Finally, I get to test the mechanism with half the gears in place and stubby little temporary legs. It’s still a bit crunchy and loud without grease.

The control rod consists of a rod inside a tube with a T-handle on the tube and a crank on the end of the rod to drive the leg mechanism.

I decided to use 16g copper wire for the legs since it’s easy to adjust and bend into various shapes. These are a bit long and I’ll let the director and art department cut them down when they do a camera test this week.

The added benefit is the control rod could also drive secondary animation of the abdomen!

Next was the problem of how to control the puppet. Definitely from behind, but what if it needed to be on the ground or on a table?

I needed to make sure the gears moved smoothly so I designed a sanding mandrill to assure it all worked.

My first prototype came out pretty well! I was surprised it worked first try!

Iv’e been commissioned to make a spider puppet for a movie

Backdrop painting I did years ago and the Oddysee influence is all over it!

Figuring out how to add induction MicroDot LEDs to my puppet eyes. As it happens, they already fit in the cavity I made for the pupil, they’re just 3mm too tall. So, I’m off to redesign my eye mechs for the umpteenth time!

I think Kayla Bartkowski might have grounds to sue whatever Ai generated this pic of Mitch McConnell for copyright infringement. This is what you might call “overfitting the training data” #McConnell #Getty

Happy 253rd birthday to George Washington’s escaped slave, Ona Judge, who lived out her years free.

Feels very Lovecraft coded (But also reminds me of your owlbears from a few years ago)

Drive around the Twitter headquarters

Working on final paint and assembly for this puppet I’ve been building for two months. Rumpelstiltskin has a mechanism that allows him to split in half at the end of the story.

Been working nonstop to get this puppet complete. Most complicated marionette of my career but I’m really enjoying the build process

I don’t know why I can’t just be normal. I have to reinvent an eye mechanism at least once a year. Here I am, on my 7th? 8th? 10th design? I dunno. I’ve made a lot of these. Always starting from first principles and seeing where it goes.

I’ve been able to print out and test some of the mouth parts

Been working on a Rumplestiltskin marionette. This is the first time I’ve opted for a digital sculpting process but I’m finding it has some real advantages.

Some thoughts on having been homeless about a quarter of my life

Show somebody who absolutely rocks a hat and isn't Indiana Jones.

Spent all day in the workshop building a couple of marionettes. I haven’t had a real workshop for a long time so this is the first puppet I’ve built since my fall from a scaffold over 2-1/2 years ago!

I’ve spent a week drawing a step-by-step instructions to include with physical marionette control kits. I’ve also added a printable page to the digital-downloadable control pattern on my website, free in my web store! www.geahk.art/store - All hand-made by me in the United States. No Ai, ever.

Human Artists! Use one piece to convince people to follow you!

Oops, I guess mine is pretty different after all. I remembered it being simpler than it actually was. I like yours better!

Working on a Sinners inspired drawing and cursing my own art-style of hatching EVERYTHING.

Just designed and printed a painting handle that works like a 4-jaw self-centering chuck, for painting miniatures that prints in 16 parts and can hold figure bases between 3/8” all the way to 3” plus small objects like flagpoles.

Work in progress animated walk cycle for a project I’m working on. This is just 15 key frames and extremes based on a ‘paper-puppet’ rough structure so I can keep proportions correct. I’ll redraw all these frames to make them less stiff. Then I’ll be tweening about 60 frames.

Traveling by train from Portland to New Orleans for a new job. So far Montana has most mesmerized me on the journey so far

So I’ve been working on my marionette character, ANDi, who is a robot who goes through a lot of changes. Recently I’m making alternate parts for him to convey those changes.