NEW website

Well, I've been busy whilst on my vacation. (does anybody actually use the word whilst anymore?!) I got the NEW ToonAsylum website up and running last night. I am still working out some of the kinks, but go over and check it out if you get a chance http://www.thetoonasylum.com/.
I've found HTML code is driving me crazy. I know there are a lot of programs out there that make web design a snap. But I have this idea of how I want my videos page to work and look and it's driving me crazy trying to figure out all this coding... Arrrgggg!!! If there is anyone out there who is proficient in web design mainly embedding videos and video players into a web page, drop me an email maybe you can help me out.

New Set Design

Hello everyone... I've been busy working on my new set design for my puppet videos. For now, I'm just going to try to use, as a backdrop, a 48" x 60" artist canvas. I had designed my set originally using 3 of these canvases to simulate a 3-sides room(one back and two sides). But the canvases were kinda expensive, so I thought I would just get one now and try it out before I spent a lot of money. I laid out my sunburst design and painted it as shown here. The colors in the pic seem to be a bit muted, but the lighting was bad. They are actually pretty bright in person.(this pic was taken with my camera phone.)

Here is a finished pic of a picture frame that I painted and cut out of 1/2" thick foam board. I wanted it to be light weight so I can attach it to the canvas wall. Now here is where my creativity starts to get all these crazy ideas. What I thought I would do was mount this mock picture frame to the canvas, then cutting an opening in the canvas to fit the opening in the frame to make kinda a "window". Why would I do such a crazy thing?? Wellllllll I plan on creating a sliding picture frame. Whereas I can have one of my characters be behind the opening when I slide the picture down behind the canvas. They could appear , make a comment , or what-have-you and slide the picture back in place. Like a hidden trap "door" window.

Here you can see I propped up the picture frame to show approximately where the hidden sliding window would be located. I'm adding some 1 x 2 bracing behind the canvas opening of the picture frame for extra support. When I'm finished I plan on attaching some type of stand to elevate them off the ground at the desired height to film along side my characters. I'll add more pics as I get further along.

Puppet Build step 5.0

Well he's finally complete...well aside from picking out the seams more. Viktor was probably my longest build (maybe a close second to Fang). This is the first attempt to build a "human" character. I find them a bit more challenging to do. You have more liberties with other creatures. We all know what a human character is supposed to look like, so for me it limits how far you can push the envelope. I mean with monsters or animals I feel you can stretch your creativity further. Who knows...maybe it's just me...LOL

Here is a couple of pics of Viktor finished.

These pics don't show it, but he has a neat feature to his right eye. When I came up with this character in the initial design process, I had sketched him with a wall-eyed look. So, I designed his one eye on an axis so I can move it around while operating him...it's kinda neat. I'll have to post a quick video showing this feature.