Doomed Drums

The new Holocron design is almost ready for the laser. I'm still un-pleased because the methods I have -- laser-engraving and cutting in multiple layers -- are capable of delivering some very dense, wonderfully deep effects that my current designs just aren't taking advantage of.

I've been working round-robin at several different projects at once. Kitchen is full of Space Helmet parts, desk is covered in Holocron parts. And in the corner is a DMX interface I have to hook up and test out before next week's load-in. But at least a check came for some of my work.

While poking around in my tunes folder for something to keep me going on the InkScape work I happened to listen to some of my old compositions. And I'm not sure what has changed in my perceptions, but the one thing that jumped out was....my drums suck.

Well, most of my drum parts back then were from the keyboard. Some of them were even off the drum machine in Reason. And I was heading towards using my Octopad and sticks more to get a livelier, more human drum sound. But, alas; everything I have that's mixed down is four-square kick-and-snare. Sigh.

Oh, yeah, and about that kitchen. Literally. And worse. I've been mixing up glue and even plaster of paris in my cereal bowl. And last night I used my toothbrush on some troublesome Rub'n'buff. At least I can stop trying to do Sculpey in the oven; I found a toaster oven someone in the neighborhood had thrown out and if it works...

Stolen... Holos...

(With apologies to Oliver Nelson)

I have some interest at the RPF in making a holocron kit, but I've been really struggling with the design. Here's what the first one looked like:

Since the shell design was not original with me, I have to re-think that. Here's a mock-up (I had the wrong acrylic on hand for the interior panels) for the "Jedi Temple" version I agreed to do for a potential customer:

The big differences are the use of dove-tail jointing instead of having to fill corners, the inclusion of USB port cutouts in the design, and that it is now the (canonical) 4" in size. But the diffusion-layer graphics on this one are for the Temple, so I can't use those either.

Here's the new hybrid design I've been working on, re-using the original diffusion and circuitry layers:

It works, but it doesn't inspire me. I found while working on the Jedi Temple holocron that I could cut finer detail than this in the circuitry layer. Also, the diffusion layer looks rather crude to me now (besides, it was designed to work with a shell that filled center.)

I sorta know where I want to go, but it is the sort of thing that PhotoShop is best at. And I don't have PhotoShop any more, and I have extreme reluctance to deal with Gimp or InkScape's work-arounds and other peccadillos for this particular bit of art. So I've been procrastinating.

While looking around, I found more information about one of few truly canonical holocron designs, the "Stolen" holocron from the animated series:

And, although it is a little tricky, I think I can get there with a similar construction method to my other holocrons by using both a deeply engraved detail line in the shell, and by back-painting the diffusion layer (both effects indicated but not simulated here in an InkScape file):

To really get the look of the Stolen, though, I need to do something which is only visible in some views, to wit; make an internal second cube and whatever clever acrylic cuts allows it to be suspended there.

The other major canonical holocron is one that was apparently made by prop artisans as part of the advertising campaign to one of the games. I find its design extremely attractive -- but also difficult to achieve. The simplistic method of slapping laser-cut acrylic pieces together can stretch for the Stolen, but not enough for the "Transformers" style:

The prop was apparently constructed at 2x to 4x scale in order to get all that detail in! So I'm not quite ready to try to tackle translating that into a simple holocron kit.

Smashing Words

Weird.

I've been feeling like I'm getting dumber by the year. It's a common feeling. The more you know, the more you notice all the gaps in your knowledge. The more you know, the more you realize how much more there is to know.

And I seem totally unable to keep from adding new fields I try to -- well, "master" is the wrong word. Maybe "Be semi-competent at." I've really been pushing on the props-making this past few years, which has meant learning machining practically from scratch, plus picking up a lot of smaller skills in laser cutting, vacuum forming, 3d printing, PCB layout, etc. Before that, tons of sound/recording stuff and a big hunk of programming. Before that (more or less as I started to get heavily into FOH mixing and theatrical sound design) music theory and arrangement.

