Old News and Updates: or ...Welcome to my Blog archive June 11 2005 We have a winnah!!! Here's a comment I found in my email this morning: New Feedback Hello Mike Brent, You've received a new feedback from Mr/Ms StopMoWorks. The following data was submitted: First name : StopMoWorks Last name : StopMoWorks Comments : With all your digital disguising of it ..... sort of looks like profile Prince Charles .... nose, ears, head shape. Now that you said "Stoneface" .... Buster Keaton comes to mind. ...Well, Mr/Ms StopMoWorks StopMoWorks, you hit it right on the nose! Um... the second guess that is, not the first one. Heh... I can see why you said Prince Charles though! For your prize you win a kewpie doll. - Well, um, you have to fabricate it yourself, but consider it a gift from me to you! ; ) I really wasn't sure how well that nickname was known... as a fairly recent fan of Keaton's, I had never heard it until the other night when I happened to catch a short on TCM and Robert Osbourne mentioned it. Actually, I believe he was known as The Great Stoneface. It was probably too easy of a clue to a real Keaton fan, but then I've been itching to reveal the puppet, and I didn't want to do it till somebody guessed who it was. How's this for a dead give-away clue- (I was going to post this today): "He was often considered something of a saphead, though he was once in college. Navigator, general, he's done many things in his illustrious career, which lasted through three ages." ...Well, I could go on and on weaving the names of his various movies in, but it's academic now. Here's your real reward.... the actual unadulterated picture- plus a bonus 3/4 shot to show the form better: Comments June 09 2005 A hint of what's to come Ok all my peeps.... I guess it's time to begin the big reveal. I've been holdin' out on you.... yes, I'm working on a Secret Project. When the blacksmith puppet's neck snapped something inside me snapped at the same time, and I felt the need to do something completely different. So I'm working on a silly comedy piece that will be done soon. I'm torn between wanting to just splatter images all over the blog as I normally do, and wanting to preserve the mystery. I'm going with mystery at this point, but I will release a teaser pic. Remember... you saw it here first! ....Can anybody guess who this guy is? It's based on a well-known actor, and that's all I'll say for now. Comments The way the picture looks, it looks alittle like Kevin Spacey or Russell Crowe!!! I hope you're having the most fun anamating!! Peeps await!-Shelley Hmmm.... think older. Well, actually he was quite young when he began his carreer (quite young indeed... I believe he bagan acting at 5 or so). The puppet is based on photos taken when he was probably in his early 20s. But the movies are... older. I was going to turn the picture into a solid black and white silouette, but the greytone looks better and obliterates facial detail enough (not that it looks enough like him that anyone would be able to guess anyway!). I noticed the glare makes it look like he's bald with a bad 2-hair combover, but that's not the case... he actually has all his hair. I seriously doubt anyone would ever get it from such a bad picture (of a poorly caricatured puppet), so here's another hint. His nickname used to be Stoneface. ~M Either you are unclear about your ability, overly humble to to low self-esteem, or fishing for compliments!!! Your puppet is incredibly good, Mike!!! You are a wonderful sculptor and fabricator. Enough with the "It's not very good" crap! Be the master animator you are. You know, I know that talent and taste are relative like everything else. Each artist's works are going to be judged against something of anothers. But none of that matters a damn, you know it. ART-WORK. Count the letters, count the letters. You are doing it and that puts you head and shoulders above all us schmucks that live in Potentia. Not only that, but you are legitimately great. Go, be a legend- Shelley Aw geez! Gosh Shelley, when you talk like that it makes me feel all tingly inside! I wasn't fishing, honest... and I do know that I gots some talent for this kinda stuff... otherwise I wouldn't still be doing it. I just meant that, as a caricature it's not a very good likeness (especially in silouette... I know I wouldn't have known who it was). Caricature really isn't my strong suit. I'm looking forward to the day I start to make completely original puppets- not based on anybody or anything- and create my own completely original story ideas. I'm getting closer... but at this point in the learning curve, I'm getting a lot from climbing onto giant's shoulders and working "from life". Thanks for reminding me about art-work... more WORK than ART. And about living In Potentia.... I know you've got a lot done toward your own project! It's more than just an unrealized dream- but I really am waiting to hear that you're putting my trusty old Unibrain to work animating once again.The hardest part is getting started... once you're over that hump, you can get your momentum going. ~M June 02 2005 Check out the new Puppets section I just added at the bottom of the Links column (just over to the left there). Some really fun sites... one of my faves is the The Ballard Institute & Museum of Puppetry- Punch & Judy link. Hint... hit the next button to see a sequence of great Punch and Judy illustrations. Andrew Lehman contaced me about the music from some of those Trnka and Barta clips on the Masters page... he's working on a really cool movie based on H. P. Lovecraft's Call of Cthulhu... well, I'll let him desribe it in his own words: I am in the midst of producing a short film which, while mostly live-action, does feature a climactic encounter with a stop-motion puppet. The film is based on a story written in 1925, and we have decided to shoot the film as we imagine it might have been done at the time: a classic black-and-white silent picture. We're trying to use the types of techniques they would have used then, and avoid digital solutions as much as possible. We are just now gearing up for the stop-motion shooting, and I have found your site a major inspiration. Andrew, you are saying all the right things! Here's a website where you can see an exciting trailer for the upcoming film: cthulhulives.org. I'm really diggin' this! Ok, enough for today... I'm wiped out! Comments May 30 2005 Of puppetry and papier mache Following are excerpts from a long and very interesting article written by