I am a fan of Adam Savage. Folks my age will know him as the erstwhile Mythbuster, a man who egregiously blew sh*t up and rigorously tested urban legends, myths, historical fables, and internet viral videos (among other things) on the Discovery Channel. Today he runs a YouTube channel called Tested. Adam is a strong proponent of the Maker Movement. What is making? In his words: “making is any time you reach out with your point of view and make something from nothing” and it could be computer code, a blog post, a deck chair, an omelet, a crochet cactus – anything!
Another Adam-ism is that “failure is always an option!” One must fail many times on journey of success. Note: I didn’t say road, because making is rarely that straightforward, that well-trodden, that…obvious. Making is more of a journey, in that the trip is more important (sometimes) than the destination, or the end result. I have come to believe that what I learn while making is more valuable to me than the object I end up with as a result of my making.
My most recent foray into making was in customizing a Star Wars action figure. This action figure is a stock re-creation of a character from one of Lucasfilm’s TV shows. I wanted to make it a similar character, but not the one everyone knows. I began with a simple paint job. A little acrylic paint here and there to change the tone and color of the figure. I then added some Rub’N’Buff, a wax product that lends a metallic sheen to things. Finally I wanted to “weather” the figure, that is, add a patina of dirt and grime to make the figure seem like it came from a lived-in universe and not fresh from a factory somewhere. And there is where I failed.
I failed by not sealing my paint job. I should have, but I don’t quite know how as that isn’t knowledge I have yet added to my mental memory banks. Usually, it isn’t a problem (I hadn’t learned how much of a problem it could be until this episode!). This Failure led to a succession of failures. First, the medium I use for weathering is a pigmented water-based wash meant for miniature figures, such as for gaming or other uses. It is a little sticky, though, and there-in lay the trouble. With an unprotected paint job, the wash first stuck to my plastic gloves, and then to the paint. I started, as I merely handled the figure in between wash coats, to pull off bits of the paint I had so carefully laid down in the first place. Then, this pulled up paint, now stuck to my gloves and re-wetted ever so slightly, started to be re-applied to places it shouldn’t have been whenever I touched the figure. I figured this out too late.
After that, I tried to cover my mistakes with more Rub’N’Buff, but that led to patches of metallic silver or black which didn’t approximate the look I was going for: subtle glints of metallic color. Finally, the wash didn’t really show up anyway as much as I wanted it to due to the darker color of the figure, so it ended up not adding much variation. The end result is a patchy, muddy, overly-dark re-colored figure. I failed to achieve my goal!
Overall, this is one more step in the journey towards a great looking custom Star Wars action figure. I may have failed this iteration, but I have gained a lot by the exercise. First, I need to find a way to seal my figures once painted. Second, I need to adjust my levels of Rub’N’Buff. A little really does go a long way. Third, I may need a new weathering media, or maybe if sealed, the washes I have will work fine. I don’t know yet. I need to take a few more steps, and learn thereby.
Adam, I believe, would applaud my efforts. He is fond of saying that workshops should adhere all the iterative failures to the wall, not to shame, but to show the long, slow progression of progress from beginning to intermediate to master of the craft; to show that each failure is a step in the right direction; to spur on the maker towards more making. I don’t quite have the wall or shelf space, but I’ve rarely thrown a mistake away. I have a bin of almost-there figures that I take out once in a while and marvel at how far I’ve come. Maybe someday I will take what I have learned and improve on them and make them something more than they are, or maybe I will display them someday when I do have room and see where I’ve come from.
Tested has a merch store. Part of their offerings for sale that they created and made available some time ago are “de-merit” badges. These are patterned off the scout badges one can earn as a girl or boy scout, but instead of showing things achieved as a merit badge, these celebrate the wrong turns, the failures, the mistakes made along the way. There is one for touching wet paint, for letting out the mysterious blue smoke that powers electronics, for plugging too many things into one outlet, for measuring once resulting in cutting twice, and many more. For one thing, failures along the journey are as plentiful as they are varied, but for another, they are mile-markers, sign posts to show just how far a maker has come.
Adam and Tested occasionally give gifts to their YouTube Patrons, a little “thank you for the support” and in December they sent out three random de-merit badges. I received mine. I hadn’t yet made a purchase of them for myself, and was curious to see how I felt by having some in my possession. I surprised myself by delighting in them! These three were de-merit badges I had already earned: Cut Oneself, Accidentally Glued Fingers Together, and Lost Screw. I knew immediately that I had to add a few more badges I had also earned. (I ordered six more, and they should be arriving soon. I have been hard at work failing!) Now I need a way to proudly display them. Still working on that.
I am ever so thankful to Adam Savage for his guidance. I tend towards perfectionism, and push myself hard to get it right on the first go around. That is almost never possible! So with a little patience and self-love and grace, I can learn to succeed at failing and eventually reach a destination of making what I set out to make, though I don’t think I will ever stop losing screws, or accidentally gluing my fingers together, or other epic fails along the way!
a simple man 