MIKU-MASTER-CARR + MTG

Miku Hatsune! McMaster-Carr! Combined, you get....

Above: Miku-Master-Carr!

(explanation below)

One of my favorite fandoms revolve around Vocaloids - I even did a doujin last year in part with some friends for Anime Boston! ([CLICK HERE] for a preview of my story.) Vocaloid is the general term for a singing synthesizer software developed by Yamaha, but what most fans refer to when they say 'Vocaloid' are the characters Crypton Future Media created as the faces for their Vocaloid2 software. These anime-styled vocal avatars, most of whom are girls, created a more marketable and approachable product, and in the span of a few short years became an international fan-sensation. Millions of fans around the world have used the program to create vocals for their bands, or used the characters for fanart, fan-animations, fan-comics, cosplay, and more. An entire open-source fan-system was even derived from all the cross-sharing! For example - music fans create the music, inspired fans make music videos (2D and 3D), inspired artists create fanart for the music or music videos, another fan likes the fanart and creates a 3D figure.

Even Crypton acknowledges the open-source nature of Vocaloid and its Vocaloid Characters - take a look at the screenshot of one of their slides in a Vocaloid panel I attended at Anime Expo 2011!

Above: Infrastructure of the Miku phenomenon?

Miku Hatsune, the first Crypton Vocaloid2 character, is particularly prone to fan-crossovers. There's a Miku Mona Lisa, a Miku-Donalds (McDonalds), a Miku Sailor Moon, etc. I think someone even found a way to import a Miku model in the newest Skyrim (Elder Scrolls V). xD

At the other end, there's McMaster-Carr, a private hardware supplier company that has awesome next-day delivery for all your nuts, bolts, and other mechanical/electrical/utility parts. Their website is super clean and user-intuitive - check it out! [Link to McMaster-Carr Website]

So when you combine my fan favorite Vocaloid Miku Hatsune and the awesome McMaster-Carr company, you get MIKU-MASTER-CARR! :D

To end this post, I just want to share some sketches I did for the MIT MTG (Musical Theater Guild). For this 2012 IAP period (independent activities period during the month of January), MTG's putting on an original MIT screenplay called "Hack, Punt, Tool". I wasn't involved with MTG until this show, when the Choreographer (and my Asian Dance Team friend) asked me to be her assistant. Interested, I'm now helping out with the show! And when we were blocking out some of the scenes, all of us were getting stumped on movements in one of the sections because it called for working with a lot of things that needed to get built on stage. (Or look like they were being built on stage)

So I drew up some sketches for the 3 groups (one working mainly with wood and pipes, one working with mainly ropes, and one working with anything electrical) to help us out. I focused on (1) things that could attach without drills and hammers, (2) things that could be assembled quickly offstage and brought back onstage, and (3) things that didn't really make sense what the final product would look like.

Above: MTG random building prop ideas

We're going to have a meeting with the Set and Prop Directors soon to discuss the particulars, and the Directors want to bring the sketches along so we can mix and match parts and props. It'll be interesting to see how this show will turn out - it'll be exciting, I'm sure!