a lot of stuff happened while i was making Tip-Tap, a funky little dude i concocted in my sketchbook this spring and then brought to life in clay this December

(perhaps, for worse). so much annoying stuff, i just accepted that it's been haunted from the moment i took a lump of sculpey in my hands. im already clumsy by nature and most of the time i improvise what i am doing on the go, so enough mishaps happen as-is, must note. but this was such a spectacular new low; a whole row of failures after petty failures after injuries that pissed me off so bad that i had to document all of them somewhere. this is what i call exclusive content!
it was supposed to be a fun quick simple project that would take no more than a week; a little 'intermission' of sorts between bigger pieces.
...i started in the first half of October and finished on December 10th.

to whoever it might interest, i present a complete list of awesome shenanigans i experienced on this unforgettable journey:

• to start off, the shade of paint i had in mind ran out, so i tried to experiment

• because of those "experiments", i had to repaint the whole head twice

• when varnishing the head, the paint on one eye started dissolving. it looked like it was bleeding. should've been enough of a warning.

• moreover, my varnish reacted very weirdly with the yellow paint, so i repainted it AGAIN

• while painting the button "feet", the shades of blue wouldn't match no matter what i did

• after drying, for some reason the paint on one of them became clumpy

• the holes in them turned out to be too small for the string i chose, so the process of getting it through was slow and painful. it was getting irritating, but im a persistent one, y'know.

• i managed to do one. when i pulled the string through the front side of the second one, the button broke in half. that was the exact moment i decided that maybe im not a persistent one after all.

sometimes the happy accidents motto doesn't work, so i tied all of the parts together with the string and shoved them deep inside the spool to ignore its existence for a while. about two weeks passed and i considered giving up on the whole thing, but then i realized i couldn't do that; im too stubborn. i needed to see how far this would go. so i decided to finish that poor ugly lovechild of a depressed kidlit wannabe and a cheap backyard sale trinket box just out of spite.

• i painted the head. again

• the first piece of fabric died like a hero in an unequal battle (we don't talk about it)

• its successor got off with a few scars from the iron

• in the process of searching for nylon line i fell from my stool and got a scratch :[

• i lost the thick line, so i had to improvise with the thin line. it took me an hour to glue three whiskers in place. they kept falling off, and i kept getting burns from my hot glue gun, thinking that would be the day i finally have an aneurysm and die

• i accidentally stabbed myself with a needle. an embarrassingly higher amount of times than usual

• for the photo, i had a clear idea, a moth in the wallet, and a dream. my camera refused to focus, my lighting had a bad day, my hands were shaking, gathering and setting my "props" was a disaster

• half an hour of suffering later, i gave up on my original plan and just flung my DIY vessel of horror in despair. that jackanapes elegantly landed on top of the pile, one string "leg" thrown over the other. i didn't question it anymore and just snapped a shot before it could change its mind.

• photo editing followed. i had to frankenstein two takes and reorganize the prop pile to get a normal-looking result.

• never try to handmake green screen if you have no idea what you're doing

• my programs crashed. a lot.

• color-balancing and adding filters felt like trying to poke a long-dead rat to get it to move. i deleted the file two times in a burst of hysteria just to restore it later.

but despite all the difficulties, i won. i got the result i wanted. i survived the trials this yellow thing put me through. it's not even about what obstacles i faced, but the quantity and frequency of them. whatever deities there are, they sure did sent me enough signs throughout these months to convince me to stop. i ignored them. indomitable human spirit is an incredible thing. i learned absolutely nothing and can't wait for my next craft fiasco. i don't know how to end this thing.