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Morning Coffee Blog: Plans

The eyes have it

Another fun stream yesterday, leaving me quite enthusiastic about the current build. Lil’ preview in today’s logo.

What’s funny is the thing I’m exited about is this build is something a bit new from the shop. I do try to add new models when I can, but prototyping is a lengthy process that I try to save for holiday breaks. It’s just so happened to work out that I’ve had a bit of time for small, iterative prototyping – some built on older work – over the past few weeks. The results have been some of my favourite builds ever.

And the thing about that is it’s pretty much the opposite to what I had planned for this year. Every year I try to get a sense of what’s happening and where I should focus my efforts for O:P. Looking at the dismal economy going into 2023 and seeing how slow late 2022 was, I assumed that this was going to be a very lean year as folks trim sails in hard times. Puppets tend to be a luxury item.

I can ride out a few phases like that so I decided my efforts this year should be on planting seeds. We’ve got something good and healthy going with O:P, so the goal should be to try getting the word out and bringing in more people. As always, it’s a balancing act with available time so I assumed I wasn’t going to be doing any new models this year until the end.

So, how’s that plan going? Well, I left Twitter and Facebook, so there’s considerably fewer channels for social media. Plus, in the past three weeks I’ve done or am in the process of doing three different styles of puppet I haven’t done before. So much for plans.

The funny part? The O:P community is actually growing. The Discord (join the Discord) is more active than ever, the build streams are always well attended, the podcast (listen to the podcast) has a healthy listener base and generally things are ticking along. Even sales, which not spectacular, are better than I assumed they would be.

Someone once said that life is what happens while you’re making other plans. True in life, as in puppets. Plans are generally there as a navigation aid, but sometimes you gotta go with the flow. Hey look, coffee.

Morning Coffee Blog: Intense

It’s Wednesday, right? Pretty sure. So far it’s been a very intense week. Not necessarily bad, some quite good, but all quite intense. At my age I can only stand a certain degree of intense before I must return to the sea for a while, like Godzilla at the end of a film.

It’s stream day (Wed 11AM ET on Twitch and YouTube) and the build plan this week is to experiment a bit more. Today’s logo is a prototype head that I built when I was working on another design, which I recall was The Oracle 2.0. It was one of those “I’m just going to start drawing shapes roughly about what I want and see how it fits together” things. It’s how I start most original patterns and although it needs a few iterations to get where I want, there are often intermediate steps along the way that end up being useful.

This is an example. The snout was too long for what I wanted for The Oracle but it does have a pleasing shape and feels very nice on the hand, with the deep mouth plate. It reminded me a bit of the Mystics from Dark Crystal (or UrU if we’re being Comic Book Guy about it) so I’ve labelled it “Mystic”-inspired head. Did a fleece covering for it yesterday and I’m quite happy with the results, so this is likely going to be a new model for the shop(s).

I want to do a couple of things I haven’t done before with this, but how exactly they play out will depend on how today goes. Monday got eaten up by a personal day so I don’t have a lot of time to spend on it, but I’ll decide that as I work on it during today’s stream.

It’s always a juggling act, balancing new designs with building enough to keep the shops stocked. Next week I plan to just do a couple of Smols which are fairly quick so that balances things out, and at the end of it if I have a new type of critter for sale that’s good for everyone.

Time to shake off the cobwebs and get the day rolling. I understand there’s a certain beverage known for assisting with that.

Morning Coffee Blog: Happy World Puppetry Day!

Frankie sits in on a special video Coffee Blog to wish everyone a happy World Puppetry Day!

Morning Coffee Blog: Friday Grab Bag

Time to descend into the crystal waters of Friday and delight at the random fish that playfully dart about the reef of the almost-weekend.

Note from Frankie: workshop that metaphor some more, kid.

– Despite what I can only assume is the time change still messing with my head, or possibly alien signals beaming into my brain from the Zebulon galaxy, we will have a build stream today (11am ET on Twitch and YouTube). Still not sure exactly what we’ll be doing, could just be an informal chat as the build schedule for the week is done.