And before that was writing.



They say you need to write one million words before the decent ones start to flow. I wrote probably two dozen short-stories in the 10K range before I dared send one out. About another dozen that I did dare send out. And two novels...well, 1.9 novels. The first I stopped a few chapters short of the end of the first draft. Somehow, it wasn't working for me. The next struggled through first draft, second draft, third draft, and I dared send it out, too.

Which kind of burned me out on writing. Both the hard push I did to finish it, but even more, having the novel travel out to publishers over the next three years and thus being unable to let go of it.

I was unable to write for some time. Finally crawled back in with fanfic. Fan fiction exercises the same muscles, but it is like gym climbing to the great outdoors; it feels safer, like less is at stake. (Hey...it's a good analogy when I think about it. Fanfic gets you more feedback and less scratches. You aren't risking getting those oh-so-polite rejection slips in the mail, but you are getting the easy accolades of the other guys and gals hanging around the gym.)

But I did send out a few short stories anyhow. Still no publication, but two of the editors gave me personal replies, at least. That's something.

And over a few years the fanfic hit a pretty respectable word count itself. My AU Sailor Moon opus hit 100,000 words (and it hasn't even finished the first season of the TV show!) And my Tomb Raider/Stargate cross-over, with the monster 8K chapter I just crunched out, has now hit 60,000.

Which brings me up somewhere around 800,000. Which with the error bars is, I think, close enough.



When you've done a lot of work of any kind, but especially creative work, it is tough coming back to older work. I don't actually know which is harder; to look back and go, "Man, I can't believe I actually showed this to anyone," or "God, I had some talent then! Where did it all go?"

I do know for sure that my reaction coming back to basically any code I've ever written is "I can't figure out how the hell this thing does what it does!"

The thing that I've been saying for decades is that writing is tough because you have to juggle so many elements at the same time, and a novel is basically impossible because there's no way one human mind can hold everything in it at the same time.

The novel becomes impossible to dissect, difficult to even perform surgery on, because there are bits and pieces in every scene that lead all over the place connecting and tangling with other bits and pieces. In every single scene there are plots being discovered and character arcs progressing and descriptions being developed and progress being made and explanations being given to the reader and taking one scene out makes bricks fall in a dozen different places -- many of them unexpected.

Except.

Today I opened the file of that first half-way decent novel and I found I could run my finger down all the anatomy. I could hold the thing in my head, at least well enough. All that practice since, that half-a-million words or so spilled since I tried to publish it, seems to have actually done something.



Yeah, sure, I've forgotten a lot. I'm rusty, too. And worse, I've fallen into habits of expression that are not good and that do not fit the patterns and cadence of that old novel. I use the dash way too often these days. I tend to place things in threes more often than not -- with or without the Oxford Comma.

And not that there aren't problems with the novel. There's a fat-shaming bit that needs to use a different tool for what it is trying to accomplish, and a bit of business in Chapter 16 that totally has to go. And there's a persistent odor of what TVtropes calls "Fangirl Japanese," even though I came by it semi-honestly via Jo Clayton (who made very good use of fragments of various imaginary languages woven into her text with nothing but context to guide the reader in understanding them.)

But right now, as I look at it, I feel I could straighten up the big structural problems (in the early chapters) in less work than it would take to write the next chapter in my current fanfic.



Because right now, that 1,000+ click-thru I hit at fanfiction dot net is sounding really damned good: even at 50% royalties on a cheap Kindle book. And published in ebook is no longer the kiss of death (if I was still worried about that).

And there's good stuff in it. Sure, it only tells the tale. It doesn't do what a really good book does; it doesn't add that extra something that the rest of the tale is simply foundation for. But it does the basics and does them, I think, well. There's poetry in some of the descriptions, bathos here and there, the cultural settings feel real with tantalizing tidbits. The situation is silly but not utterly implausible, and the characters are thin but generally likable.

