August 2010

The fringe is running down here in Edinburgh Finally. I am still onna quest to make a new contact staff video, the Doubles DVD is ! this close to going to the printers and I have some S Staffs to sell...

In fact I have a short run of the sexiest S Staffs in the world to sell. Fat walled high quality aluminium polished up to a chrome finish. I know, try not to drool. Can be made into fire or not fire S-Staffs. They are 90cm in length, that's not the radius of the curve, that's the full length.They are also entirely made in the UK by adults who get paid. Which is pretty sweet. The polisher is Scottish. :D

They are the prototypes of ntnc.co.uk - that's Steve and my company, that made the DVD too....

Email: meghan.c.pike @@@ gmail.com  or info @@@ ntnc.co.uk if you're interested, want to know more, want pictures etc...

Expect some S-Staff tutorials shortly... :D

2010! 

What the hell! Already?

I just came back from doing workshops in Russia, check out the video here: youtube

Also there is a new article on Staff on Staff Contact (SOSC) : article

Finally you can STILL buy my tutorial DVD: buyonline

But it's also available from such people as: HomeOfPoi.com and TrickConcepts.com 

Updates: 

So totally almost finished the Doubles DVD, just waiting on translations...

Forum = plagued by spam. REMOVED. FAIL.

Faceboot: Go here: be this websites friend. 

August 2009 signing off...

New Tutorials for 2009

Also, there's a facebook group now: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=76772679607&ref=ts I was forcibly addicted to the faceboot, not my fault.

The last time I made new tutorials must have been 2 years ago... so sorry you had to wait so long... some DVD's got in the way...

This time, I thought I would take a leaf out of Nick Woolsey's book and do Voice Overs on the tutorials. They're kinda scrappy VO's, cos I don't have a radio mic and someone to do all the editing for me. Lucky Nick. And some of them don't have VO's because i was super hurried and learning how to use Cubase in about five minutes and didn't unmute the tracks before saving them. So there was that, and I have no microphone here to redo them... so I might put some titles on them at some point...

So I guess I should release these one a day, do that you guys keep coming back to my website and I can clock up hits and adwords clicks, oh wait, I don't have any adwords... But I haven't cos that seems like  pretty bullshit way to live. So here they all are, at once... har!

I probably got a good bit of RSI doing all these 77! tutorials, but well, I know you guys love me, (even the ones that don't speak english) so it's all worth it.

Email me if you find a mistake, you don't get through 77 tutorials without making a mistake or two somewhere...

The ones with Voice overs can be found in FLV and WMV9 here:

http://videos.tepookatoys.com/rendered/

or at this article / video resource page.

The ones without voice overs and no music:

http://videos.tepookatoys.com/flv/ 

or at this article / video resource page.

So far only the ones with voiceovers have been integrated into the website... stay tuned!

Stuff I forgot to say: Yeah the tutorials are not as detailed as the 'proper' tutorials I made last, they're mostly new moves and concepts so naturally they won't be as polished but also harder to teach. If you want polished tutorials of the basics... oh what's this? My DVD at Trick Concepts and the HoP Shop? Yes it is! Or direct from my website if you want the PAL version...

Yeah so they're new tutorials of new things. Some of the new things can be seen in this video that I'm about to upload to youtube.

Why didn't I upload all these tutorials to youtube I hear you mutter? Well I couldn't be bothered... Mostly. 77 is a lot of waiting around for uploading. It was a lot of work to film, render, voice over, rerender with voiceover and compress, convert to FLV, create links and text and then make pages for 77 videos. So uploading them one at a time to youtube isn't on my adgenda. Rant over. Sorry.

DL: http://videos.tepookatoys.com/media/tutorial-coolbits-alt.wmv

Shows some of the new stuff in the tutorials. Without names. Sorry. I fail. Epic.

LAB INFINITE

 I made a double staff simulator. Like those juggling simulators, but for staff. Like that poi-bot, but for staff. Like that... yeah, but for staff.

Pictures:

You'll need Java 5/6 installed to run it. And I'm pretty sure it's maybe only going to work on windows right now, even thou it's java. Cos of loading the images. Which sucks. I might get around to changing that when I get home, back to my linux machine.

So you need java, and you need to unzip the directory and then double click on the LABinfinite.jar file. Then it should work, hopefully. Some stuff might make things go weird and then you can't fix them. Try reset and sync. Or just restart the program. It's not super optimised but hopefully it'll run at a reasonable rate.

LABInfinite.zip

The new DVD will be ready soonish. It's in the final stretch now. Check out: www.doublestaff.firestaff.net for all the juice. All about doubles. Yeah and look at the sexy t-shirts I made underneath.

T-Shirts

So for a while now, I've been trying to find a good website / company to help me make some really good t-shirts that are also environmentally friendly and ethically produced. Unfortunately, most online stores have limited design options and no clue about green clothing, just really expensive american apparel stuff, which is bleached and is probably doesn't use organic fair trade cotton. But then after talking to t-shirt printers in the UK and in Australia it seems like it's almost impossible to find a REAL green t-shirt. Since even if the t-shirts cotton is ethically sourced, then the bleach used on it is polluting the environment. It's a morass of following links until you find the thing that isn't good. Then there's the idea of bamboo t-shirts, but they're manufactured in the same way as rayon, which means there's a lot of chemical shenanigans to check up on and it's no good for fire spinning. And the ink used in the printing is almost absolutely not environmentally friendly. The best ink is usually that used in screen printing and the start up costs for that are immense, so I can't afford that. Green T-Shirts are hard to make.

So in lieu of that, I have a very simple set of designs up on RedBubble, an art website. they sell prints and canvas art as well as t-shirts.

There isn't much customisation possible on my end but you can change the colour of the t-shirt which is nice. As well as having long sleeve / girly fit / v-neck.

