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Part of the philosophy of Operation: Puppet is things can be more friendly and personal. I try to be open and transparent about what going on with me and the shop, etc, and that’s not always great news. Having a bit of a rough time in the ol’ puppet mines over the past week.

Looking over the financials, while things aren’t awful, I’m having to make some tough calls. Tax season is looming and that always hits hard. With materials and import fees skyrocketing, I’ve had to make the difficult decision to put a hold on all commission work until at least the Spring, when I should be recovered a bit. This could use some explaining:

Commission work is always far more time consuming than shop builds, and because they require specific materials, the initial cost to me is greater. With material and labour hours I rarely break even on a commission, and often take a bit of a loss; but I still do them because I want to connect with my clients and help them realize their visions.

I have a strict policy of never accepting money for a puppet that isn’t done, and that combined with my policy of keeping my prices reasonable (if not low) means that at times like this, it’s just not financially viable for me to do commission work. For shop builds I can use what materials I already have or can readily get and build to the time I have rather than a specific goal. As a result, I can often double or triple the number of shop puppets that get built in the same time as commissions. Normally I can just soak that cost but right now things are tight enough that it’s just not feasible.

There are a couple of folks that have been waiting for me to start their commissions that I’m going to have to let down, and that feels lousy. There are a lot of advantages to working at a small scale on a sole proprietorship, but this is a good example of when things can turn around and bite you.

Going to go hide and be grouchy for a bit. After coffee.

Those of you who’ve been following Operation: Puppet for a while have probably been unable to escape me talking about how much I love New Orleans. Despite being a pasty Canadian dude, the music, culture and people of NOLA call to me in a deep way. When it came time to assemble my cast of characters for The Oracle, I had to find a way to work New Orleans into it; and thus was our “music specialist” Jellyroll born.

Today is Mardi Gras 2023. I’ve never actually been to Mardi Gras, as when we go to New Orleans we tend to shy away from the intensely commercial areas. You won’t find me on Bourbon St unless I’m going to Preservation Hall, I’m much more likely to be found in Frenchman St listening to some live Jazz in one of the many clubs.

Last time I was there was November 2019. We just missed the first big COVID wave. I’ve felt pretty disconnected from it since then, which is a bit weird as I’ve spent most of my life right here in Canada and have no ties to NOLA other than a love of the culture it has given the world.

So on this Mardi Gras, like every other, I will crank up WWOZ and dance as I build puppets and think about the day I can go back to the City That Care Forgot.

Laissez les bons temps rouler y’all.

Monday is the new Friday. Or something.

Bit of an odd Monday here as it’s a holiday, so the mental rails I usually run on have been interrupted. So, in no particular order, a loose and unrelated collection of things at the forefront of my brain:

– The Frankie Play streams are returning today! We haven’t done these since before last Christmas, so it’ll be fun to get back in the saddle. If you’re new, Frankie is one of the characters on my YouTube puppet series The Oracle.  He streams video games sometimes with the Pixels and Puppets gang using a vTuber avatar, because for some reason he’s insistent that not all vTubers are Anime catgirls. 2pm ET on Twitch and YouTube.

– I have a thing that will occupy a lot of Friday so with today being a holiday I really only have three days for building this week, so I’ve had to adjust my build plans. This week will be two Smols instead of the furry arm rod monster I’d planned, and the furry monster will get moved to next week. As always the build stream is on Wednesday at 11am ET on Twitch and YouTube.

– The Neverwinter Nights server is getting closer to a testing release, just want to polish up a couple of things. It’ll be a small sample of the full thing just to stress test the core structure and bug hunt, but if you’re interested jump on in to the channel on the Discord. I’ll eventually be putting up a little micro-site for it with all the details.

Hope you’ll join us for all or some of the various linked things! Now, just cuz it’s a holiday Monday doesn’t mean I have a holiday from working out so I should get on the exercise bike so I can start the day. After coffee.

I have been reliably informed that it’s a long weekend here in Ontario as Monday is a stat holiday. Working for myself from home I do tend to lose track of these things.

