Material trouble and book reccomendations

experimenting with materials now, not going to lie, its hard. here i carved some balsa wood with the sanding machines, followed by sculpting chevant onto it, and casting it in latex, added this horrible green to the latex as the natural cream colour of latex was simply anoying me. this is NOT wat i want the colour to look anything like. just had a thought about applying make up to the latex to vary colour, give it depth etc. so i pull the latex off my wood/chevant mould and put it onto a metal frame with hinges and electrics in. but weve got fabric to go yet, silicone and PVA and wire, its gunna get messy isn't it. im sat shivering in my little room, with the window wide open because of the smelly latex.

Im currently reading the Winsten Effect, all about the technical/special effects by Stan Winsten, the guy all about Alien, Terminator, Jurassic Park and Planet of the Apes, its very interesting, how he got into it, how things are done, brilliant insight to behind the scenes. A fab friend just gave it to me. Im passing on the reccomendation.

Also reccomended is VAlley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann above. totaly off subject, about 3 glam women, hollywood, husbands, drugs, rock and roll, srehab, set about the 50's, was very sad to end the book.

and finally, The Foals Spanish Sahara, my song of the moment, beautiful, strange video, have a gander on the youtube.

i hope i can get this Triffid looking better soon. Perceverance!

PROTOtype triffid, testing movement

head moving..check
tongue moving..kind of check, needs to be more dramatic, we can do this by extending the sensor cross.
leaf moving..not check..need another piece to the puzzle...it WILL work soon.

very happy with todays progress.
cant wait to get back to college to the workshop!!!!

Little bit more artwork for Triffidness

Location illustration and root texture sample, I thinking of covering a metal frame in fabric? experiment one anyway.

Technical-logical electrical clever moving stuff

My Grandad makes toy flying planes as a hobby and so has shown me how to wire it to make it move. With a budget transmitter i can have 4 parts of the Triffid moving. I have chosen to have the mouth moving on a hinge, a tounge(tendril) emerging from the mouth and 2 leaves moving on the branches. The wires will be in the stem. The sensors, receiver(receives signal from transmitter), battery and switch will be in the roots/legs. I have built a simple wooden holder for the sensors, the white crosses move and therefore move the wires attatched. I was thinking the Transmitter controller could be chained to the Triffid at the exhibition maybe and viewers could move the Triffid themselves. ? Here is a diagram or two and a picture. I now must make the frame work for a prototype to test the movement.(Green=battery, Red=switch, Purple=receiver,Blue=Sensors x4)

Sketches for Triffids New Project

Final Major Project! I am designing the Triffids for DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS. Man eating plants, went to Kew Gardens to begin, HUGE gardens, would be a great day out with a picnic, best plants in the Princess of Wales Conservatory. Here is some art work for the Triffid, I think it looks very organic...is this sophistication coming through? or is it lacking in design? need peer reviews.

centrals student producitons

Just seen 'Call of the Wild' at the Central school of speech and drama, they should really be checked out, brillant stuff, great to see the students from acting, lighting, puppetry, sound etc getting together and making final piece stuff. pleassure to watch, they had so much energy. the puppets were made out of card, the lead dog was particularrly impressive, layers of card, creating an illusion of a thick mane.

the students worked with members of the Blind Summit Theatre, (im such a fan) Nick Barnes did the puppets with them, im very jealous.

just want to reccomend going to see their future productions!

sid the jabberwocky puppet

ah, so ive made my first puppet,

alice through the looking glass, jabberwocky by lewis carol

just seen the film and mines very different.

its made from metal rods twisted together, joints added, paper mache, painted and varnished.

its a combonation of a chicken carcus body, loctus legs, fish mouth, extinct cannibul skull and tusks.

and obviously SID is the only name for it.