– We have now passed 400 downloads of Pixels and Puppets! Thank you all! The rate of adoption has definitely slowed, but it shows we have a good core audience, and that’s all I could ask for. I could probably do more to promote it, but I don’t want to get spammy, particularly now as Mastodon is my only real social media outlet. As always, word-of-mouth is our best vehicle for growth and anything y’all can do to help is greatly appreciated. At the time of this writing there is still one unclaimed key for the Neverwinter Nights giveaway! Speaking of which…

– The road map for the Neverwinter server test release is almost done, just a few more things and it will be ready for play. Hope to have it up for an announcement on the next podcast. This will be a tiny fraction of the eventual game, just to test the core systems, but I need play testers to come in and try to break things before really building it out. Hope you like grinding! I’ll also make a dedicated voice chat channel on the Discord (join the Discord) for it so folks can socialize and co-ordinate their dungeon dives. It’s way outside the “puppet” wheelhouse but as O:P grows into a true community it’s just nice to have stuff like this to do. Think of it as our own virtual clubhouse. That just happens to have a load of goblins and elves in it.

Time to get organized. Get on the exercise bike, breakfast, do the product photos for the last week’s builds, prep for the stream, and, naturally, coffee.

Morning Coffee Blog: Smol

Smol

This is one of those topics I’ve spoken about quite a bit, but this blog is useful for getting things down in a format that can be easily referred to. Regular live stream viewers (or podcast listeners) will no doubt have heard the Smaller Puppets Are Better lecture, but let’s review, shall we?

This was something I hadn’t actually thought about until I’d been learning puppet building for about a year. It was through the aforementioned most excellent courses by BJ Guyer at the Stan Winston School that I was introduced to the concept that in puppets for the camera, aim for as small a size as is practical. There are a few reasons for this.

The most practical reason is weight. Beginners or people unused to performing puppets sometimes don’t quite grok how impactful every single bit of weight can be. When you’re not only holding something above your head for long periods of time, but also attempting to create a performance with it, weight is probably the single biggest factor.

One of the major challenges when I approach every build is to make it as light as possible. Even something as simple as a solid resin eye vs a ping pong ball or vacuu-formed shell can have a cumulative effect. Bigger puppets are heavier, it’s that simple. I’ve had clients remark on how strangely light my puppets are, and for anyone trying to work with them, that’s always a good thing.

The other reason small puppets are better is the quality of the performance. With a small puppet, a performer can do more subtle, nuanced things. Big puppets need big movements. In a small puppet, a simple delicate turn of a head can impart emotion that would be lost on a large puppet.

There’s a tendency when you begin puppet building to go bigger and bigger, almost a “bigger is better” subconscious trend. The best rule of thumb to follow is: never make a puppet bigger than it needs to be. If you’re building for a live or theatre performance of course it makes sense to build bigger, as they need to be visible at a distance (and therefore it’s even more important to try and make them light), but for camera performances, always go as small as you can for the appropriateness of the character.

After realizing this a couple of years ago I set myself a challenge: how small can I build a puppet so that it still is workable by an average adult hand? The result is one of my most popular models: The Smol.

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I love these little critters, and the wealth of design opportunities is a testament to the power of their simplicity. They embody everything I love about puppet design, the minimalism, the abstract weirdness of Don Sahlin, and of course, their smallness.

Time for a small large coffee.

Morning Coffee Blog: Community

Two Gus-themed logos in a row huh? That can’t be good.

Had an interesting experience on the O:P Discord yesterday that was very instructive and illuminating. Those who know me know how opposed I am to NFTs and other such “Web3” crypto trends. I mean, I made a whole Oracle video on it and “Guscoin” is a running gag on the Discord. I also acknowledge, however, that not everyone feels as strongly about it as I do.

Since one of my goals this year is to grow the O:P community (and so far, that seems to be working), of course it will attract a wider and wider array of people. I of course have hard lines against hate speech or discrimination, but I also want O:P to be a comfortable space. That can sometimes be a tricky tightrope to walk, particularly as the figurehead of the community.

Thus far O:P has largely been like me hanging out with friends, and sometimes I lose sight of the fact that we may not all feel the same ways about things. I posted a snide comment about the Sesame Street NFTs and it turns out one of the newer members actively participates in NFT trading, and posted about some of it. In a somewhat knee-jerk reaction, I asked them not to “promote” NFTs on the server, which understandably offended them, as they were just engaging in discussion.