RedBubble use plastisol transfers. Which is like latex printing (the smooth plasticy style of printing) but is full colour. It's as durable as latex printing and I love it. Cos latex isn't full colour, it's one colour at a time and that sucks. Still best to wash em inside out, like you should with printed t-shirts.

I don't get much monies for each t-shirt and they're just plain t-shirts, but in the future I want to travel to Bali or Thailand and get some really interesting/cool/crazy t-shirt designs made. Cos the limitations of normal printed t-shirts really bug me. 

So have a look (): http://www.redbubble.com/people/mcpu/t-shirts  

(there are in fact more than 3 designs.)

2009!

Quick couple of Updates: 

Some new Articles: 

How to Move Good

How to Make a Routine Good

Staff on Staff Contact Videos

Contact Club Tutorials

December:

So I've been busy making a few videos... You can see concentrate glow staffs in action here:

http://videos.tepookatoys.com/media/glowteam-large.wmv

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBNsFX3dpBo

 
Or you can watch me do some really bad isolations with tiny staffs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9U0oHe5iG8

Finally I've also been getting into contact club... more of that here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SolOm4uTIs8

Cunningly I forgot to include the sound on that last one... I know. I'm awesome.

Hop now sells a NTSC version of my DVD which is the good news for those of you in NTSC regions of the world. Currently I'm in Australia. hanging out in Sydney, and trying to find a good t-shirt printer...

:D
 

CONCENTRATE GLOW STAFFS

well, exciting developments, we will soon have an NTSC copy of the DVD... that's at the printing presses right now. Not to have a rest or anything, we're currently making a new DVD all about Double Staff... check it out here: http://doublestaff.firestaff.net 

Also, I'm in Australia right now, and I've been testing out some of the new Concentrate glow staffs, well doubles, in particular. And I've been really surprised by how awesome they are. After things like glowbugs and other glow staffs depressing me with their bendiness, fragility and not very brightness. Concentrate staffs also have only two light sources, one at each end, but they are very very high quality staffs. The inner fibreoptic style rod makes for perfect dffusion of the light along the length of the staff. It's properly a solid line of light. The ends are robust, I've dropped them a lot already and they haven't been damaged at all.

They haven't got any screws to get sand into, they're covered in silicon for extra damage resistance, as well as it being an excellent grip and transparent.

They bend a little, but they're quite meaty and don't bend much. They got a good weight to them, and with the batteries being at either end it makes for good contact as well as spinning potential.

They have a few different modes in the manner of glowtoys, as well as solid modes. Plus you can mix colours since each end is controlled independently.

The only trouble is that you have to remove the batteries if you aren't going to be using them for an extended period of time... (anything more than a few hours...)

Otherwise awesome performance equipment... which I'll hopefully be making a performance with soon... http://www.concentrate.com.au/

THE DVD IS FINISHED!  

It's Finished! And available for purchase! Yes! Finally! I Know! You can buy it here: manipulation.firestaff.net/buyonline.html or go and check it out on the website: manipulation.firestaff.net.

Buying it direct is best, but other real and online stores you might know and trust will be carrying it soon.  

It's got amazing inspiration sequences on it, that even I go back and watch again... they make me think i have to go out and practise more... It's got spinning tutorials, contact tutorials and doubles tutorials, all starting from absolute beginner. And they're the most well made tutorials I could make.

I have explained it as well as I possibly can in this DVD, especially the contact moves cos I loves them. The tutorials are at least ten times better than anything on this site, even the really good ones I made. 

Featuring slow motion, freeze frame and multiple angles, not just for coolness value, but concocted to show you in the most obvious way how the moves work and YOU have to move to make them work.

I didn't really like having a PayPal donate button on this site, cos it felt so cheesey, nor have I given in to Google AdWords, so if you maybe liked my free tutorials, learnt a lot and wanted to give something back, you could consider purchasing the DVD... And you get something for your money as well!

Alternatively, you can wait for the Intermediate/Advanced DVD's that I'm in the process of making, about Doubles and Contact exclusively. They're going to be my masterpieces, at least, that's my dream. The final say on Contact... and as for Doubles, covering a huge previously uncovered area, but doubles moves so fast... it's not exactly going to be the final say... :D Can't wait for them to be finished... :D

Meg

SUMMER!

So what's up? It's been a while. I'm just getting back from a holiday in america... again. Is this all I do? Well no, I quit my job, so I'm now some kinda crazy professional fire spinner or something. And when I get home, there will be actually printed Staff Manipulation DVD's waiting for me. Win.

First off thou, some pimping of my friends... Trick Concepts are a fire prop maker working out of Los Angeles. But they're awesome. They have a huge workshop and can weld anything like fiesty welding demons. They even live in the workshop and have a huge barbecue... Oh, but anyway, they make great long lasting tool, especially fire fans, but also very good staffs. They'll be happy to respond to custom requests as well. Since they weld all the fans on site, any kind of staff design you can imagine, they will probably be willing to give it a go. They're a big fan of BIG fire as well, which is no bad thing in a fire prop maker. go to: TrickConcepts.com

Secondly, Flowtoys... again. :D Flowtoys is owned and operated by Sean and Prisna, an amazing couple of people, I think they live in the future cos they're always improveing their designs and giving their customers the benefits on the same day. No waiting.  They have clear grip for their flowstaffs now which makes them much much much better than before. (You might have to ask for the grip, it's very new.)  You can add extra flowmass at the ends of the staff to add extra weight for contact. They're still a bit bendy, but when you're staff is made of polycarbonate, there isn't much you can do about it, and it'll train you to do contact better. For doubles thou, they're staffs are naturally awesome and they even make break down ones! So tell them mcp sent you, they might be extra nice to you, they might be extra nice to me! flowtoys.com