Long weekends can get a bit weird for me as I do try to observe them as I would if I were employing someone else, but in truth it doesn’t always go that way. Still, I’ve been hammering away at the puppet anvil pretty hard lately so some down-time would help recharge the batteries. That being so and as I have an appointment next Friday, I’ve had to adjust my build schedule for the rest of the month and reduce output slightly. Not crazy about that but we’ll see how it goes.

Plans for the weekend are to plunge into the Neverwinter server and get it up to a state where I can get a tester or two in to start finding cracks I’ve missed. It’s only just core systems at the moment; it’s neither big nor deep, but this is the foundation all the rest will be built on so it needs to be as solid as it can. Stay tuned to the Discord and Mastodon for that.

The future of the Frankie Play streams is still up in the air. Unlikely there will be any this weekend, but I’m sure they’ll be back at some point. I’m having the feeling it will be an R&R type of weekend so that means less on-camera time. One thing I’m thinking of doing on weekends other than this one is streaming some of me working on the Neverwinter server, as part of a new type of stream under the auspices of Pixels and Puppets. Still wary of spreading my reach too thin, but I’ll likely poke it at some point. Much like the build streams, it’s just what I’d be doing anyway, so no harm in hanging out with some of y’all while I do it.

Oh yes and speaking of the podcast, there are six coffee mugs to be sent out. I do indeed have enough boxes for them all (plus a final mug for our first listener in Belgium if they reach out) so they’ll be sent Saturday or Sunday.

And speaking of mugs… coffee.

Really fun build stream yesterday, happy to see regulars and fellow builders turning up. Plenty of fun shop talk and tips, I certainly learned some great stuff.

I’ve noticed lately that between the podcast and streams, I’m becoming more relaxed and comfortable being on camera. I know I don’t necessarily project it, but like a lot of folks in the puppetry world, I’m somewhat of an introvert. The reason I don’t necessarily project that is all down to practice.

I’m still not sure why I got it into my head to ever start streaming in the first place, other than I’ve always known I wanted to be in the Entertainment media field. I think I saw others that were engaging and funny and just wondered if I could do it? Just like everything else I do, the only way to learn is by doing, and making mistakes.

Being relaxed and chatting away while on stream is not an intuitive thing, at least for me. There’s a reason I much prefer scripted work to improv, as I’m not a natural improviser. It takes practice and is definitely an entire range of skills that develop over time. Really it’s only in the past month or so I feel like I’ve finally hit a level of comfort with it that is the place I hoped to be. It took years to get to that point.

The most important factor, of course, is that now I have regular folks who watch. That’s the key. Like I’ve always said, I’m perfectly happy with a small audience, just so long as there isn’t no audience. And it helps that this community is, by & large, kind, funny, helpful and patient. It’s really just another form of socializing, and that’s how I want it to feel. 

So thanks, everyone. I do work hard to make this a nice place people want to be, and it’s rewarding to see that working as intended.

And now the intention is, that’s right, coffee.

Recently I had a request that got me reflecting on my working methodology and revealed something of a shortcoming in my puppet building process.

When I decided to start the shop, I established a few fundamental parameters, the most important of which was I need to keep my puppets affordable. If you’ve been around the pro-puppet world you know that these things can take a great deal of time and skill to make, and therefore don’t come cheap. I wanted to find a way to be able to produce similar results but at a lower cost, so more folks could find an on-ramp to puppetry.

One of the ways I do that is by having quite simple, basic standard “models” that are very flexible in terms of design. Greeblees, Smols, furry monsters, etc., are all primary forms and relatively simple shapes all joined together. The magic happens in the build process. When crafting features for each build I never measure things, I eyeball everything. Even eyeballs.

This gives each build a slightly asymmetrical balance, which feels organic and life-like. Each build, even when made with the same patterns and materials as another, becomes it’s own character. No two are exactly alike, despite the fact that I’ve made hundreds of puppets.

Most of the time this is a huge advantage and selling point. However I occasionally get a client who asks for something very specific – a totally reasonable request – but not something I’m set up to do. To make something to exact specs or even reproduce another puppet I’ve made before, it would likely take a couple of tries before I get it, and that’s a huge drain on time. I usually can’t afford to do that. Those times when I’ve been asked to make a new version of an established character, I always make sure the client knows that this won’t be a 100% match for the old one (as in my rebuild of Comfy, in today’s logo).