I've felt for a while it was worth getting on line even if I never made a penny from it. I feel strongly enough that it isn't a waste of time to read. I've just held off because there are bits that bother me too much to let go without editing, and I couldn't face the editing. But now I think I can.

Besides. I almost feel like I could write another novel now. Almost.

Mottled Modeling

Working on the Space Helmet.

The insignia went well -- drafted up the shape, laser-cut it in 1/16" acrylic, heated it with the heat-shrink gun an shaped it over the helmet itself, then superglued a supermagnet to hold it on.



Filling the eyeslits is not going as well. Tried cutting and bending 1/2" acrylic bar. Yes, but the stuff is tough and neither filing nor sanding is really working to remove material at any speed. Tried cutting and bending 1/8" strips; that worked, but when I applied more heat to touch up the fit the welding glue between the layers bubbled. Plus it was slow.

Tried carving dense foam to fit. Yeah, okay...but as usual, an endless round of spot putty, primer paint, and sanding to try to get a nice surface. At last tried smearing the helmet with mold release and pressing Apoxie Sculpt into the gap. That's great, and is taking only a little more work to smooth out for casting...but my last can of 'sculpt is going and I'm worried about it bending before I can pull a good mold out of it.

And I have no idea if any of my latex is still useable. Or the clear casting acrylic. Perhaps I can make this work with a plaster cast?



The oxygen mask is similarly doing a "this method holds promise, but the first use of it wasn't so smooth." Made a duct-tape dummy of my own face. It wasn't quite stiff enough to model on so I tried backing it with plaster bandages. Those are only so-so. The duct tape is bubbling a little and I need a cleaner surface than that, but went ahead and started sculpting on top of that. Except I have only scraps of clay left (plus this really calls for a hardening clay, like FIMO) so instead I dug out the big can of Bondo.

Which really doesn't sculpt well. None of the usual wet-fingers approaches work for that stuff. You pretty much have to glob it on and sand it down. Which is going to be a pain...but at least it seems to be setting properly (I had worried when it took a long time for the batch to start heating up).



If I was building more props more quickly it might be a little easier to keep my stocks up. But I am in a position now of having a lot of my basic materials and raw supplies -- clays, casting compounds, brass rod, etc., etc. -- running short and no funds to get anything other than what is absolutely necessary for the specific project at hand.

(And, well, heck, not even that. I don't dare pick up the electronics for the Raygun until I see a little more money in my bank account. And hearing that last week's work may pay when they get around to it does not help.)

Once is circumstance, twice is happenstance...

I sent an email to the Technical Director on the 7th asking for permission to undertake repairs for equipment the theater would need for a show opening this weekend. On the 15th I got a reply telling me to go ahead. I had already, of course -- show opening on the 24th, after all!

On the 17th and 18th I sent emails asking to make arrangements to bring the repaired gear back to the theater, and for clarification on an additional repair. There has been no reply; the email of the 15th is the last communication I ever received from that theater.



A little context here; I was the resident sound designer at that theater, did twenty-odd shows there over a period of at least six years, and with this year had been offered the entire season. After the first show learned that I had been dropped from the season. A few weeks later, they asked for my keys. There was never any communication regarding this; not only was there never any explanation given, I was never actually told I wasn't still an employee! In fact -- I still have yet to be notified in any way shape or form that my status has changed. As far as any communications go, not only am I still the resident designer there, but it is MY show that is opening tomorrow!

And this was not for lack of trying on my part. I sent numerous emails enquiring when meetings would begin on the next show in the season, when I could get a script, etc. There were numerous chances for the company to say something. It took them two months and the only notification was an off-hand "We are using a different SD on (REDACTED).  We will be in touch about other upcoming productions."



Which perhaps makes it expected that none of the emails were answered over the last two weeks. I managed to reach the current sound designer and get the repaired equipment back to him. He requested a few more repairs, and of course I passed on another request for permission to do them.

