Old Time Felting

Last night - err, last week - okay, fine - Last month, I dropped by a cozy little gallery by the name of Hanahou for a show with the rather weighty name Four-Ring Needle Felting Extravaganza.

The show featured the work of four artists who focus on the intense but seemingly therapeutic art of felting. Specifically, the work of Hine Mizushima who I 'collaborated' (and I use that term loosely) with on a TMBGs' music video. Basically, she made the music video for the re-booted version of "Why Does the Sun Shine?" and I dropped scenes from it in to the music video Dave Cowles and I made for the updated "Why Does the Sun Really Shine?".

Despite 'working with' Hine and being Facebook 'friends', we've never actually met before so I knew I needed to walk the block from work to check it out, give her a hug and snap some pictures.

Hine with squid!

Close-up of creatures over her shoulder -

Her Ectoplasm series -

And some fancy jellyfish! And while I'm slightly biased in my estimate of Hine's Unnatural History work being the best, the other artists, particularly Yoko Nomura's Fractured Fairy Tales -

And Moxie's Icons & Totems & Pieces of the Past were equally charming and photogenic (this is the company camera, which I might need to borrow more often)!

I particularly love needle-felting as a technique and would LOVE to employ it making puppets for a stop-motion video some day. In fact, I've toyed with the idea of a re-telling of the Owl & the Pussycat set to Jim Stafford's Spiders & Snakes using just that...

Bang bang, shoot shoot...

Last weekend I got to flex my puppet muscles. Literally. I was sore till Tuesday.

(You may think Richard is hiding from the camera, really it's the imminent shards of glass)

Richard O'Connor at Asterisk Animation was kind, gracious and all around just plain awesome enough to lend us some space for most of the day Sunday. He also single-handedly played the role of cameraman and lighting. Like I said, just plain awesome and I don't think I'll ever be able to fully thank him for it.

(Dear me, Dave! That Opossum's as big as your head!)

Dave Cowles flew in from Rochester, NY for the shoot and managed to snag an award or two at the ASIFA Screenings later that evening. A Sunday well spent, I'd say.

(Johnny's most demanding scene)

It's safe to say the whole day wouldn't have been half as fun without the presence of Johnny(A). Playing the role of gopher/puppeteer/comedian, he kept the pace going and the mood up.

And I guess I should also thank Dunkin' Donuts for the copious amounts sugar we consumed throughout the day. You can buy a lot with 30.00.

(Paint-roller and Mogubgub)

Next comes the tedious task of keying... UGH.

Animal House

Shoot this weekend for the long awaited They Might Be Giants video. It's been a long time coming.

Means this week was filled not only by my new full-time position as Flash extraordinaire at LBi, but also with about 4-5 hours each night making last minute mouths...


Painting rods bright green...


Keeping them out of cat's reach...


And wrapping their 'handles' with duct-tape for extra grip.


Look at him, getting into trouble!

With two arms and two legs...

Due to certain events that took place last Sunday, I haven't been able to draw, do dishes, shave, shower or do much of anything else properly. Believe me, I've tried.

As a result today's post will be fairly simple.


Here's the puppets to date.




Rabbit, Possum and Bear are done. Rat's half-way there. Problem is, I've gone about as far as I can since I need to start cutting fabric and using scissors at the moment is basically impossible.


I'm also not entirely happy with the Cat character. I think it's mostly because he's kind of unnecessary. I think I'll end up nixing him altogether; 8 characters is more than enough.

More to come soon...

Update (With Opossum)

For those who don't know, most of my spare time is dedicated to producing a music video for They Might Be Giants.


Remember this little fellow?


Well, now he has some friends. Ears and more animal friends to come.

By the way, for those interested in obscure factoids, opossum is the proper form of the word. It was shortened to possum later after it's first appearance around 1610 in Jamestown. Or so the internet says...

Got Wood?

LIESJE: "You know what would be REALLY cool, Dave? What if we did this whole video with puppets? Actual puppets! No animation."

DAVE: "Great idea! Maybe socks? Like they're really amateur, handmade sock puppets?"

LIESJE: "Perfect! And maybe a few of 'em could even be made out of wood."

DAVE: "Great."

Okay, so maybe that wasn't our actual conversation, word for word, but you get the idea.

A while back, Dave Cowles and I embarked on a new music video for They Might Be Giants. A decision was made to not only build all the characters as hand-puppets, but also to construct several of them out of carved wood.


Neat? Hopefully. Time-consuming? Definitely.


Here they are, after a month and half of filling my apartment's living room with copious amounts of saw-dust and probably permanently damaging my lungs. From left to right, we've got Mole, Fox, Porcupine and, of course, Cat.


And here, following the same line, Rat, Raccoon, Bear and (O)Possum. Each will get his very own sock shirt with accompanying fabric/spring/felt arms, as well as button eyes and assorted other goodies.


