Today I decided to mod two of my characters. Here I’m replacing The Bridgekeeper’s good eye with a UV bulb.

The trick is to drill a small pilot hole through the eye, angled just right to miss the brain stem. Then from the back, I drilled progressively larger holes until the 5mm bulb would fit, right up to where his eyeball would be, but not breaking the skin.

And here’s the test at 12V. It’ll look better in the dark, dialed down to 4V. And I hope it casts the same ultraviolet lens flares.

These lights (including nine vacuum tubes) will be controlled via this 24-channel constant voltage DMX decoder. This is a different type of decoder than I used on the drum kit. This one is meant for “dumb” lights. Lights that can dim only in response to their power level. That way they too can throb and breathe with the music or with the dialogue.

Then it was time to lock down Zoot & Dingo. Their costumes got some padding to make them look (barefoot and) pregnant. This is because the pregnant “Phicen” bodies I ordered from China turned out to be counterfeit JAIOU DOLL bodies, so I sent them back and opened a case on eBay.

And it’s time to take the backings off their pyramid headstones while also making sure the earrings stay in place, in turn keeping their pill hats on their heads while I animate them.

So here’s how they look now. Next, I disassembled those copper microphones and mounted a 5mm UV LED bulb inside the mics. The idea here is that instead of 1:1 audio cables, these 1:6 instruments will have lighting cables. You can see the glow on Dingo’s face. My DMX program will synchronize that lighting intensity with whatever they’re singing.

The mics can be handheld too, which gives me opportunities to aim the lights differently.

And lastly, Tim the Enchanter gets a UV light too, in the tip of the wooden staff that he famously uses to cast fireballs, for sport. This was pretty tricky too. Lots of progressively larger drill bits, trying to keep them straight and true. Since my bits were only three inches long, the wires emerge from the staff near Tim’s hand — which is okay. For this prop and back of The Bridgekeeper’s head, I painted the visible wires various shades of brown to blend in.

Notice the stage monitors at Tim and King Arthur’s feet? My son Steven 3D printed those for me. Doesn’t that texture look great? Today’s his birthday!

Happy birthday, Monkey Boy!