On the 19th I enquired about getting a check. There had still not been a single email, the two times I tried to call the Technical Director's phone did not pick up, and when I was at the theater personally to drop off the equipment he made no attempt to find me (in fact, he may have even walked away).

On the 21st I contacted the Communications Director, asking if there were other channels I should explore. I used the email account I had at the theater. The next day, that email account was shut down. On the 23rd, I contacted the General Manager.

Okay, sure; they are in the middle of opening a very technical show. Anything that can be put off, will be put off, even if that includes putting in payment details for the pay period that closes this friday.

But I refuse to believe this is normal business practice there. If they tried to play games like that with any of their suppliers, or with the rather large lighting crew, they wouldn't be able to open their show. This can only happen through at least one of two things; that they have no respect for the needs of the Sound Department and feel there's no need to do anything for them. Or that they are playing games. With me.



So, yeah. There are perfectly reasonable explanations. But when you dick around this many times, in this many ways, you put yourself in the position of Caesar's wife; you'd damn well better not be sloppy about your following transactions. It would be one thing if I was sure I was going to get paid, and it would "just" be a little late. Well, they've done that in the past, back when I was still working for them on a regular basis. Now -- I no longer have that trust.

There! Are! Four! Lights!

I seem to be doing a lot of lighting these days. Struck a show last night, in the middle of putting together a bare minimum of lights for an upcoming event. Looks like we have two dimmer packs rented from another theater now (just finalizing the deal) and five instruments so far. So I have minimal coverage, but I haven't figured out yet what else to rent or borrow (if possible!) to achieve some flexibility.

The show is snowballing a little; I also seem to be tasked with supplying and setting up a PA, loaning a laptop with QLab on it, collecting sound files from multiple directors, oh and there's video, too.




On the (hopefully) last day of nearly a week of repairing wireless transmitters, elements, XLR cable, and whatever else seems necessary for the show which is loading in now. Except the Sound Designer is the only person talking to me; the TD can't be arsed to answer emails and no-one yet has told me if they intend to pay for the work. Oh, yeah -- and this is a space that doesn't respect sound so the fact that the designer needs this stuff is unlikely to have much weight with anyone else.

Add to getting paid less than I had hoped for a recent design, still not getting paid for the LED stage lights, the original Holocron order on hold (meaning I have to design and make another one before I can take any new orders), and taxes being higher than I had hoped...well, I'm getting pretty short with people who fiddle-faddle around instead of telling me if they intend to cut a check.

Space, 1929

Continuing with the retro trend, while I struggle to get the CAD files completed on the Raygun, I'm breaking into more traditional prop methods on another project.

The task is to take these parts:

And make them part of a primitive space suit -- think Rocketship X-M (of course, they had the excuse that they were exploring Mars, and at the time it looked plausible that one wouldn't need a full pressure suit, just supplementary oxygen.)

Insignia for the helmet worked...laser-cut 1/16th acrylic and hot-formed it to the helmet using my heat-shrink gun. Laser cut a hole in the center for a super magnet that holds the insignia on.

Started forming a mask; made a duct-tape dummy, in the process of reinforcing it before I make a sculpt then pull ABS or similar over it using the shop vacuum former machine. Then I'll laser-cut strap holders from more acrylic, hot-bending them around d-rings.

The lenses are going less well. Tried shaping both acrylic rod and multiple cuts of 1/8" acrylic. The later came closer to filling the narrow triangular vision slit in the helmet, but I'm not happy with it. So current idea is to take a mold off the helmet, probably with silicone (and I wish I had some thickener for it), then make a reverse mold and lastly cast some clear acrylic resin.

All of this is made a little more difficult by budget woes. A bunch of bills came due at the same time and I still don't have enough work (or, rather, work that pays enough). Stuff like this; the more scraps and different materials and tools you already have, the better it goes. But if you can't just open up an old jar with enough chemical left over from another project, if you actually have to buy a fresh can -- then projects like this can run into money.