As you may already know, I have become involved in an art project initiated by You, Me, and the Big C to repurpose people's used radiotherapy masks as pieces of art based on their own unique experiences of cancer treatment. [EDIT - 7/11/18: Now that this piece is finished, you can read more about it's progress in this blog post]

For more information on how, why, and who, see my previous blog post.

As I continue work on the mask, I thought I should share the story behind the mask I have been given. Just a heads-up: it's not the easiest of reads and speaks of both physical and mental hardships.

Below is Lisa Reed's story:

I've been told her story, which you can read here, and I have some ideas for the mask, but I'll need a few things [EDIT - 7/11/18: Now this piece is finished, I don't need any of these!] and it's an odd shopping list. I will try to source or create these things myself if I can't get hold of them another way, but initially, I'm asking for anyone who may have some of these things and would be happy to donate them towards this project to get in touch with me please:

(Please let me know if you have anything similar to what I've listed or any broken versions or bits of them too.)

· Any soup recipes or nutritional information, from recipe books/labels/leaflets etc.

· Any kind of Wonder Woman t-shirt

· A Wonder Woman toy or figurine

· A doll or action figure's arm, preferably doing a "thumbs up" 👍🏽

· Any doll-sized body parts; limbs, heads, eyes, any small model bones or organs etc.

· A toy crane (maybe like you might find in a pound shop bag of assorted cars and machines)

· Any toy-sized engine, machine, or car parts

· Any kind of combative headgear (army helmet, boxing headgear, etc.)

· Dollhouse-sized dining table and chairs (even better if they have people sitting in them)

· A Wonder Woman tiara/circlet

​Thank you so much for reading, and thanks in advance to anyone who can donate anything.

[EDIT - 7/11/18: Now this piece is finished, you can read more about how I got on with it in this blog post]

Last week, on March 5th, I held my first ever market stall, selling my illustrated wares, at the Bradford Steampunk Market, ably assisted by Jess and Justin.

Having never held a stall before, I was a little nervous beforehand: Would I have enough stuff to sell? Would anyone want to buy it? What if I got there and I was missing crucial?!

My stall was upstairs (reached by means of a wonderfully clunky old-fashioned lift with manual doors).

As I arrived at my pitch, I was at first a little worried. I was up on the first floor and in the corner. I was thinking I wouldn't get a lot of footfall, but I needn't have worried. As the morning went on, I started getting a fair bit of interest - not least of all from The Captain of the Lost Waves, who came up to the first floor and improvised, on the spot, a song for each of the stalls. I only wish I'd had the presence of mind to record him doing it, instead of standing there beaming at him!

The setting was great: the archaic industrial machines of the Bradford Industrial Museum suited the steampunkery down to the ground! As expected, there were some fantastic clothes on display on both the stallholders and the visitors to the fair!

I only have a few photos - I didn't leave my stall all that often - , but Lady Cumberpatch (the organiser) has added some great photos to a Facebook album if you want to see some more of the fun!​

Last night, I wanted to see if a concept I had for making an object appear in mid-air in stop motion animation (to look like it's falling, flying, or floating) would work.

I'm imagining it's a pretty standard way of doing it, but I wanted to see if I could do it.

After the break, I've included a step by step "How-To" guide for how I got the ball to look like it was in the air. Click "Read More" to... read more.

Here's the video:

 I've been playing with the stop motion editor again...

Having made one claymation video, months ago, I was initially just messing about to re-familiarise myself with the controls of it. The photograpy took around half an hour. Then I ended up getting quite involved in adding titles and redoing the sound and so on.

​More on how I did it, after the vid:

Here's a heads-up: I will have a stall at the Bradford  Steampunk Market.

It's part of the Leeds Steampunk Market, which I visited a couple of months ago at Leeds Industrial Museum at Armley Mills.

This time, it's at the Bradford Industrial Museum in... Bradford! Click here for details of where to find them. 

It runs from 10 - 4 on the 4th and 5th of March and I will be selling on the 5th.

​The last one was a great event with lots of great stalls and steampunk merchandise on sale from illustrations, to jewellery, to LARP props and more. Plus, there were some really fun things happening such as Coffee Jousting! Yep - that was a new one to me!

​I'm entirely sure this one will be too! Plus, I will be there!

If you come, don't be at all afraid to dress up for it! You won't be alone in it.