107. Trouble

How we go to lengths. Iteration 5 of the downshooter setup. Food poisoning. Gratitude.

Blueprint.

As if by design, I got food poisoning less than two days before Thanksgiving.

I woke up in the middle of Tuesday night with chills and rapidly-rising nausea, sleeping and expulsing in feverish fits for the next thirty-two hours. At one point I woke to shadows, wondering deliriously why it was dark so early in the day. It was 11pm.

Because I am slightly crazy, I still planned to go to Thanksgiving dinner at a friend’s house. It is always spectacular and I look forward to it every year. By sheer will I made it out of, and returned to, my borough without issue. I was even able to enjoy a taste of every glorious thing at dinner:

As good as it looks.

The next day, I told another friend that I wasn’t sure what had made me so sick. I was still not well and the bug would endure for another week. I usually have an iron stomach and am able to eat nearly anything—expired milk, unwashed produce, animal left out a tad long on the counter—with impunity. She replied: maybe you weren’t sick from something you ate. Maybe you just needed to release something.

I’ve been thinking about what she said ever since.

In the studio

I’m iterating on my downshooting setup for the umpteenth time. Working with paper is laborious and just frickin hard compared to how I’m used to animating (TVPaint software) but I want to see how I, and the work, could evolve through it. So I’ve been doubling down to make the mechanics as ergonomic and joyful to use as possible.

First, a review of the rig’s evolution.

Iteration 1.

I started with a registration “system” taped to my dining table. I didn’t put much thought into the setup and had just dived in, curious to see how small and fast I could go. I was using Dragonframe for the first time and realized how key (🥁) it was going to be in animating this way.

95. Oxygen and 96. Necessity

Iteration 2.

I made the rig portable and made an effort at registration.

98. Spectacular

Iteration 3.

I dialed in the resolution and made the rig more structurally stable. Even at this point I didn’t realize exactly what it would mean to be “precise” in this context (spoiler: way beyond what I’d expected):

102. Sundays, 103. Room, 104. Werido

Iteration 4.

I put together a darkroom to deal with lighting:

106. Small. Not my dream workstation.

While each setup was an improvement on its predecessor, it still wasn’t there yet.

1. The color temperature was dialed in but lateral lighting created shadows:

   

   The effect is kind of cool, but I’d like it to be intentional.

2. Nothing felt ergonomic. Discomfort distracted me and made hard work harder.

3. The setup felt impractical and sloppy. My studio is also my home and it took a lot of time to register and break down every single day. Sometimes it took an hour to dial things back in and that is a sh*tty way to work.

4. The rig was unwieldy. There were too many floating pieces, the base thick and heavy, the whole thing too fussy and bulky to carry, let alone port to remote studios (e.g., at residencies).

5. I didn’t like looking at it. I’m not a stereotypical perfectionist but I am type A, and a professional designer who values simplicity and minimalism. And this did not feel simple, nor minimal.

This brings us to iteration 5.

I started by sketching on paper. The designs included ideas for a lightweight collapsible darkroom too, but I’ll tackle that later:

I almost forgot how fun it is to design and build something:

The bumpers on the glass help seat it on the panels.

The basic idea:

An earlier prototype.

I started using physical levels to register the camera instead of relying on digital:

Phone says surface is level but physical level calls foul.

Finally:

Not fancy. Simple, minimal, solid.

The new workstation setup:

Improvements may not look dramatic, but deceptively simple packages can make a world of a difference.

I got rid of an old Cinema Display (RIP) to make room for the downshooter and I can now easily swivel between the Cintiq and the new setup. In addition to being a digital drawing tablet, the Cintiq (which is height and angle-adjustable) is now also: main display, writing desk, drawingboard, and lightbox rest as needed:

Everything feels organically in its place.

I added a removable felt strip on the bottom of the Cintiq that will serve as both ledge for paper and rest for a lightbox:

Very quiet, very demure.

The Cintiq can also be repositioned for typing:

The new rig:

1. Is small enough to travel with (about the same size as my lightbox when collapsed)

2. Has attachments for easily removable, adjustable, lightweight, rechargeable overhead lights

3. Uses a glass top for unimpeded illumination

4. Can deliver foolproof registration every time (I need to tidy up some things glass-top when materials arrive)

5. Can fold flat (transit closure and handle to be added later)

The construction itself is quite straightforward and didn’t take long; it’s design and material procurement that took the most time and effort.

I took it for a spin and couldn’t be happier:

I love not having to reach around a light or being forced to slouch. The registration is unfussy, and if I need to move the phone, re-registration is a non-issue.¹

I’ve further simplified things with voice control so I don’t need to touch the phone as much:

An ergonomic workspace that’s a joy to use and a pleasure to look at?

Definitely worth the trouble.

Provisions

1. May Ray: When Objects Dream at the Met. It’s huge. Allot two visits for this.

2. Ordinary Life animated short by Yoriko Mizushiri (free on Animation Showcase).

3. Hydraulic Fitness Stepper, a small-footprint, goes-under-the-chair godsend for rainy days and late night cabin fever, good also while watching something brainless.

4. Alchemised isn’t the kind of thing (romantasy) I normally consume but I got it for free on Audible and ended up enjoying it during walks and errands. I may be biased because of Saskia Maarleveld’s exceptional narration, but the non-smutty parts (about war, religion, morality) felt almost literary.

5. Sunday Morning cinnamon rolls. The hype is real. Skip the blueberry lemon curd.

6. 15 Woodworking Basics You Should Know. I guess this is what I’m into now.

7. KPop Demon Hunters (Netflix). As an immigrant kid who suffered through Orange County in the 90s, I would have given anything to have had access to something like this. Golden, truly.

In closing, gratitude

Lately I’ve been feeling stuck in a kind of hectic holding pattern, a lot of effort without satisfaction or epiphany. I’ve been overthinking too (not great for making art), and missing the feeling of finishing something. This is probably why I took so much pleasure in designing and constructing my new downshooter setup—design is about problem-solving and execution, very much not what art is about.

That’s perhaps its own trouble and blessing.

When illness struck, I was forced to stop spinning in place. The violent physicality of sickness knocked me out of my head, keeping me in the body. Being sick gave me an excuse to do nothing, be nothing, with little choice but to accept: fever, fatigue, fugue. I could allow myself to stop gritting my teeth toward some pre-defined “next” in the context of an agenda.

In the end I feel so grateful for the brutality of this thrashing, for being relieved of control, and for the purging, purifying nature of sickness, where a body empties out and the mind enters a rarefied and blissful nothingness.

Until next time.

1. Before Christmas break I want to make a tiny “pocket” version I can use in cafes and on the plane for first drafts (lighting and registration won’t be as important).