Talk About Robots Origins

Talk About Robots Origins

This year all the conventions I’ve been attending for years were canceled.  A lot of people lost their jobs and things have been pretty bleak. I struggled with doing something for people to enjoy. Something they didn’t have to fork out for and wasn’t a huge deal for me to produce.  A happy distraction for these “uncertain times”.

Creating things online isn’t anything new. For years I’ve given away comic downloads, activity sheets, movie guides, ornaments, robots and more. But I enjoy the human-to-human contact at conventions, classes and art shows. A scheduled livestream seemed like a perfect way for me to communicate with others while also being creative.

The cast of Talk About Robots: T.T.U.M.E.R.S. , J Chris Campbell and Mr. Sprinkles.

For format simplicity, I decided I would continue to share my love of robots with others. I’d talk a little about a type of Robot, then talk about a toy and then draw a robot. Nothing complex, just a little something friends and family could watch during lunch instead of the news. A way to commune and learn together.

After 4 episodes I realized how boring my format was. I didn’t even put my face on screen until episode 4. That is when I decided to see if my kids wanted to join in. I made a robot puppet for my daughter and everything instantly got more entertaining. A more random show developed that still included a small part where I could “Talk About Robots”. I soon made my son a puppet and even one for my nephew who was visiting for a week. 

We were having fun together coming up with props and ideas for the show. But After 15 episodes I needed a break.  Going live at 12 o’clock every weekday with a half improvised show was a lot of work. Plus we were all stuck in my office with very little wiggle room. So we took a rocket ship into space. 

We moved to a better location in the house and build a space set. We had more room to do different things and that allowed me to play around with models, sets along with learning more digital tricks. All perfect for cutting back on workload, right? No it is not, just incase you didn’t catch the sarcasm.

Thankfully (for me) school started back this week and we had to stop season 2 after 5 episodes. But they are the best ones because we really did crank up the creativity juices. I hope they bring some joy to others and I’ll slowly upload them to youtube. For now you can watch them on Facebook and Instagram. I did load a mega-show to youtube that combines all of season 2 into one long video. So go check it out.

Also check out http://www.talkaboutrobots.com

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