Articulating Figurines & Puppets
As it stands now, I have five of these Garden Gnomes cast and I will be preparing them for use in the books stores and Libraries. One idea that just struck (as I write this post) is in regard to the articulating figurines. Discussions have take place about the Marionettes that are being built. I have puppets under way which are about three feet tall. They were designed to be this size, for the sake of the larger stages and the parade float. You can imagine that the puppets need to be big enough to be able to see them at a distance (ie: across the width of a street or out in the back seats of a decent size theatre) But for the Storybook reading sessions in a small group, smaller marionettes need to be constructed.
That brings me to the continuing work of Illustration. I spoke with Jency a few days ago about her coming back in to begin working on the illustrations again. One of our points was the necessity of making sure all the drawings were consistently the same (or very similar) in terms of the character designs. Thinking about it now, some slight variation is rather nice, because it keeps the work in the realm of art and away from being mechanized. But too much variation, so as to be noticeable is not good. So our discussion has led me to consider building the articulating figurines, which I was also working on.
Now I'm thinking that we will build the articulating figurines to be the same size as the Garden Gnomes. Then we can use the articulating figurines to create the Garden Gnomes. That would be much more time and resource efficient than sculpting the figurines. But if we wanted to sculpt the Garden Gnomes, for the values of the original sculptures, we could use the articulating figurines as a model to give us a visual aid that was correct as to size and shape. So that is the direction we will be taking with our puppetry- building the articulating figurines to match the size of the Garden Gnomes.
But mostly, our discussions led into building the smaller puppets for the purpose of modeling the illustrations. You can see how that leads me to think that articulating figurines are more useful for that. Marionettes can not easily be positioned. Unless I design the frames to have adjustable tension on the joints and a stand to hold them upright. So all that will be in the works a bit more now that Book One does not require my attention on the publishing end. Of course now the work on Book Two starts. Check out the post on the e-Storybook there are some changes there.
Oh, also in terms of the figurines. I have the program Poser. I need to learn how to use that so that we can add that tool to the illustration and animation process. So that will be coming into play. If anyone already knows how to use Poser and wants to work on this, let me know. I'm busy setting up a network in the studio so there's some distraction taking place in that arena.
More Later AG
That brings me to the continuing work of Illustration. I spoke with Jency a few days ago about her coming back in to begin working on the illustrations again. One of our points was the necessity of making sure all the drawings were consistently the same (or very similar) in terms of the character designs. Thinking about it now, some slight variation is rather nice, because it keeps the work in the realm of art and away from being mechanized. But too much variation, so as to be noticeable is not good. So our discussion has led me to consider building the articulating figurines, which I was also working on.
Now I'm thinking that we will build the articulating figurines to be the same size as the Garden Gnomes. Then we can use the articulating figurines to create the Garden Gnomes. That would be much more time and resource efficient than sculpting the figurines. But if we wanted to sculpt the Garden Gnomes, for the values of the original sculptures, we could use the articulating figurines as a model to give us a visual aid that was correct as to size and shape. So that is the direction we will be taking with our puppetry- building the articulating figurines to match the size of the Garden Gnomes.
But mostly, our discussions led into building the smaller puppets for the purpose of modeling the illustrations. You can see how that leads me to think that articulating figurines are more useful for that. Marionettes can not easily be positioned. Unless I design the frames to have adjustable tension on the joints and a stand to hold them upright. So all that will be in the works a bit more now that Book One does not require my attention on the publishing end. Of course now the work on Book Two starts. Check out the post on the e-Storybook there are some changes there.
Oh, also in terms of the figurines. I have the program Poser. I need to learn how to use that so that we can add that tool to the illustration and animation process. So that will be coming into play. If anyone already knows how to use Poser and wants to work on this, let me know. I'm busy setting up a network in the studio so there's some distraction taking place in that arena.
More Later AG
