The scarcity of resources has driven bands of humans and robots to subsist by scrounging, and making deals. The self-replicating VonNeuman machines, robots who once performed tasks for man now guide themselves, gathering information, and controlling the world’s nearly exhausted resources. John Henry, a field mechanic/engineer, working aboard the KRAWLR in the wasteland of the Uncanny Valley, discovers a singularity within a unique fembot. He believes this Gynoid with it’s evolving AI to be the key to changing the world.
Drab Future is a sci-fi web-series. It is centered around an alternate timeline leading to dystopian society, with few alienated people left.
If you haven’t already added Drab Future on Facebook, you should and spread the word on twitter and Facebook. Please re-tweet and share. We need to increase awareness. The more people we can tell about this the greater it will be!
I’m proud to announce that the new Drab future toys are available through the Zerofriends web store and I can’t wait to see what everyone does with theirs.
A detailed breakdown of the process of long road, from prototypes to molds/casting/assembly and painting can be seen over on Bradisdrab.com.
In Drab Future, The Von Neuman Moderators are the eyes and hands of the network. These agents exist to gather information and track resources, in order to expand the network and build more of them selves. While I could see that the power armored version could be a costume, I realized this character wouldn’t be able to be a person in a suit. Once the armor has been stripped away we need to be able to see their inhumanity.
Its long been a dream of mine to have a real, working, robot. I know a working autonomous bVon Neuman Moderator Animatronic Robot pt1iped with an AI is far out of my depth, but I want one that can be programmed to act in movies, run my booth at conventions, talk to people and hand out flyers. Even something like the animatronic band at Chuck E Cheese.
I have begun these videos as a behind the scenes for some of the construction. As usual I’m relying on as many found and prefab parts as I can to achieve the mechanical production look and move as quickly through the construction as I can. I’ve started with the Wowee toys Elvis Alive, which I was lucky enough to find on Ebay when a warehouse was liquidating their stock. For the body I’m starting with a posable mannequin which is similar in design to the wooden artist pose figures. This was given to me by a friend who was working in an art supply store. It had some minor damage and the store was cleaning out their storage and intended to throw it away. Truly a lucky score, I’ve never seen any others before or since. I’ve often thought about making molds from it to replicate more of them.
I’ve been planning on using the Wowee toys Elvis somewhat unmodified, at least electronically, because its really a great system. It uses a cartridge that contains songs and animation files. There is even a group of very clever folks doing some very cool hacks using them. I figured if I could avoid any major changes I wouldn’t need to teach myself arduino and robotic programming (yet) and follow along with this; http://www.robocommunity.com/article/13840/Controlling-WowWee-s-Alive-Elvis-Part-2-Custom-Cartridge/
I even attempted to recruit someone to help me etch a custom circuit board part to make my own cartridge, unfortunately it never panned out. Basically this part is a xD media adapter to custom cartridge, which allows this ‘toy’ robot to play back animation files and mp3s.
All along I’ve been trying to make as much of The Witness wearable as possible. Parts such as the helmet/cowl and vest are removable from the puppet, as well as the leg pads.
That way for wide or long shots he could move around with a bit more agility without having to resort to stop motion or other puppetry for every shot he was in.
Since the head of the puppet is cast aluminum and too small to be wearable I was forced to create a secondary mask for the actor to wear.
As the character and story evolved the costume version of the character took shape and evolved. I envisioned the witness as having different ‘modes’ and modular limbs, so he would be able to change form as needed. From his wheeled interior-workshop mode, to extended legs
and finally his fully extended exterior form integrating inspiration from sources such as the land striders from Dark Crystal and the Wheelers from Return to Oz.
I tried onThe Witness costume in full last night at my workshop in Zero Friend’s warehouse in Oakland with the help of Kyle and Leslie. I’ve been working on the elements for this form separately for a while now, but it was exciting to see them all on at once.
The scarcity of resources has driven bands of humans and robots to subsist by scrounging, and making deals. The self-replicating VonNeuman machines, robots who once performed tasks for man now guide themselves, gathering information, and controlling the world’s nearly exhausted resources. John Henry, a field mechanic/engineer, working aboard the KRAWLR in the wasteland of the Uncanny Valley, discovers a singularity within a unique fembot. He believes this Gynoid with it’s evolving AI to be the key to changing the world.
Drab Future is a sci-fi web-series. It is centered around an alternate timeline leading to dystopian society, with few alienated people left. We are working on shooting a 10min pilot to begin the production and will continue to create episodes as quickly as we can. Once the world is established and the series continues I’d love to involve more artists to add to the world; to further populate it with their characters and add to the vision.
Bio
My name is Brad Isdrab, I’ve been sculpting and exhibiting my work in galleries since 2001 in various galleries from San Francisco to San Diego, New York and Pennsylvania. I create hand-cast and painted editions of my sculptures as well as produce short films and books.
I studied sculpture at the Academy of Art University and later turned my love of form into articulated puppets which could be brought to life through stop motion animation. My graduate work, Boris and Bianca, focused on interactivity and storytelling. Since 2006 he has been working full-time as a designer, producing motion graphics animation, and working in the visual effects and feature film industry for such companies as The Orphanage, Image Movers Digital, and Industrial Lights and Magic.
