Award Design Update #3:

Moving along on the Bozu Award design. Still haven't got to any detail but am getting the underpinning of the sculpt in shape. Next is it is time to start on some detail on the face, eyes, chin, hair etc.



The pose is looking good so far. I always leave the joints of the armature free until I am far along in the sculpt. That way I can make last minute adjustments to the flow of the figure.

What You Do Affects How You Do

The design work that I was doing for the copper etching got me thinking about icons. I paid for my second IBM compatible computer by creating hundreds of Windows icons.

Looking at all the designs I made for copper etching made me realize just how much my design perception was influenced by the need to make images clear at 30 by 30 pixels. And later at 15 by 15 pixels. It changes the way you see and the way you draw. Maybe that is a good thing?

The long and short is that I cranked out a group of icons because . . . I don`t know why. There was a time that I swore I would never create another one of these little monsters. But this was fun. Go figure.

Oh, if anybody wants any of these I will be glad to send you the ICO file. I think the animation wheel might be of use to some of my readers. And I could use a new computer so if anybody needs a few hundred icons created . . .

Early Steps To Award

Started to lay in the masses on the armature. Always the first step. Like bones under the flesh.

Created a 3/4 inch pencil to go into the right hand of the statue. That was hard work. Getting the separation between wood and led. With machine sharpened point everything is a cone. Got it by going for a knife sharpened pencil so that the led will stand out from the wood.

Also locking in the base. Off and running on the AniMazing Stoplight award trophy. Will keep you up to date.

Come and Get Me Copper

Acid etched copper plate update. Fun with N2SO4 and jewelry saws.

And the Bozu Goes To . . .

Since Tee will be announcing this at the AniMazing Stoplight Festival site today I am going to start talking about it in these pages. I am currently in the early stages of designing a trophy for this year`s festival winners. The award will be named the Bozu in honor of Tee`s father, UPA founder, Stephen Bosustow.

Tee sent me a whole lot of images of his father, both drawings and photos. In the drawings and photos there was a certain physicality that was very appealing.

Here is the sketch that is driving the design of the statue. This is a Disney era caricature, which means it is before 1941.




This photo shows Zack, Dave and Stephen working on a storyboard, which makes it before 1947. (I am just showing Stephen)



Matching the wire armature to the drawing is easy in some senses and hard in others. Bronze casting calls for certain changes to make the casting process easier. Flow of metal, gating and venting all become an issue, as does cleanup of the castings.



Changes in design to go with gating and venting: left hand moved onto left thigh to keep the spread fingers, pencil moved to right hand to get it from behind the ear and to close the right hand so that the fingers are not a problem. (small items that stick out from the statue cause problems in casting and are in danger of breaking off if the statue falls)





The base of the statue is an animation wheel. The figure will be jumping off the page. Which is fitting for UPA, the studio that rocked the animation world in the late 40s and early 50s. (Or as Walt liked to call them, those Commies down the river!)

Holiday Snaps

One of the moms of one of the Silverado Library Story Hour kids just emailed me these photos of my wife hanging out with the man in the Big Red Suit from back before Christmas time. Who knew that Santa was such a player? And so good looking too.

Puckman Conquers the World

Been fooling around with acid etched copper as of late. Below are the designs and the etched plate. I did about 80 designs but the packman design was the killer image of the batch. Not kidding about the 80 designs. Just got started and couldn’t stop. Not sure how this applies to animation. It does kind of apply to gaming.





Packman, named Puckman in Japan but changed for U.S. markets because of the danger of vandalism (scrape the end of the "P" off to make it an "F"). Packman took over the world and popularized videogame like nothing before it.

There is something about the simple design esoteric of the missing pizza slice circle that puts the Packman image up there with the Smiley Face and the Playboy Bunny as an iconic archetype design.

There was a whole lot of videogame history before Packman but I put all that into the category of videogame pre-history. The modern era starts with the round yellow one.

Thinking a lot about videogames as of late. Been doing early volunteer organization work for the IndieCade display at this year's E3. So maybe it is only natural that Packman would find his way into my jewelry designs?

Speaking of designs I have thrown in a couple three pages of designs from this project.