My Mantis In Pantis Survey (please take… now)

As I further develop my thesis, I find myself having the need of surveying my friends, to find out how to serve my target audience better. Madam Rosa tells me you’ll have bad luck if you don’t answer these questions… so, listen up and shout what’s on your mind.

Click here to take the Mantis In Pantis online survey.

Fall 07 – Character Design – Exploring the mantis’ bodies

As I talk with Sherrie Sinclair, my character design advisor, we decide to add more differences between the 3 mantis. She says Coco should have longer eyelashes. She also says their boot design should be different. I thought they could use wide super-hero-like leg warmers. Coco of course having heels, Charona’s being more techy, while Brenny’s boots are more punk-rock. Also, their choice in lipstick should reflect who they are.

Attached are some sketches I created of the mantis that place them in possible situations. I mainly explore the possibility of different eyes and different tails.

The first image includes a mantis cutting someone’s hair, and in the process she cuts the poor guys’ ears. Her style is more similar to a web comic, and she has quite a distinctive mantis butt. The second image plays with the concept of the zombie-like mantis. She has big eyes, and she looks like she’s in a drug-induced trance. The last one though reflects the style I’m going to be aiming for, the sexy style. Many men have recommended me to follow a sexier approach, since boys don’t seem to be interested in watching females, unless they are sexy. This is what my target audience wants, and that’s what they’ll hopefully get.

-Alex

Crack-a-lisa

Here is a woman who’s name was “maria person”… she can be found in the Google image search, and she is really fascinating; yes she is. But sometimes she just feels an unbearable lightness of being… and she cannot help but to float away with her friends into a world of perfection. A world with absolutely no sense of conservation… the place where she wants to be is the place where life and death are one, and equally as beautiful.

Keepin’ the playa alive,
-Alex

Fall 07 – Identity Developement – Heads up!

After meeting with Bill, my creative advisor, we looked for a way to define my pitch. Up until now, I had a world of characters, now I’m defining the actual focus of the episodes. We are going for the Mantis In Pantis: Heads up! direction. Focusing on their dating, castrating problems… and having the action be nothing other than an excuse. We also thought having them go through weekly therapy would be quite fun. A good opportunity for a Mr. Mrs. Smith confessional.

Here are a few sketches presented by my creative advisor, Bill in which we explore a more sexy interpreation of a mantis.

-Alex

Philosophical Pre-Conclusions at Burning Man

On my way to Burning Man (our RV stuck in heavy traffic), thoughts of what this event means, and why people go out of their way to not shower, and risk dehydration invade my mind.

Playing dead

Burning Man is shedding the poison of society, holding your breath under water. Funny thing is that, just because you hold your breath, and no new oxygen flows through your veins, that doesn’t mean the air is not there. You had to take an overly large supply of air to be able to not breath for an extended period of time. Same way, an out-door party like Burning Man is only like holding one’s breath, like stopping the entrance of the poison. You first need to take a big gulp of canned foods or gasoline, to enjoy the ever so slow yet delicious pain of leaving life behind. The strange pleasure of stopping circulation, only to regain it again with a stronger sense of self.

Like watching a movie, visceral pleasure, vicariously living the dangers of becoming an outcast, of dying, and then finally resurrecting.

Deja Vu

Burning Man is to people a glorified repetition of the childhood experience. When you are a child you nurture things that are not exactly functional, like art, fun, and games. There’s no sense of fear; every stranger is welcome into our world without first looking at him with suspicion. Burning Man is enhancing all senses. The absence of civilization as we know it simply intensifies the colors of what’s good in life.

People paint their faces, bikes, and vehicles… decorate with art every aspect of their existence in the most kitsch of ways. All these things are enhanced by all sorts of light apparatus. From flashlights, to glow sticks… the stars applying marvelous finishing touches to a symphony of disharmony.

Individuality

It is so difficult to prepare for this event, that I think it is the reason why so many people are repetitive goers… because so much of the experience is up to you, that to live it again and again is a way of perfecting perfection. No one can really make it… it is a feat of ultimate organization… generally people are guided by others, tutored… like every fine thing in life… it doesn’t come to anyone without good teachers. It is of no surprise that, the experience is filled with people who enjoy learning, loving, living. The ones who lack the discipline to make it, simply cant. So, like an assembly line, the people who aren’t worth it are simply filtered out. Yes, I’m talking about all those people who are rude, and stupid (frat boys). The people who in every “yupista’s” opinion makes society the rotten place it is bound to become. The minute this event becomes of general interest to people, it will die. So, keep the hotels away, keep the restaurants out, and whatever you do… don’t let Black Rock City be discovered by the Google maps.

water… check.

sleeping bag… shit.

-Alex