Well 2022 is off to a heck of a start for the puppet building world. First the bad:
Popular puppet builder and YouTube personality Adam Kreutinger has launched NFTs. I’m not going to get drawn into a debate about NFTs or their relative merits and drawbacks, and many in this space aren’t even clear on what they are. Suffice it to say that other than an environmental disaster, NFTs and the Web3 trend in general is more full of scam artists, hucksters and sleaze than a 1930’s carnival sideshow.
It’s very sad to see Adam go down this road, and I hope he reverses course. Adam has done a great deal to make puppet building accessible to many people, and it’s disappointing to see him tarnish his reputation in this way.
Needless to say Operation: Puppet does not nor ever will endorse NFTs.
In good news, I’ve got back into the live stream space. Last year I streamed quite a bit on Twitch but I found it interfered with my daily workflow. Then two things happened to drive me out of the field: first the hate raid situation ramped up on Twitch and the platform had an insufficient response to keeping creators safe. It just felt gross to be on the service. Then I had another Etsy builder copy one of my patterns from the stream and start selling puppets that were an obvious ripoff of one of my designs. That felt horrible, and discouraged me from streaming altogether.
Thanks to a suggestion from a Twitter follower, I came up with a format that would allow me to stream again with comfort: Q&A. Instead of just building my standard models, I could answer questions and give demonstrations.
I’ve done two of these now and they’ve been wonderful. Audience participation is excellent and I think folks are finding them useful, so I’ve decided to double down on them. At the moment the current schedule is the second and last Friday in every month, and I’m streaming simultaneously on YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter, so they should be easy for most folks to watch. As always, stay tuned to my social media for announcements.
Finally, since I’m now taking time out of my shop build time to do Q&A streams, I’ve dipped a toe into crowdfunding. I’m happy to do the streams regardless so no one should feel obligated, but helping support the stream is a great way to encourage more. Any money made from the stream will be invested in the stream itself, from better equipment to paying Restream subscription costs, etc. You can support me at Ko-fi.com/operationpuppet, and I appreciate any amount you can give.