Oolong's Zoo

On Saturday I went to the second UK Maker Faire in Newcastle. This is an event that gets together a whole lot of people in one building who have something creative and technological to show off, share or workshop. That’s a pretty broad remit; there was probably a slim majority of fun robotics projects, plus a bunch of people doing interesting things with 3D printing, a giant musical Tesla coil playing tunes using lightning – that sort of thing.

One of the things that was most interesting to me personally was a new kind of silicone putty, called Sugru. It’s being sold mainly as a way of modifying existing objects, by sticking things onto other things, adding comfortable grips and suchlike, but I’m intrigued by its sculpting potential.

It has a few things in common with epoxy putty – it sticks pretty firmly to many different surfaces, making it great for modifying existing objects; it gives you about half an hour or so of working time during which it goes from being really quite sticky to kind of stiff, then it cures fully in about 24 hours; and it comes in a range of different colours.

The big difference is that when it ‘hardens’, it stays soft and rubbery. Drop it, and it bounces. You can probably use it to erase pencil marks. That makes it more desirable and fun for certain kinds of uses – I’d rather mod delicate electronic equipment with something that bounces rather than crashing like stone, for example. Another difference is that unlike epoxy (which needs to be mixed up) it starts curing from the moment you take it out of the packet, which means you need to use a whole pack at once if you don’t want to waste any.

It’s quite like Fimo to work with, and holds details well. The surface noticeably cures a bit faster than the inside, but you don’t seem to get the kind of annoying wrinkle-prone skin you do with many air-drying modelling clays. For me the working time is plenty for most of my sculptures, though I know a lot of people take longer. The two sculptures I made held their own weight surprisingly well, sagging only a tiny bit, which is a relief after working with epoxy putty or even Fimo Soft. I only got to play with a little bit at the Faire, and it hasn’t launched commercially yet, but I’m looking forward to doing more with it. I can see a lot of interesting potential there.

I stumbled on a science/art workshop led by Lizzie Burns at The Bowery a few weeks ago, part of the Edinburgh Interdisciplinary Discussion thing, which I’m quite excited about now that I’ve heard of it.

Lizzie makes jewellery and paintings inspired by various fields of science, and also runs workshops in museums and things – they’re mostly aimed at kids really, but she suggested that I come along, so I thought I’d give it a go.

There were actually a series of workshops each based on sculpting bits of the body, leading up to the one I was at, where we made whole bodies. There’s a long history of anatomy being studied by artists, and I figured it might be a useful exercise for me, especially since I’ve been sculpting more humans lately (mainly at Dr Sketchy). Either way, it was fun making a skeleton.

The material is a light air-drying clay resembling Efaplast Light, but a bit more elastic. Very well suited to this sort of thing, though a little tricky to transport safely before it’s fully dry.

I’ve been wanting to animate my beasties for years now, but despite being full of character designs I’ve never really had an animation idea good enough to inspire me to action. I may be a writer of sorts, but I don’t really do fiction.

That’s why I’m soliciting scripts. Specifically I’m looking for scripts which don’t call for elaborate staging, and will take no more than 60 seconds of animation time. If you can make a recording of the script and send it to me that’s even better, but if not I can probably get people together later to record it for us, so don’t worry about that too much.

I’m open to receiving scripts by email, but what I’d like best is for people to submit them to Everything2 for Gone in 60 Seconds – a Theatre Quest, and make sure that they would work as one-minute plays as well as animations.

There’s nothing particularly taxing about submitting things for Everything2 – the main things are just to make sure it reads well, add links by putting square brackets around a few relevant words or phrases, and check that it looks okay after you post. Ask me on the site if you have any questions or problems after you sign up.

Polymer clay critters (not to mention jewellery, etc.) are not the easiest thing in the world to photograph, as demonstrated by the wealth of photos out there which don’t do justice to the art pictured. They are not the most challenging either, however, and anybody should be able to get decent results if they pay some attention to each stage of the process…

1. Setting: I tend to take most of my pictures of my critters against very plain backgrounds, allowing them to stand entirely on their own merits. Mostly I use simple white backgrounds – a folded sheet of paper or the inside of a large, blank birthday card works well for this. Wooden shelves can also make a pleasant backdrop without being distracting. You might also like to consider putting them into another context though, like they’re going on an adventure. There are some fun Fimo-critter adventure photos here, by motodraconis, and I very much like what Alice did with the white rabbit I gave her. I love the settings Leslie Levings uses for her critters.
2. Lighting: It helps if you have quite a bit, whether from a bright desk lamp, a window, or both. Pay attention to how the light brings out the lines and colours of the piece; if it’s relevant, think about the mood of it. A sheet of paper placed on the opposite side of the sculpture from the light will make the shadows much less harsh; to make them softer still, place it between the light and the sculpture.
3. Photographing: You’ll usually need to use a macro (or ’super-macro’) setting, or lens; almost all digital cameras do this fairly well, in my experience. Getting in so close to your subject usually means that the depth of field will be very tight; that can work very well to bring out important details, but if you want the whole piece to be in focus you’ll probably need to use a small aperture, i.e. high ‘f-stop’. Bog-standard digital cameras tend to allow you to control this only in ‘manual’ mode.
   A small aperture means that less light gets into the camera, which is one reason it’s important to have good lighting: If the lighting isn’t very, very bright, you’re going to need quite long exposures, which means that if you’re holding the camera by hand you’re almost certain to get motion blur. Put the camera on a tripod (tiny little ones are very cheap), or rest it carefully on a surface.
4. Hedging Bets: Take plenty of shots! It’s tricky to take perfect photographs of something so small, and you shouldn’t expect to get it right first time. Experiment with the lighting, camera angles and setting, especially when you’re new to this; figure out what works for you and what doesn’t, and allow for getting it wrong a lot of the time.

Above all, have fun!