John Holdun

Strollin’ in the Park

Sometimes the weekly update is late because I haven’t done anything and scramble to put something together to talk about. Sometimes it’s late because I just haven’t stopped working. This week is the latter!

First, a photo I just took (which required me to move everything in my apartment):

Two characters from the park set against a blank background

This is what we have so far for scene 3, in the park. Everything here is new from last week, and these two characters—a raccoon selling ice cream that gives Percy some balloons, and an athletic rabbit doing squats in the background—are more detailed than anything else in the show yet. It’s hard to tell yet but they’re wearing clothes! This was my first attempt at trying to add “fabric” layers to a sculpture, using heavier paper mounted to stacked cardboard about an inch up from the hem. This will look fantastic when these folks are mudded and all one color—they’ll have real shadows! The wire armature + prefab papier-mâché primitives have been a huge help and I’m so excited. (I personally adore the raccoon’s little polo.)

Also, all that tech stuff arrived, as expected. I spent last weekend trying to hook everything together and…it worked? I did it? I now have six channels (and maybe actually ten channels) of audio, ten speakers (five pairs), 8 programmable outlets (for lights and motors), and like…7 motors? I don’t even know. A lot. And I can control it all with code. This is really good.

I still don’t have a venue booked. I’ve contacted about a dozen places, heard back from three, and one might work (though not exactly in the way I was hoping). If I can get this figured out, tickets for Bobby’s Birthday go on sale this Friday 😲

Next up, a couple more details and mud on the two folks we saw up top; the fountain and its bathers; and two Percies at once: the one in this scene and the final scene are the same scale, so I’m going to build their armatures simultaneously, then sculpt one, and sculpt the other one over that one, and I basically get the second figure for free. Yay!