The Bear is the tough one. He needs to have a month we can (roughly) operate.


Hopefully my plans of rigging his jaw up with fishing line and dowel rods will do the trick.

And yes, I know. The Raccoon needs a tail. And the Cat.

Lisez Ceci Avant de Commencer a Utiliser Votre Outil Dremel

I bought a dremel well over a month ago and finally found a few hours this past Sunday to break out and see what that guy at Home Depot was talking about.


Unfortunately, all I had for eye protection were these.


Needless to say I wasn't able to get much done (apart from spend an hour or two pouring over the manual). Luckily, my landlord lent me a pair of safety glasses the following evening.


Rat's done, moving on to the Possum. I'm sure that'll make more sense in the future.


And yes, I'm wearing a robe I stole from a ryokan in Japan. Between that and the bandana, I look like some lame reject from a Tarantino flick.

Sock it to me, baby!

Hey, remember this?

For the last month or so, in between churning out web-ads and trying to get some semblance of sleep, I've been stitching up puppets. So far I've finished a grand total of one.

In my defense, I really made two. The first was kind of a 'test run'. In other words, I botched him up. I blame my supervisor...

His nose was too short, the quality of the sock was terrible and the stitch was shoddy at best. I was about halfway through sewing his ear up when I realized I hated the colors and needed to just go back to square-one.

After several long nights involving many movies and some musicals (much to my roommate's chagrin I'm sure), he finally started to take shape.

Like my Middle School art teacher, Mrs. Swanson, always told me, "If you have to do it over again, don't worry. It always comes out better the second time around."

I'd say she was right. His other forest friends will follow soon (I hope).

Thanks Skwidspawn!

They Might Be Giants' new children's album is officially out. Released of my NDA-obligations, I can finally post the video I co-directed with Dave Cowles here!


In fact, I meant to post this last week, but couldn't find the time to shift through the external hard drives to find the 'decent-looking-but-still-compressed' movie file. This weeks, the denizens of 'teh inter-webs' have saved me the trouble.



Here's 'The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma' OR 'Why Does the Sun Really Shine?' (yeah, check out that monster o' a title card!)

I'll go into the process and post drawings and such from it in future posts. You can also see some more of our (Dave and me) work in front of each They Might Be Giants podcast promoting the album (but you'll actually have to buy 'em to see those)!

Power Tools

After a short hiatus, our They Might be Giants' video is back! It's undergone a few changes while laying dormant for the past month, so I could say it's back and better than ever!

What kind of changes? Well, for starters, it's not for kids anymore so we get to 'dirty it up' a bit. Rougher character designs and some more 'adult' themes... well, not those kinds of 'adult' themes.


The best part of the changes is the fact that yesterday I got to take a trip to Home Depot to buy this.


And last night I got to start sketching out these patterns.

I guess I shouldn't go too much further into detail. As construction actually begins, I'll try to post some obscure pictures that don't give too much away. (NOTE: Those who actually care about me might want to keep a running count of body parts. I almost melted my fingers together as a child with an iron and nearly sawed my foot off in college with a power saw.)

Look out! Here comes Science!!!

Due to lack of sleep and a nearly impossible list of things I need to finish by Wednesday for a shoot I probably can't even go to now for fear of loosing my job... *deep breath* ... I'm stealing today's entry from Dave.


Coming September 1st, with one video I worked on, plus a whole mess o' interstitials I did with Dave. Can't wait!

One fish, two fish...

Came home a little after noon today to find this waiting for me...


I don't know what to be more amazed at; it's size or the fact that it was delivered on a Sunday. Partner in They Might Be Giants-style crime Dave Cowles found it at a yard sale up in Rochester for $20! Now I have a bass to go with my trout and owe Dave an awesome lunch the next time he's in town.


Stay tuned for more fish-related news...

When it rains, it pours...

... both literally and metaphorically this week.

As of last week, I had little to no paying work and my first 'personal project' since college had been shot down rather abruptly (want to know more, buy me a drink or better yet, some ice cream).

This week? Working on a new music video for They Might Be Giants AND starting up a new 'personal project' - a video to a song by the Handsome Family that will combine actors and foam-latex puppets of singing food! What could be better? Having a new job on top of it!*

Sadly, this tea-cup ride of a week has resulted in a rather lame week of blogs. At this point, my brain must be about the consistency of Cream o' Wheat. All I can offer is a nostalgic entry - Japan's weather patterns as seen from my apartment.


Rain. More specifically, the morning after a tsunami. Note the overflowing fish pond and it's distinct similarity to my life these last few days.


Snow.


And fog. Japan's weather's as x-treme as their owls.



*watching the Phillies win against the Yankees Sunday was pretty nice too.