Angela shot her film (not video) this weekend. I got there Sunday morning 11:20, left Monday night. 40 hours no sleep. Inanity. But so fun! And the film will look SO great! Everyone was so inspiring. Such talent.

I did the prosthetic neck wound, which was my first time doing prosthetics and would have been happier with a budget and specially fitting it to the actor, but crap happens, and it worked out anyways. Learned a lot. The tube still wasn’t wide enough, but we got blood and a great shot of it bleeding anyways. Spent the entire weekend playing with fake blood. Simple stuff was most fun. Making Kyle’s head pool blood ruled (he got his head smashed into the door. Crystal and Kyle made it so freaking believable…).

March 26
-Because when a can of compressed air leaks, covering the insanely cold liquid spraying out with your hands might be the first reaction, however, it’s also the wrong one.
My hand hurts. I think the skin is dead.

-Cast and airbrushed prosthetic for Angela’s thesis.

March 25
Programming
-Got the heart monitor programmed. Some problems with the reset to the sequencer, but that’s all cleared up now. Evened out the power, and used a different pin from the microchip.

-Sculpted and moulded the slit neck prosthetic for Angela’s thesis. It also hides a tube, so that blood will pump out of the neck.

March 22 -24
-Finished sculpting / moulding /casting the second mould for the second piece of plastic.
-2 days of sanding it down ahead to get it smooth, then I’ll vacuum form clear plastic over it. Fell behind schedual…
-Registered genpets.com

March 20
Finished text and layout for thesis paper. It’s a product catalogue for the genpets. I’ll have it up on this site for download as a PDF later; it still needs photos and misc graphics.

For the genpets project I printed 36 circuits, fully etched copper, all from my apartment.

March 15 -Circuit drilling
Drilled holes for all 36 circuits. Which was insane. The main overkill circuit had 96 holes (x19) =1824 /// The heart rate circuit had 32 (x19) =608

For a grand total of 2432 holes drilled. Glad I have a drill press.
(also modified my drill press so it has a light on it now)

March 10
Too busy to write in journal. Work work work work thesis. What I’ve done in the last 10 days
-Made 4 part silicon/plaster genpet creature mould
-Bought/received supplies: Servos, 300 ultra bright Led’s, Circuit Etching tank, Digital scale
-Printed circuits/ ironed/etched/ cut/drilled holes.
-Completed rough draft of thesis paper.

March 9 -Circuit etching
I needed a plank of wood or something similar to do my ironing for circuit boards. The iron on pattern
Melted my Macintosh ironing board. Apparently it just couldn’t take the heat.

Oh well. I have 2 more.

The genpet creature mould took forever, and was a lengthy process, as I haven’t made a mould (a serious one) for a while. But this one is definitely my best.

It’s 4 parts. 2 plaster, 2 silicon rubber housed within (the plaster is a shell that keeps the flexible rubber in place).

When I poured the first part of silicon (3rd step) I eyeballed the set-up, and figured I’d probably be wrong. Well, I wasn’t. I got the mix right within 3grams! I used 447 grams exactly. And it was a perfect pour. Forgive me for being proud, and shocked, but without a scale, I doubt there are many pros out there that could do as well.
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Me and V also had an interesting conversation the other day revolving around my limits. She wonders if I’ll ever be able to not be a perfectionist, and worries it will ultimately get in my way of actually completing things on time when needed. I’ll may not be able to just say, it’s good enough.

This worries me as she’s right, and I dunno if I’ll get over it or not.

whenever I doubt what I do, there’s always a voice deep down that says the same thing, and it always says it with an unwavering compassion and determination, Whenever I look in the mirror, it’s there even in my eyes.

I’d rather give my best and fail, than give into mediocrity. It’s that simple.

This is how I live my life as of late, and it’s the driving force not just behind each individual piece of art I do, but why I am an artist. Being “just good enough” would never make me happy. I could finish this project and have time to drink every night and party and watch movies and hang out. But I’d rather not be social at all, and be insane by spending every waking moment I have and skipping sleep when needed, to make this thing as great as possible.

I must always push to be one step better than I was the moment before.

This is what I do, I do not expect my friends to understand, and while they will all be making $50k+ salaries while I am just getting by, living off macaroni, I’m sure I will be the butt of many jokes. But it's what I love.

Done. I have 20 white pieces of styrene.

Laura and manaf came for the final one so I could show them the process. It’s pretty cool to see the plastic get sucked down into the shape.

The vacuum form machine had far too much compression and completely obliterated my hydrocal mould! I had 2 casts, and after 3 hours of sanding, hearing it shatter as the plastic came down on it with insane force, wasn’t the happiest moment in my day.

There were a few options at this point, most very expensive alternatives to plaster, but to make a long story short it was a few hours and rob was there with me helping and keeping my spirits up and I couldn’t have made it through this process without him, so thanks!! (now die).

Eventually after long frustrating-ness (?) I said “Fuck it”. (I said a lot more than that actually) and like always I just did it my way (rob and phil had already suggested a clay or wax backing, so I put that in) and I simply put all the shattered bits back together, and vacuum formed.
Is it perfect? Hell no, you can see where it cracked. With each cast it got progressively worse and chipped a little more. (it shattered on the very first cast remember) but I just treated it as nicely as I could and with a little patience, and some clay in-between cracks, got 20 done. By the end of the night I was getting pretty fast and doing 1 every 15-20minutes.

The heater is massive tho and by 9pm I was sweating, and stumbling everywhere, I just couldn’t take the heat anymore, even with drink breaks between every cast. I was glad to go home.

It was interesting to see how wasteful the process is. I’d forgotten. To make a piece approx 9.5x12 I needed a 20x20 piece of styrene. More than half of the plastic I paid for and used, will simply go into the trash, not cool at all. Styrene can be recycled and printed back into new sheets, I can only hope they send the scraps back to the company…