This is the first time this sort of conflict has come up on the server, and I quickly realized that I had to rise to the occasion. Instead of digging my heels in and being defensive, I listened to what they had to say and admitted I was too harsh in my response. I feel so strongly about NFTs that I’d really rather not have them in the general chat channels because it causes me real stress to engage with that, but I also know that others in the community may wish to chat about it. I ended up making a new channel for such discussions, that I’ve just muted on my end and plan to never look at.

I’m not used to having O:P be bigger than just a few friends, so I don’t have a lot of experience at what might be called “community management”. I hope I handled it well, but it was a lesson for me. I firmly believe in modelling the sort of behavior you’d like to see in the world, and I think that admitting my mistake and apologizing to the person and supplying them with a space was the sort of thing a mature, thoughtful person would do.

Let me be clear: I still think NFTs are a scam, and that hasn’t, and won’t, change. There is no discussion about that I wish to engage in, but I also acknowledge that others in the community might. The second that changes to someone trying to actively sell NFTs or other crypto scams via O:P that will be a violation of the No Advertisements policy everyone who joins has already agreed to.

Sorry Gus. Not sorry, coffee.  

Morning Coffee Blog: FAQ

HI THERE! IT’S GUS FROM MARKETING!

There’s a running gag on the Operation: Puppet Discord (join the Discord) where I think of something I’d like to do, and then “add it to the infinite to-do list”. I have to very carefully manage my time to make sure I get all the shop stuff done that I need, but also do enough community things like make videos, streams and engage with the Discord (join the Discord), but I recently thought of something that I feel I should move up in the list.

As we get more people joining us (join the… you know) and a lot of them are just at the beginning of their puppetry/building adventure, I’m seeing similar questions being asked; basic but important things that beginners are often unsure about. I feel such questions being asked frequently call for some form of uniform response; a point of contact to direct folks who share these frequently asked questions. Perhaps Gus can come up with some sort of catchy name for it?

I used to assume people coming to O:P had found one of the bigger names first. Most people finding the YouTube channel have at least found Adam K, or perhaps various Facebook groups or even done BJ Guyer’s excellent courses at the Stan Winston School of Character Arts. As a result they come to O:P already knowing some basics, and I never felt the need to really engage with some fundamentals, but now that I’ve been pushing outreach more, I’m finding that I’m the first point of contact for some folks.

As there are already lots of excellent resources out there to teach the basics I never felt the need to do my own version of them, but more & more I can see there being a value and use in them. Instead of assuming someone has already learned things like various foam types, fabric choices, hand sewing stiches, etc., or just hoping they search for something, I should have my own collection of real Puppet Building 101 videos.

Note from Gus From Marketing: HI THERE!!! THAT’S A GREAT IDEA WE SHOULD MONETIZE IT!!!

Yes Gus, that’s what you say about everything. Anyway…

I’m going to start assembling a collection of questions that I think I should go over. Some I’ve already mentioned, but I’ve been doing this for long enough now that I’ll probably not think of some things that would otherwise be obvious, so feel free to reach out and let me know if there are any questions you’d like to see me cover in a video. At the moment I’m envisioning them as a series of short, produced videos using the live stream setup, but not actually done on live stream so I’m not distracted by chat. A cooking demo, as it were.

You can use the contact form on this site, any of the socials, or, of course, join the Discord.

Time for some Fabulously Awesome… Qoffee? Something like that. Gus, get to work.

Morning Coffee Blog: DST Edition

First off, the new episode of the podcast is out, give it a listen! There’s free stuff!

Let’s see, weird sleep, low level disorientation, messed up dreams? Yep, that’s daylight savings time. Let’s get the brain in gear.

The week is looking pretty manageable for builds. On the docket are the second Smol from the beginning of Friday’s builds, and 4 Sonks. As the internals of the Smol are already built I should be able to get that done today, and I can usually do 2 Sonks a day, which means I could have a little flex time this week.

Being someone who does suffer from frequent bouts of insomnia, it’s something I’ve learned to accommodate for in my work schedule. I try not to fill up all available time just in case I need a bit of recovery, and I think I’ve found a good sweet spot for both being able to get things done, but also not push myself into the ground.