I’ve been creating the parts of this for years now, and only now have enough put together to be able to share it all with you.
Why
This is going to happen. I want to make this world. This is simply what I must do. However, with your help I can create a lot more, and you’ll be enabling me to do it better. I’ve been working in a vacuum which is slow and difficult and its time to share it.
With your support I’ll be able to increase the scope. The models and props I’ve built have been what I can manage in my studio. The studio itself I’ve built into an interior set. The purpose of this campaign is to take this out of the workshop and bring it into the world. I’d love to be able to create larger models, bigger mechs and robots, more intricate models.
For the full pilot I’m going to need access to a need real locations, the wasteland, shipping yard, places where my actors can safely run around with prop airsoft guns without being arrested, which means I’m going to need permits and potentially insurance.
I’m planning to begin principal photography this July, which gives me only three months to finish all the models, costumes and secure the locations.
How
I’ve been calling upon favors from friends from the industry, and have put together a core team of dedicated people for this project. It is a labor of love for us all. No one is getting paid, we just love to see this kind of film and believe in old-school practical effects.
I’ve been very fortunate for the people who have volunteered their time and skills for this project. I’m keeping the crew to a bare minimum and not getting too bogged down with job titles, we each have particular tool sets but also share the willingness to do what needs to be done on set to get the shot.
We are shooting this on a Red Epic, and Canon 60D, to record all the detail texture of this world. And I’m going to use as much practical effects work as possible, including; scale models, radio controlled animatronics, compressed air cannons, stop motion and more. All these disparate parts will be combined to populate the world.
The way I work
The script is written and storyboarded, and planned out. A big part of this project is the spirit of experimentation and always looking for better ways to do a given challenge. I want to involve you by working transparently. I’ll be posting work in progress and tests both successful and less than. One of the robot characters, ‘the Witness‘, is currently equipped with a webcam from which I’ve been streaming live while in the workshop. so you can share in the creation process.
Incentives
Since I’m an artist and sculptor, I have been making use of my skills to produce unique incentives. I’m putting together a book of the artwork from this world. I’m casting resin figures, hand-making dolls from the project, beginning with the basic doll of the Gynoid, which are my gift to donors, also everyone who purchases one of the dolls will have the opportunity if they choose, to customize it to be a part of a group art show.
I’m going to arrange a special screening for the cast crew and donors of the complete pilot in San Francisco. I’m also making a lot of other rewards available to donors; pez dispensers, magnets, pins, nerf guns,T-shirts, magnets…
What you can do
At this stage I really need your help. I’ll be kicking this campaign off on Indiegogo soon, and in the mean time I need all of the feedback I can get. If you haven’t already added Drab Future on Facebook, you should and spread the word on twitter and facebook. Please re-tweet and share. We need to increase awareness. The more people we can tell about this the greater it will be!
The Gynoid was the first part of this world I envisioned. Inspired by the opening sequences of ‘Hardware’ and ‘Battle angel’. I knew this would be the story of a salvaged fembot, found in the wasteland, and repaired.
I knew she had to have a sense of beauty, of sex appeal, but not seem quite human.I looked all around at reference, at Japanese Ball-joint dolls, like super Dollfie and handmade ones, I looked to surrealist Hans Bellmer, to anime style and 80s horror, fashion and fetish. I even trolled through the forums of RealDoll owners, looking to the way they store and even fabricate their own versions.
I began her construction with a PVC armature. Planned out all the joints with 90 degree angles and i strung it together with elastic string like tent poles. This gave me a rigid body but was still able to hinge via the rotation along the angle joints.
Then I blocked it out; attached pink insulation foam blocks to the armature.
I applied cans of ‘Great stuff’ spray foam to fill gaps. I really love this stuff, its tricky and drippy, but once you get the hang of it it can be like 3D spraypaint.
Carved the blocks and spray foam once it cured;
repeated that process until the shape felt close;
I’d also shape the foam by hand a bit as it cured by layering it with foil to prevent it from sticking to my skin. I also considered making her body chrome.
The last stage was using a high density two part liquid foam to fill any remaining gaps and get a really uniform surface.
I chopped up some Furby eye mechanisms and rigged them together
Cut the eyes out of the foam
I created a geared mechanism from lego parts to move the jaw.
I was able to find a pair of wooden artist model hands, which found their way to her at this point.
The next step was to cover over the body with fiberglass, an extremely difficult and time consuming process.
Each part had to be wrapped individually with woven fiberglass cloth, and sealed with resin.
once the parts had been sealed there were the occasional wrinkle, it was too hard to get the cloth completely smooth,
I spent a lot of time sanding the parts smooth again
Until she fit back together
She needed some mechanical detailing, so I added tubing, some brass fittings and the top of a can to be her feul tank
It was tricky but I found a proper wig for her and started dressing her up in real clothing;
Some black wash of paint, to ‘dirty her up.’ Using thin ink/acryllic like this seeps into the texture and cracks to give her the old porcylin texture I was looking for.;
Drab future 