A real (impressive!) update!

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Well, there's a video of me testing out my golem rig as the Somaturge using a hand-drawn puppet of the Nostalgia Critic.

Now I know it's been a while (...by my definition...) since I last updated. SO! How long did it actually take me to set this up?

Drawing all components of the rig took... ehh... about 5 hours at the outside. A lot of them had to later be adjusted and have elements added to them after initial tests. And there are actually still more pieces of this puppet I haven't filmed or even finished, there are still a few expressions half-colored and not yet cut out. And the gun... that needs work.

Filming all of this? An hour and a half, I guess, and then another half hour or 45 minutes for editing. It's simple and short, I just had to go through the 6-8 takes I did of EVERY. SINGLE. MOVEMENT. and pick the best ones to put in the video. And then there was the time it took the switch the faces and hats to get like... 2 seconds of footage.

To me, this is worth it. Because this is AWESOME.

My next project will be trying to do an actual movie review. This may or may not be successful, since... if you hadn't noticed, I haven't yet figured out how to edit in clips from other shows or movies. But if I can figure it out, I want to do a full review of the movie Perfume, using zombie versions of two of the film's dead characters as hosts (the cat and MAYBE one of the women... I think the distilled cat would be funniest, though).

Vlog #2: My puppets are haunting me!!!

You know what... I... I just... yeah.

I probably should institute a curfew on my access to video cameras, art materials, and... um... consciousness.

Whatever. Here's some of me being bonkers.

Makin' Golems!

I... really just have to say that I fucking rock.

That's all that can be said about what I have managed to do with a few screws and nails behild the bar here in the basement studio.

So you get a video... consisting entirely of some clips of the Somaturge setting up the golem rig with a test puppet, set to some rockin' tunes from three of Ven's favourite artists.

There is a great deal of camera-whoring going on here. But it's okay because I look awesome. There are also plenty of shenanigans introducing the faceless puppet I made to test out the rig, the Styrofoam head that has now become my nemesis and been named Naga, and my essential badger familiar who serves basically the same purpose as Harry Potter's owls, except badgers are cooler because China Mieville says they are basically immune to magic which is why they are used as messengers in Brock Marsh, the wizards' quarter in New Crobuzon.

I feel I should take this opportunity to mention again that my Somaturge character is heavily inspired by Judah Lowe from Iron Council by China Mieville. I honestly am not trying to rip off his character -- the first time I read that book, I bonded with Judah by the time I was about 1/4 of the way through it. He is one of only 3 or 4 characters I have ever encountered in any media form who I would say are a really accurate representation of a large part of my essential core being. So a lot of the Somaturge was with me already, all I'm really borrowing from Meiville's influence is some little details referencing his world (like the badger messengers) and the more refined definition of what a "somaturge" actually is. And yes, I got the name from his book. Credit where it's due.

Now I'm just showing off the fact that I can make it look like I ACTUALLY CAN animate golems back here. That kicks ASS, man! I mean SERIOUSLY!!!