Scooby Doo is one of the most widely recognizable, and long running cartoons of all time clocking in at almost 50 years of thrilling mystery solving and hijinks. I remember being at Thanksgiving gatherings and finding that one of the few things that could connect the generations of cousins exiled to the kids table was Scooby Doo, and as a result, it’s always held a special place in my heart.
However, heart and the place in said heart was just the beginning, and I still had a long way to go before being able to bring this beautiful space ghost to life, so to speak. So, without further ado, I present…
The ???? Steps to Actualizing Your Dreams*
*ᶦᶠ ᵗʰᵒˢᵉ ᵈʳᵉᵃᵐˢ ᵃʳᵉ ᵗᵒ ᵐᵃᵏᵉ ᵃ ᵖʳᵃᶜᵗᶦᶜᵃˡ ˢᵖᵃᶜᵉ ᵏᵒᵒᵏ
Step 1: Find a team of capable and passionate Scooby Doo fans!
My first instinct was that if I could convince enough people that I knew what I was talking about Scooby Doo-niverse wise, then I might garner a team, and as a result, the Space Kook informational packet was born!
Step 2: Realize you may be over your head…
There was definitely a moment where I looked at all the work ahead and thought, “Well, I hope someone knows what they’re doing”, but…
Step 3: Elongate your neck!
… then I remembered that we are all here to learn, get better, and find a way to overcome the unknown
Step 4: Design!
After our first meeting, we all took part in voicing our expectations, and worries via a very sophisticated mood board:
Then, a maquette came to be!
From there, we really tried to define parameters for our preliminary designs, which can be found here along with our mission statement
Step 5: Prototype!
To begin, we found a pre-existing halloween skull, and using modeling clay, crafted his ever grimaced face. Then, using two springs, a skewer, and a piece of string, we allowed his jaw to become cackle capable.
Then, we constructed the first body
Then the first miniature puppet…
Step 6: Fail…
After finishing our prototypes we noticed a host of problems:
- Our skull was too big
- Our body was not quite in line with what we’d set out to create
- Our puppet was not sturdy enough
And so…
Step 7: Design, and Prototype 2: Electric Boogaloo!
The body was redesigned to be slimmer and with the addition of panelling, more in line with the man made aesthetic we wanted. We also created a form for the helmet.
We then finalized our design and pulled textures for the body
Finally, we realized that the puppet didn’t need to be homemade when we have a lovely drawing form for a base!
The future definitely hold more steps and failures ahead, but that’s the nature of the beast. Luckily for us, with everyone’s help, we will get away with it, in spite of the metaphorically meddling kids.
