ianboldsworth

Sort Of Obsessions Piece

Added 2022-09-29 10:00:05 +0000 UTC

Hello there

Today, as it feels as though it’s been an absolute age since I did a written post, I thought I would jot something down for you to read. You’ve been having to watch and listen an awful lot, and I worry that you aren’t getting your reading quota in. I also worry that I don’t get my writing quota in. So, let’s kill two birds with one stone…

In a sense, this is an Obsessions piece. You know, when I would write longform musings on different popular culture things I’ve been through fleeting/seasonal obsessions with. This isn’t about some license or IP on this occasion though, for my current obsession is a little more wide-reaching, whilst remaining all encompassing.

I first started thinking about writing this down when I was weathering the DJ R-3X speaker. Actually, allow me a moment to discuss that…

I had a great time doing that, with the solitary stress being positioning the camera for the last bit of it. I’ve honestly watched the resultant video tons, such is the satisfaction it gave me. In fact, my only miff was not waxing lyrical about the character itself in the video, opting to do a brief thirty seconds breakdown of him over some footage I filmed in the cantina at Galaxy’s Edge in 2020.

I rarely have much interest in expanded universe characters from Star Wars, namely characters that have appeared in books or comics or whatever, rather than the movies and – I guess now – TV Series’. I went through a period when I was at university and Star Wars was very thin on the ground (see my posts a few weeks back about collecting Star Wars stuff), where I was reading the books that started hitting shelves. I really enjoyed them too, until they started getting too regular and – ultimately – when Disney decided they weren’t canon after all and relegated them to a “Legends” series (I think that’s what they’ve called them – it well annoyed me).

R-3X though (Previously RX-24) absolutely caught my attention. Originally the hapless droid pilot on the old Star Tours ride, who inadvertently pilots a ship into a battle, when the ride was refurbished C-3PO took his place. There’s backstory that he then was part of the rebellion/resistance and ended up crash landing on Batuu (the planet in Galaxy’s Edge) but the obvious real-life story is that Disney eventually realised that their guests had loved RX-24, been annoyed when he was removed, and so Disney did a soft u-turn and installed him as the house DJ, in the cantina. He regularly malfunctions in the cantina and starts blabbering lines from the old Star Tours ride, and it’s a neatly packaged little side story packed full of Easter Eggs. Above all that nerd stuff though, is the fact that he has always been voiced by Paul Reubens. In fact, it would be fair to say that he is voiced by Pee Wee Herman. Same as when Reubens (or “Paul Mall” as he was credited) played the computer pilot Max in Flight Of The Navigator, which was supposedly what got him asked to voice Star Tours. It might be hearing his voice on the Bluetooth speaker that has made me watch my own video so many times. I’m also really happy with the weathering job I did on it too though. I like having that replica in my house.

That’s not exactly the topic of this though, despite being under the umbrella. My present obsession is art for my own house.

Now, I do art all the time anyway, we know this, but not like I presently am. Much of what I do ends up on Etsy, and whilst I do have my own stuff on the walls it tends to just be portraits or whatever, rather than builds. It’s got to the point where I’m genuinely getting quite restless whenever I’m not doing it. I think a large part of it has been the situation with Kim and wanting to get the art for her book done for her as a matter of urgency, and I have quite the list of drawing I wish to do for Etsy stuff, but it has spread out into the physical building of things too. That, I believe, is to do with how I want my house to be, particularly in the winter months. This house gets stupidly cold at the best of times, and is set to be even colder this winter, so I’ve elevated my living space in the importance stakes enormously.

I’ve realised that I’ve been subconsciously rejigging my house for a few months now, starting with a particular emphasis being placed on books. I got a lovely old bookcase for a fiver at the tip (there’s a charity junk shop there, I didn’t pull it out of a skip…although they may have) and have installed that in my living room, along with some floating shelves that have books piled on them. Since then, I think I’ve been designing around it. In fact, I’ve gotten a little bit angsty about the fact that my living room has a TV in it. I’ve heard of this happening to men of my age, where suddenly a television is considered an imposition. The thing is, I do love being able to watch films (maybe three times a year) and the rugby is very important to me (did I mention that Saints have been champions four years in a row as of last Saturday night?), so the telly will probably have to stay. Besides, I’m never going to have a completely rustic house. I hardly think a life size Darth Vader is going to be on brand for that. I am aware I have a duality in what I like aesthetically, but whenever possible I like things to not be shiny. Again, Vader gets a pass here, but the 1:1 scale droids have been happily mucky since their first paint job.