I’m acutely aware of how lucky I am that I get to make these kind of choices. Most people living with health issues don’t have the luxury. Capitalism demands nothing less than everything.

I could definitely push myself harder and yield more output, and in most companies that’s exactly not only what would be expected, but the only metric of “success”. But the result would be burnout and declining quality, and resentment towards the work. Puppet building is a personal, careful, thoughtful process. It may mean more puppets but they’d be worse for it and I would hate doing it. Not willing to let that happen for the sake of a few more potential dollars.

So today I will get up, post the blog, have some breakfast, make a trip to the post office to drop off a couple of puppets to their new owners, and settle in to enjoy building. The affection and joy in the process will be reflected in the work, and that’s what will form the connection between any individual puppet and a new client.

It’s only possible to do with some self care. And coffee.

Morning Coffee Blog: Noot

Well, I’ve done something I’ve never done before. I’ve pulled a puppet from the shop and decided to keep it for myself.

As I mentioned on a recent blog, I don’t worry too much about sales-per-month because so far, even if a puppet has sat on one of the shops for a long time, eventually someone comes along who it’s right for. It can be hard to predict how long that is, but there’s one model that it has become predictable: the Noot.

The Noot was a model I prototyped two years ago, designed to be my first regularly available full body puppet. I really like it, but it just does not sell. I’m not sure if it’s the puppet itself or if since it’s full body it’s priced a bit higher than the others, but Noots always take a long time to sell. The first one sat on the Esty shop for over a year. A trend emerges.

The current Noot was built and listed last June, and even then, I was thinking I might keep it for myself. I was semi-subconsciously building it to be Nigel, the newt character introduced in Season 1 of The Oracle when the characters were puppets I had before I started building. When I started replacing the characters with my own builds, I had always intended to do Nigel as well, and the Noot was meant to be the test for this model.

Last week I decided to move the yellow Noot to the Etsy shop, which always gets more traffic, and if it didn’t sell by today’s date, I would pull it and keep it. As of this morning it was still unsold, so it’s decided: Nigel is coming home.

Of course, I have mixed feeling about this. I’m still confident that it would have sold eventually, and I do love the design, but it’s a case where the “market” just didn’t respond. As a builder you try to not take things like that too personally, but of course this is a personal business. But I’ve decided to roll with it.

Clearly, I’m the person this puppet was meant for, and always was. I love the character and the build, so Nigel 2.0 will be coming to The Oracle soon. Already writing the script in my head and look forward to practising his horribly unconvincing Cockney accent.

Welcome home Nigel. Have some coffee.

Morning Coffee Blog: Discord

Another fun build stream yesterday (Wednesdays 11am ET on Twitch and YouTube). Really pleased with the solid core of regulars and new folks coming on board.

One thing I’ve noticed over the past month or so that may not be immediately apparent to the audience, is I feel like I’ve started to find a comfort level with streaming. I’m not a naturally “in front of the camera” person (hence, you know, the puppets) but just out of sheer practice I’m finding it flowing more. I’m not as worried any more about not being entertaining or tongue-tied, and generally more confident. The friendliness and welcoming nature of the O:P community is a big factor in that.

As more people move away from big predatory corporate platforms to more grassroots and community-focused digital spaces, it creates a cozy dynamic that just isn’t possible in the Facebooks and Twitters of the world, and that’s something that seems very appropriate for Operation: Puppet.

One thing I’ve been toying with is doing streams directly to the Discord instead of Twitch/YouTube. Things like the build streams and Frankie Play should still go out on public broadcast, but there’s other stuff (like me tinkering with the Neverwinter server) that I’d like to share, but which would be casting too wide a net on the external feeds.

It occurred to me just before the build stream yesterday that one thing we could do on Wednesdays is a pre-stream Discord-only stream. I usually am done the equipment check pretty early and am just working and killing time before a stream, so it wouldn’t be hard to just send out the feed to a Discord Stage while I do so. And this has the added bonus as since it’s not a fully public broadcast, I can listen to whatever music I like without the threat of DCMA take-downs. They would be super casual, just hangin’ out kind of things, and a nice little bonus for the folks on the Discord. Will likely get that rolling for next week.

Two lessons from this:

  1. Join the Discord.
  2. Coffee.