawing styles for "the origin of the plunger".
i picked the brick wall in front of the patent office to begin with. my first idea for it didn't include so much color but i'm digging the way it looks.
the above brick wall was made with 4 different mediums and i really like the look. i'm excited about this.

this is my tool box which contains most of my pencil-like art tools. one day i found many of these toolboxes on sale at a discount store
and i stocked up on them. it's contents used to be all over the place everywhere, now they are all hanging out in one nice place together.

this is the mid level. i have exacto knives and razor blades and clay carving tools here. years of saving all this crap and now i have a reason to use it all.
very cool. i'm very happy.

here is the lower level. magic markers and colored pencils and pastels and fun things. oh good times.

basically all i got done today is small brick wall but now i know how i want it all to look and that was a giant leap.

october 21st 2006

here is the hug smuggler. i didn't think i would be doing this tonight but i did. i taped the first scene.
this is my pal stefan. i think he did a tremendous job. i have at least five versions of this which are all
equally hilarious if not more. the bloopers section on the dvd is going to be very fun.

this is a super duper sony hard drive high definition 3 chip camera.
it's not here anymore though because it didn't co-operate with my computer very nicely unfortunately. minor setback.

the road trip part of the movie will not be filmed this year, it will be done next year sometime.
i have decided to move on to another part of production. it is an animation of sorts called.

the origin of the plunger.


the story will remain under wraps but i think it's quite a fun story.

here is one of the six pages of ideas i came up with on friday. the story is solidifying. i had the ideas for how to shoot it a while ago but the story
wasn't solid. it's getting solid. it'll be quite neat to create. alot of work though but worth every minute!

and here is the secret part of the movie. that's all i'm saying.

october 17th 2006

over the past few days i have been concentrating on small details. namely print work things. these are things you'll only catch a glimpse of in the movie
but i definitely wanted to give them personality because they are key items.

i have also been working on an easier to manage timmy tomato. the day i found the balls i wanted to use i documented it
on video. "watch me make timmy tomato!". it should have said "watch me make timmy tomato...and fail!". i won't stay down though i already have
another idea. another idea that probably won't work either but it's worth a stab.

here are some pictures.

this is me. hello. i am holding up my super mondo ball. the thing with mondo balls is if you turn them inside out they are full of "fun" prickles
and you can wear the ball on your head like a neat hat. what joy! so the next thing i had to do was remove all of the "fun" prickles.

i'll give it to the super mondo ball people, they certainly give you your moneys worth of fun prickles.

here i am painting the first of three failing layers of red latex paint on my super mondo ball.
i felt as if it would fail at this point so i stopped taping. i was correct. one yank of the super mondo ball and the paint just cracked.
i have 2 more ideas. one is to try a spandex layer around the ball and then gessoing and painting the spandex. another is
buying liquid latex and just painting ten coats on it before painting it red. i don't know what luck i'll have with the latex since the
paint i used was latex but it's worth a shot. maybe liquid latex is a tad tougher.

october 14th 2006

today will be photoless. i broke my camera. oh well.
today was a very productive day. i used it to finish small things that i had been putting off. i made jeremiah some eyelids,
i made a mechanism to make my robots chest pop open. i fixed my robots legs so he can stand on his own. added some plates to
the robot too. i touched up my little timmy dolls and i finished all of my picket signs for my hot dogs.
yesterday i finished a key prop which will remain a secret because it's an element
that'll make this movie very interesting (i think) that people won't be expecting.

today i had the idea for another small character for the trip. i do believe i will make him tomorrow. i feel accomplished today.

good night.

october 12th 2006

behold. the last two pictures my nikon "coolpix" took before it ate a big plate of shit

these are all the receipts from all the materials so far. it seems the home depot is the winner when it comes to taking my money.
no pain no gain though, thats what i keep telling myself.

and these parts are for a prop. the prop that matters the most in the whole film only cost me 6 dollars.
now that's something to shout about. well, it cost me a camera when i went to take a picture of it but i won't count that.

october 11th 2006

today i made picket signs for my hot dogs. i can't show them all cause that would ruin the fun, but rest assured
they are all as HILARIOUS as this one. HAHA FUN AHAHA!

october 10th 2006

october 9th 2006

HOT DOGS ARE COMPLETE!

GEEZ LOUISE!
it was a fun adventure making these dogs and they didn't turn out exactly the way i hoped but they are all done. half of the mouth mechanisms ate crap during
the process somewhere so some will remain mute or only speak when not facing the camera.


here is the material i decided to use for the gloves. it's a nice suede i had lying around. i made a wire frame inside each hand so they are bendable.


here are all the hands before i stuffed them. the rest of the process got lost in the excitement of being done with the hot dogs.

 

 

october 8th 2006

ROBOT IS COMPLETE!

today i was on a mission to finish my robot. that, and to get a roast beef sandwich from dairy freeze. this time with mayonaise please!
the last sandwich i had they didn't put anything on it, just roast beef. and as tasty as it was i found it a touch dry. oh! above is a ten
foot long piece of plastic conduit tubing which i picked up for...get this...$3.95!

these parts will soon be my robots arms. as of this point right here i wasn't aware of just how cool this shit was.
but i'll find that out soon. OH YES. OH YES. here are two pieces i cut hanging on my clothesline. i've spraypainted them silver metallic.
this method was about...80 dollars cheaper than what i was going to do. i am glad i had my eyes open.

here is my robots neck part. i had mulled over how to attach this part to the top for weeks and today it became clear. i used some corner
brackets i bought many moons ago for making canvases. pictured are two of the four that i used. they are on there pretty sturdily.

here is my robots head. i added a few more screws and an electrical plate with a piece of black leather behind it. i will add effects in post production
so the black will light up when the robot talks. the hole underneath the eyes is for the martini dispenser tube.

and this is the robots nose with the hose in it. i spraypainted it metallic as well as to better match the robot head. it was copper colored before.