If we look at the recent art builds/amendments I’ve done, it has been making a mock rough-wood Country Bears Jamboree sign, and making a plasticy droid look worn and oily. I’ve also started working on the Haunted House (that dolls house I acquired that I’m defurbishing), but none of that is ready to show you yet. I can fit those things around my cabin in the woods theming relatively seamlessly. My next project, which I’ll probably show you next week, is giving a makeover to an old camping lantern to hang above the Country Bears sign. They have them on the attraction itself, and I think I’ve managed to salvage together all I need to do that. Even sat here typing this at half two in the morning, knackered from editing a mega-long Loopholes recording, I’m dealing with the urge to go and at least start it. If only stripping down the lamp ready for priming tomorrow… I’ll resist…

I think there may also be a bit of making up for lost time here too. At the beginning of the year, I had a new company ready to go, making – amongst other things – replica personalised tombstones. After making the Haunted Mansion replica ones, plus one for myself, I got a feel for how to do it and felt confident that it would be a great business opportunity in the lead up to Halloween. Then life got kind of derailed in several ways, and it fell down the pecking order. At a push I could maybe stick an Etsy listing up in the next week or so, and just work flat out on any orders, but it was all going to be much slicker than that. I’m not at all resentful about other things pushing themselves above it in the queue, but I definitely got itchy over not building stuff (and they were going to be the thing that fulfilled that for me I think). So, the present obsession with making stuff is maybe a little bit surrogate.

I also think there’s a bit of pre-emptive stock building too. The winter dread has been overly prompted this year, and so much of this stuff needs to be done outside. Power tools and numb fingers is a deadly mix. Sure, I wouldn’t necessarily feel it, but I’d be left with a permanent reminder. So again, I guess I’m wanting to do that whilst I can.

I’m explaining this here because I think there’s going to be plenty of art posts around these parts in the near future. I like doing them, and plenty of folk seem to enjoy them. It has definitely become a major part of my portfolio career now. I sometimes think about how, ten years ago, there was no clue at all that I did art stuff. Matter of fact, that was because I wasn’t doing art stuff then. I don’t know when it happened but for the vast majority of time that I was doing stand up and the other performing stuff, I was doing zero art. Actually, I tell a lie, I painted some Blues Brothers paintings one time that I ended up selling at a car boot sale for twenty quid each, but that was a one off. I often think of the lady that bought those behind a school in Wandsworth. They weren’t that great, but she was incredibly kind and supportive, and I think she might have just been kind to pay for something that a plucky amateur had done. It probably should have spurred me on at that point to do more, but I didn’t.

The resurgence, or renaissance if you will, began when I put the hours in on building that R2-D2. That was the catalyst for this wealth of stuff I’ve produced since. I’ve not stopped doing art from the first day I started sanding down the pieces for the droid, and I’m hugely grateful to him for that (as well as for him looking ace and keeping me company when I’m typing a splurge of words down late at night, yes I know he’s not real, shush). I’m really pleased that I’ve kept it up and honed it year by year. I really do hope they’re enjoyable posts when I do them because I really enjoy the process of it.

As a vague connection, and sort of a half-question/half-advert, over the next few weeks I’m going to be making some one-off framed ParaPod things. The design is a small, boxed frame, which contains one of the storyboards I drew for the movie (an original one, not a print) as well as a piece of the tent that was used in the woods scenes. I mention it here to – of course give the heads up because they’ll be limited by necessity, but also – gauge initial interest in it. I don’t envisage them being super-sellers, and they’ll be about £33 quid I think, but I do want to make a first stash of them so any orders I do get won’t be getting done one by one. I was thinking of doing maybe ten, and taking it from there? Obviously, I also don’t want a house full of framed storyboards I can’t shift, as a big part of this is space clearing too, but I put it to you as an idea. Drop a brief comment or whatever if it’s of interest.

And that, I believe is that. It’s been a bit of a flurry of typing this, so hope it’s not too jumbled. Just popping some ongoing thoughts down. I can hear Jon muttering right now; “Ian writes everything down”…

I do, yep. Everything.

OH JUST REMEMBERED - you know I showed you those tattoo designs I did a few weeks back? They're actual tattoos now...