In shops that have to make multiples of the same characters, like The Muppets, they’ll often have extremely detailed notes, patterns and measurements for reference, and even then they don’t always get it 100% right. How many times have you seen a new Fozzie and thought “hmm… seems a little different?” This is why.

It’s a bit of an Achilles Heel for me as it means I have to turn down some commissions I’d otherwise be happy to take, but it’s just a reality of working at this small scale.

It’s stream day, so lots of prep, starting with coffee.

As we talked about on the recent Pixels and Puppets episode, the current PC hardware ecosystem has me rethinking my approach to upgrade cycles. I’ve always been a tinkerer and enjoy the building process so I naturally fell into the “get the latest thing” habit, but things have changed. With PC part prices skyrocketing into mind boggling levels (also, I’m sure no coincidence, PC part sales plummeting to record lows), it’s just not financially viable to stay on the treadmill.

I’ve fallen into the common trap of “dog chasing a car” mentality that a lot of people in this space do. I want the latest thing without totally knowing why. At this stage of the game that’s both financially and environmentally irresponsible. E-waste is a serious problem and one response to that is to try and make our hardware useful for longer. This of course flies in the face of the for-profit, endless growth model of all the corporations that drive these things, but now more than ever I’m aware of the need for push-back.

I’m trying now to focus more on hard targets. What do I want to *do* with the hardware? Is there a need for extra horsepower to accomplish something, or can it be done with less, or with more efficiency? The 2080TI GPU in my office PC is motoring along just fine, for example. I’ve realized that I really don’t care about ray tracing or FPS above 60, and this can hit those targets, so it stays. My video editing/desktop machine in the office is a Mac Studio which is tidy, efficient and powerful, and will stay useful for many years (assuming Apple doesn’t decide to pull the plug on OS support, ask Jamie about that).

The interesting thing at this point is what’s going on in the workshop. There are two PCs in there, one my beefy gaming rig and one my Frankenstein’d Linux box. I’ve been trying to use the Linux box more & more and despite a couple of annoyances (which I managed to fix), it’s been great. The only time I turn on the gaming PC is to either play a PC game (which I mostly do in the office anyway) or run the build stream, and after some tweaking it looks like the Linux box should be capable of running the build stream itself.

I’m not foolish enough to think I’ll never upgrade again, and eventually there’s a tipping point where old hardware should be retired simply because new hardware is more efficient, but I’m going to be more thoughtful about it. There’s a certain “cool” factor in having the latest thing, yeah, but there’s also a “cool” factor in not. Nothing more cyberpunk-y than some old piece junk duct-taped to the side of something and self-modded to give you that certain Max Headroom vibe.

C-c-c-c-offee.

Being an older person, I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life. I’ve been a fast-food worker, retail sales, a bar busser in a Goth club, and a succession of various web design and development positions. Some were fine, others downright toxic and abusive, but even at their best they were merely tolerable. My income has usually been at or just below subsistence level.

It wasn’t until the puppet building thing suddenly happened that I actually enjoy my job, and it’s made me keenly aware of the sadly unique position I’m in, in that regard. There are regrettably few people in my situation. Lives of quiet desperation, all being fuel for someone else’s machine.

Puritanical Capitalists like to espouse the virtues of a strong “work ethic”, which of course serves their purposes. Work itself is seen as some kind of ethical act, no matter what the work entails. Being from a white, suburban, blue collar neighborhood I sure did hear a lot about that growing up, and it was something of a shock when I grew up and realized it’s all a scam, part of the structure to keep the rich getting richer and the poor thankful for what little they have.

It’s only now, working for myself doing something I both love but also have aptitude for, that I find myself with a strong “work ethic”. I set targets to hit, make sure jobs get done, and do what is necessary to make it all work, because I must. This whole thing is on me, no one is pushing me, and I’m only answerable to myself. The only option is self-discipline.

