"Which came first, Rikke or the Clay?"

If you're not familiar with what a Rikke is, well, Rikke is a who, not a what. And this "who" is a roadrunner, and the hero of our children's book project.

So back to the question, which came first?

One could argue that the title of this stream is correct, because Julia used some modeling clay to develop the character of Rikke more, so we could see it in 3D. And she succeeded. In this EPIC FIVE HOUR stream, without any breaks I might add, we got to watch her start with a wire idea of a structure, then add clay as she needed to develop a shape, then fine tune the details to create the head of our star, Rikke.

Here birdy birdy!‍

Julia sat on a rock facing the roadrunner cage for hours. We were at Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska on a mission…a mission to see a roadrunner up close. I wanted to take pictures for later reference, but, more importantly, Julia wanted to get some drawings down on paper to start the process of developing this children’s book character we’ve created, a roadrunner named Rikke.

Thinking about it, I guess the character development started long before the zoo, on one of the many long stretches of interstate we were chewing up on our road trip. We were watching the miles go by and decided to get into the head of Rikke and figure out who this roadrunner really was.

What lengths have you gone to while researching a project?

Or maybe seeking some inspiration for ideas. Have you done something “crazy” or “out there” in the minds of others? I once worked on a design with a retro feel, so I only listened to Yma Sumac, Esquivel, and Martin Denny for a month. But that pales in comparison, I think, to what Julia and I just did.

We just traveled 6000 kms through the United States Southwest, on a road trip adventure to research, and get inspiration for, our latest project. We are working on a children’s book in which the hero is a roadrunner named Rikke. To learn more about roadrunners, and get inside Rikke’s world a bit, we researched online, read a lot of articles, watched documentaries, and more. But what we really needed to do, we thought, was to go where Rikke lives.