Here are some specimens from the ol’ robot entomology collection. Might these have anything to do with the Mystery Work in Progress? They might. But I’m not sure yet. The words that best describe the Mystery Work in Progress are: a) “Mysterious,” and b) “In Progress.”

So last night I put Post-It Notes on my fingers and waved my hand in front of a video camera for a few seconds. Why did I do this? Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. It’s much too high tech for me to explain. It’s all part of my patented Cargo Cult animation process.

This has nothing to do with the cartoon, but I noticed in the background of my weird little green screen experiment, you can see a hilarious NYT Style Magazine spread on my desk. On the left is an article called Starved to Perfection: Why Are We Not Entitled to Take Up Space?, which documents the horrible images many women have of their bodies, and their obsession with looking thinner at all costs. Fair enough.

On the page facing the article is an ad for Tummy Tuck Jeans shrieking:

INSTANT GRATIFICATION!
LOOK ONE SIZE SMALLER!

This is obviously a subject NYT Style and their advertisers take very seriously. And as you can imagine, it really got me thinking… about how fat and disgusting my hand looks in this video! God! It’s so fat and ugly! My finger is, like, bulging out around my ring! God!

I’m putting my hand on a lettuce and cigarette diet until it’s pretty again.

1. I’ve always signed my last name with a cool crossbar that zips, with reckless abandon, straight through the right stem of the “H” and ends somewhere in the space over the “ar” in Harding. (fig. 1)

I think everyone would agree, a crossbar swash stroke is kind of ’80s. Very dated and embarrassing. I needed a fresh look for the twenty-first century. It hit me the other day: eliminate the crossbar altogether! How hip and modern is it to have a capital “H” with no crossbar at all?! (fig. 2) It looks like the Roman numeral II. “IIarding!” Totally illegible! Pow! Look out world! I still have some kinks to work out, but I think it’s clear I’ve been spending my time wisely.

2. The other month, I dreamt that I was scheduled to give a lecture on the subject of Sharks, at some university in St. Petersburg, Russia. I showed up at the campus with some friends and family. They were planning on going to a museum while I gave my talk. I wished I could go with them instead.

About an hour before the lecture I realized I had forgotten everything I ever knew about sharks. (In the dream I had apparently given this talk before) So I sat in the hallway and tried desperately to remember something– anything– to say about sharks. All I could come up with were vague feelings of awe and fear. I remember realizing that I had probably been faking my way through the original lectures. I know nothing about sharks and never have. And I remember thinking that these people were idiots– not only did they fail to call my bluff, but they actually invited me back to speak again!

When it was time for the lecture, I said to the students, “Let’s make this an open discussion, rather than listening to me drone on and on about sharks. I want to hear what you have to say.” And it went pretty well.

I only mention it because somehow, deep down, that dream had something to do with my animation work.

Scene 2 of the Mystery Work in Progress is coming along nicely. (I’m only on scene 2! Dear God, when will it end?!)

Scene 1 was pretty much done when it became apparent a major character redesign was needed. At every step of the process, the characters have asserted their “robotness,” even though I wanted to make them very organic and bendy like the original sketches. They just seem to want to move and act like machines. I think it serves the story well, so I’m letting it happen. And by “letting,” I mean struggling through hours and hours of painful trial and error. But in the past week I’ve stumbled on bodies that are beginning to work, and am nearly done reworking scene 1 and some of scene 2.

In the early stages of animation on a short, it takes a while to get the rhythm of the characters. So there tends to be a lot of “over-acting” which mellows out as I move along. (get lazy)

To the right is a still from scene 2. I didn’t want to spoil anything, so I shrunk it down a little.