AHHHHH! my completed robot hand. so today i picked up 2 packets of brackets without knowing exactly HOW i was going to attach things.
but this worked out awesome! i cut a little piece of aluminum to put over the end of the tube and i think it looks sweet.

here is the robot head with the nose on it. this nose is functional. it can spew liquids. AWESOME!

here is the robots arm brackets. there are two in two directions. when the arm is placed in the front bracket, it leans against the top bracket keeping it in place.
when the arm is in the top bracket it doesn't really need any help since the angle it's at keeps it in place. i think i may add one more bracket on
each side to make it more posable. with this system though, the arms can be removed and used to give the robot alot more life with
what i like to call "movie magic".

this is a bad picture of my robot with his arms in the top bracket. the plastic may need a smidge more bending.

there is a picture of my robot with his arms in the front brackets. this way he can hold things (like a shovel)

i lied about jeremiah, he wasn't 100% done. his eyes looked too creepy before. i'm now working on making them a tad more
loveable looking.

october 7th 2006

well, today started off delightful! here are a few of the things that'll make perisarc pop up if you type them
into a search engine. can you guess which one is my favorite? yes! it's "i painted his nails". i wonder how THAT got in there.

today for very inexpensively i purchased the last remaining things i needed to complete my hot dog puppets.

these are pieces of rope with wires i put through the middle to give them support. little did i know...

here is one of the hot dogs complete with his shoes and hair.

this is a plastic container filled with things i borrowed from my high school about FIFTEEN YEARS AGO.
i knew i would need them someday and boy was i right. OR SO I THOUGHT...

i picked out all the circular ones to create fingers. these will make the bendable hands for my hot dog puppets.

here are all the fingers i would need for all four puppets. they all look like the picture above except
the thumb only has three beads whereas the fingers have four beads.

here are the completed hands. i drilled holes through pieces of wood and did my best to keep them in there
by filling up the remainder of the holes with hot glue.

these are the wooden hand parts. each hole is for a finger. the hole on the side was for the thumb but it didn't work out
the way i wanted it to so i just stapled the thumb on the top.

whoops! this is the hand inside the glove i sewed. i sewed gloves you know! i suppose putting these pictures in the order of
which they happened would be a better way to tell a story but i'm going all tarantino on you tonight. check it.

these are the hot dog arms with sheaths of black stretchy fabric. i wanted to use the same color as the body but i lost the spandex.
these things happen and you just can't beat yourself up over it.

here are all the completed hands inside felt gloves. felt gloves...hmm...that sounds like a shitty idea.

here is a pile of gloves before i turned them inside out and put them on the hands.

here is what a completed hot dog WOULD look like if i didn't totally HATE the way the hands look on them.
the felt is waaaay to furry and the hands are waaay to big for these puppets in my opinion.

this is the puppet where i quit. the huge hands and stubby little arms look like shit. its necessary for me to re-think my hands.
that's okay though because i can use these hands for something else in the future. maybe in another fifteen years.

october 6th 2006

JEREMIAH IS COMPLETE!

this is a rig that attaches jeremiahs torso to his hips. i cut the wood at a 45 degree angle and everything only to find that in the early stages
of puppet development i should have spent a little more thought on "operator comfort and ease of use". good golly miss molly i did a terrible
job on this head design.the way i had it set up would cause a great wrist pain in whoever was unfortunate enough to operate him. not only that
but the head bent your arm in this terrible terrible way. one part elephant puppet / one part torture device. the above rig was disassembled because it was just something awful.
it was up to the operator to support jeremiahs head and this isn't comfortable since the operator will have to lie on the ground flat to be
out of the shot. anyhoo, i took the front part off and added eye hooks (see below)

this series of eye hooks start on the back of jeremiahs head and finish on the backpiece. using these little
metal tighty tight things i kept the dowel in place. ooh! the dowel, probably a bad idea since i snapped one already. much respect to the
dowel people however i WAS abusing it. this way jeremiahs head can swivel side to side. he cannot look up and down unfortunately
but he doesn't have much screen time anyway, i can work around that.

and here is the completed jeremiah poking out of my hall closet.
he is saying "hello kids! i love you soooooooooo much! come sing a song with me about love!"
one down five to go, but the rest of the gang won't cause me the problems this guy has. i've burnt my hands dozens of times
making jeremiah and not i don't have to worry about that anymore. it's a great weight off of my shoulders.
customs is going to think i'm nuts bringing him over the border. i certainly hope they don't think he is filled with drugs or anything
and cut him open. that would suck.

october 3rd 2006

this is one of those hilarious foam hands. i bought a blank one four years ago and never knew what i would use it for
now i had an idea. it will be so fucking hilarious you'll shit your fucking pants off.

here are jeremiahs feet. now all he needs is new pants and a new shirt and he's done.