Tenukihandcrafts

The Takashima Extraction is my passion project.

It will be a photo graphic novel, set in the Shadowrun world of futuristic Seattle. With elements of film noir and cyberpunk, it tells the story of Aloysius Keaton, who is compelled to follow the data trail, no matter the cost.

The characters in this story are played by my resin ball jointed dolls that range in size from 26 cm tall to 80 cm tall. I designed the costumes and made most of the garments and accessories.

The project started in earnest in January 2021, with the goal to publish this work in September 2021. This is a pretty ambitious goal because I work full-time as an Executive Assistant at Amazon, need to spend time with my family, watch more film noir, and, if you’ve been a reader of this blog for any amount of time, you know that I love all the crafts. I’ve cleared the decks and channeled all my crafting energy into this project.

Takashima, as well as another, larger story from whence it came, have been in development for several years. Story outlines were done so long ago. What held me back was deciding how I wanted to visually present the story then developing the artistic chops to make it happen. After 3 years of Sebastian Michael’s Photoshop classes, a lot of experiments (so many more than I ever post), and everything came together in the past six months.

The images on this page, as well as the posts tagged Project Takashima Extraction, show the development of the story along with test compositions. Spoiler alert: the post entitled “The Morning Report” is an executive summary, so to speak, of Keaton’s story. The images in the sub menu “Salish Shidhe” are more experiments, including characters from the next story in the queue.

The story and composition thumbnails are finished and shooting begins in February 2021. I shoot with a Canon Rebel T1i with a variety of entry level lenses. The images are edited in Photoshop and Procreate. I use a very basic Wacom table (small Intuous Pen & Touch). The final images will be created in Photoshop.

Like Mr. Al Keaton, I’m following this trail to the end because I really want to see this story. I hope you’ll join me on the journey.