Ronnie Burkett, Canada's premiere puppeteer, and the world-renouned master of true puppet theater. The subject is papier mache "composition" for puppet heads and parts, and I'm not sure how well it would translate for the smaller heads used for stop motion, but I'm certainly intrigued by the technique, especially the fact that it's cheap and simple and non-toxic. Click on the image below for books about three of his projects. If you are new to puppetry, or work exclusively for television, no doubt the wealth of "20th Century materials" on the market will turn your head or lead you to think that the more expensive the material, or the more difficult it is to work with, the "better" it is. If, however, you embrace the vibrant theatricality of puppetry (which does not dictate camera close-up slickness), and are sick (both aesthetically and physically) of toxic materials and their growing costs, then paper composition pulp may be for you. There is a great liberation that comes with not having to create through a ventilation mask, with an air-drying material that can be sculpted or molded into heads, hands, body parts, props, masks, jewellery, relief figures... whatever you and your artistic vision decides to create! Papier mache is enjoying somewhat of a renaissance, as it is becoming clearly evident that resins, fiberglass, latex rubber and other such artificial substances are harmful to not only the craftsman, but the environment as well. Pulped composition provides a very satisfactory solution. It is an exciting, versatile medium., When wet, it is like clay. It can be pressed into molds or modelled over an armature. When dry, it has many of the properties of wood. It can be rasped, sanded and carved. Unlike clay, it does not require firing or baking (unless, of course, you are in a hurry and need to speed up drying in the oven). Acrylic or "homemade" gesso, paints and varnish provide an excellent durable finish for the surface. It is also lightweight, and has a very long life span. Here's a link to the entire article; Proptology- Papier mache Rediscovered. It includes links to a few recipes for making it yourself, as well as information and recommendations on commercially available alternatives. Seeing what's happened to Jean Detheux and Frank Frazetta because of toxic chemicals (and countless unsung others), it really looks like time to get "back to basics". I just ran across this excellent site selling puppets and videos of rare puppet stuff called, appropriately enough, PuppetStuff. Really cool! Comments Thank you Strider for all the recent great links and introductions to artists and instigators of a subtle art. I'm getting a lot out of what you are sharing here. -Shelley May 28 2005 Comments from the Underground Todays entry consists of an email I just recieved from Jean Detheux, author of Notes from the Underground, a six-part series of articles published on the Animation World Network site, and that I blogged back on April 28 (under the heading 'Now this is really hardline'). I started reading it without realizing who it was from, and as it began to dawn on me, I actually got goosebumps! Man, I LOVE the internet! I had never heard of Jean before reading those articles, but he became a hero to me then and there, as he is to countless others, and it's exciting and gratifying to hear from one of your heroes! Here's his web page- Vudici.net -with quicktimes of his work and examples of his still images, along with his always stimulating writing. Nice to see that my Notes from the Underground are still being read, it is indeed very encouraging. "Darkstrider" is an interesting site, it shows a real enthusiasm for an approach to animation that feeds on the "yet to be done" and the all important, even vital, search for meaning. So may people interested in animation seem to be motivated by the desire to fit in an "industry," very far from searching for one's own little music ("to make the visible visble"). Stop Motion is fascinating to me, I have never tried it for long as I am utterly useless when dealing with sculpture, my realm is in finding/creating the illusion of "the real" in a two-dimensional, even "a-dimensional" world. Stop Motion is to me directly linked to puppetry and cinema, and this in a very honest and upfront way, unlike most digital 3D animation which, in my opinion, misses the boat most of the time. And if one talks about puppetry, one must mention a real master, Ronnie Burkett. Just one small "criticism" (very small indeed) of the words used to describe me: I am utterly passionate about the human figure and all that we can do "from/with the visible." It is precisely because of many decades spent "drawing from life" that I have been doing works that, to most, now seem "abstract." But, as Giacometti (one of my heroes) said so well: "If only I could draw exactly what I see, it would not be recognizable by others." Here's a link to some of my work done years ago when it was still relatively "easy" to trace the origin of the images: Natural Media. What progressively emerged while working that way (trying to draw/paint what I really saw, along the lines of Husserl's "Catering to the appearing as it appears") became the "point" of what I have been doing since. And yes, I like the Quays, very much so. Best regards, Jean Detheux Thank you for this wonderful email Jean! I see that I was wrong about your 'abstract' leanings, and that indeed your work is an avant-garde exploration of ideas inspired by the human figure, or actual objects, as evidenced by those excellent drawings on the Natural Media link. Some of them do remind me of Giacometti, who I became obsessed with for a time in college and wrote my thesis paper on. They also remind me to some degree of some of my other modern art gods, like Cezanne and Degas, who all began with exploration of the 'real' and became increasingly abstract in the eyes of the public. In fact, come to think of it, I suppose my favorite kind of art is the sketch, experimental lines seeking the form of the real and at the same time creating something new, which your drawings do so well. I'm not sure how... or even if, that can be done in stopmotion, but that's pretty much what I'm after. And following inspiration like yours, maybe I'll make it. I googled Ronnie Burkett, and dug up this fantastic interview. I'm sure there's a lot more great material out there about him, but I just wanted to post this real quick. Very inspiring... I'll be reading more about him. -Mike Comments Next page Ψ