Hello, learning curve, my old friend.
 We focused on the intestines today. Starting by inserting the El wire into our latest concoction and looking to see if we liked the way it glowed. Behold! Something that looks good with the lights off and on. |
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 Jane gets all the credit for this idea. In addition to looking just disgusting, the saran wrap nicely holds the cotton batting in place, and gives the bubble wrap some traction.
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 Jane cut the bubble wrap into strips and coiled them, making it easy to just wrap them at a diagonal around the giant coil. This part went pretty fast. The batting and saranwrap was slow. |
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 The problem is that it’s huge. Ginormous. I don’t see how we are going to fit one of these under a skirt, much less six of them.
So far my only brainstorms of how to deal with this are not so hot, but maybe they’ll give you an idea. 1) We could have the coils preset under the stage floor and have them rituallistically attached to Ariel in a very sick and dramatic fashion — which totally breaks the idea that she has torn herself apart to become the harpy. 2) I just saw a giant inflatable puppet that Jane Catherine Shaw made. Huge. Twenty feet tall and entirely made of translucent plastic tarp. She had a hose running offstage to a fan, which was pretty quiet. The puppet really got whipped about and appeared to be durable. We could try inflatable tentacles. Otherwise, I’m at a loss. These things are the size of a human torso. Erica and I will keep building them tomorrow, just so they have something to rehearse with. I’ll also experiment with the inflatable option, just so you’ve got a choice. |
 Here’s one with the contra, just so you can see it.
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 Look! Spring steel in a tangle. |
I have some video of the boat, but am a wee bit tired so I’m heading to bed since I don’t have any direct questions about it. I really do need guidance on the tentacles though.
Talk to you soon!
That is so neat.
I followed the link from one of your sfwa livejournal cross-posts, so I’m very new here. No idea what’s happening, but it is very cool.
I’m catching up with old posts to figure it all out and I’ve found one referring to a faulty blood-spurting chair. This is not something you hear everyday. At least not at my day job. At night, eh… it could happen, I suppose.
Michele, I’m glad you are enjoying them.
Matt: Welcome! Just to catch you up; I’m a professional puppeteer and do posts about my work days because it seems to amuse people. I usually do more explanation about what is happening and why. The two Tempest posts were direct addresses to the designer, who was in China for the first week of the build. This was the easiest way to get her pictures and to ask questions.
Speaking of asking questions, always feel free to ask me if I say something baffling.