But even in that, it’s important to remember to take care of oneself. If I’m my own boss, I’m determined to be a good boss. I treat myself as I’d want to be treated as an employee. If I need personal time, I take it. If I need to do errands, I do them. If schedules have to be shifted, they’ll shift. The work exists for the people, not the other way around.

The next time some Venture Capitalist tries to espouse how “no one wants to work” and puts forward some myth that they’re self-made despite floating on a sea of family wealth, remember this. Work itself isn’t terrible, and “work ethic” comes naturally to a healthy workplace.  It’s what you’re doing and who you’re doing it for.

This is all a little deep for a Monday morning. Anyway, the new episode of the podcast is out! Enjoy!

Like I’ll enjoy this coffee.

A busy week leading into a busy weekend has my brain in “chicken in a wind-storm” mode. Hard to pick just one topic for this morning. Why choose?

Puppet stuff: A Goblin and one Greeblee done, which is a little light for the week but I’m switching gears today (reasons in a moment) and have planned out the builds for the rest of February so it’s all good. Very fun stream on Wednesday, and the VoDs are getting decent views. Trying to care about metrics less but it’s always comforting to know someone is watching.

Tech stuff: Ugh. As blogged about before I need to replace the AIO cooler in my gaming PC, and now, it turns out, also in my Linux desktop. The Linux one at least isn’t a surprise, it’s very old and I think the tubes are just dry. As a result, since I really won’t have time this weekend, I’m designating today “PC Surgery Day” and operating on both machines. It’s relatively straightforward and I don’t anticipate any weirdness, so stay tuned to socials to find out what goes wrong! Speaking of socials…

Social Media: As The Idiot Emperor continues to degrade the birdsite, Mastodon is experiencing another wave of users, some of whom tried it, fell off for whatever reason, went back to Muskland and then, well you know. It’s a clear trend. When Nazis buy the pub, find a new pub.

Mastodon is having some teething pains of its own. A fairly big instance run by an individual is shutting down for complicated and ugly reasons, and it’s users are now looking to migrate to other instances. It’s a good lesson in either keeping on smaller instances, or the need for large instances to have the responsibility shared among more than one person. It’s these sorts of things that show the Achilles Heel of the Fediverse model, but anything organic is going to be messy at some point.

And finally, podcasting: Tomorrow we record Episode 3 of Pixels and Puppets and it should (hopefully) be in person. Very much looking forward to it. Without giving anything away, the numbers are healthy and growing. Thank you everyone, it means a ton. It’s a non-trivial amount of work to make but knowing there are people out there listening makes it worth it. Cheers!

Coffee.

Another day, another thing wot is broke on that bird site. Hello to another new wave of Mastodon folks, hope you’ll find the platform as uplifting as I have. It’s a different beast and one that takes a little effort to understand, but that effort is well rewarded.

Various vectors have lead me to start thinking more about what might be called, for lack of a better term, the “lore” of Operation: Puppet, particularly regarding the characters from The Oracle. As 2023 progresses and my agenda of “get more eyeballs” this year seems to be having some mild success, I think it’s only fair to help people on-board.

Now we have a core group of O:P regulars who know what I mean when I talk about Frankie or Jellyroll, for example, there is a tendency to build off that and form in-jokes. That’s all well and fine and part of the social dynamic but it also can feel impenetrable to newcomers. I always want O:P to be welcoming and friendly, so a little something to give people a reference point might be helpful.

Plus as I’m building the Neverwinter server for the O:P community I’m having to think about things I never thought about before. I mean, how old is The Oracle (thank you Pineocoles)?  I’m a bit wary of getting too granular. Some ambiguity is nice, or you end up with the current Star Wars situation of every minor background character getting their own comic book and deep dives into the epic adventures of the ice cream maker that guy on Cloud City was carrying.

As I talked about on yesterday’s build stream, I’m going to start an FAQ page here on the site that features character bios and other info about who I am and what Operation: Puppet is all about. No timeline on this yet since, as per usual, I have a thousand plates spinning at once, but if you have any suggestions for good FAQ points by all means reach out (all the usual places) and let me know.

Lore needs coffee.