Tardigrades in Space - Tardibabie sculpture, mold, foam puppets

JONATHAN ANDERSON

Tardigrades In Space is an independent film project featuring traditional movie-style puppets (non-animatronic), kit-bashed models and miniature sets, as well as human actors and physical locations blended with traditional green screen effects.

The story involves microscopic tardigrade specimens that spent several years exposed to cosmic radiation. Upon retrieval and reanimation, they grew into large, sentient creatures.  This creature, a “Tardibabe” is the offspring of the initial “good batch” of specimens salvaged from the failed (real-life) Israeli lunar lander that crashed in 2019.

The blue one, “Truman,” escapes a health sciences university lab and finds his way home in the backpack of a little girl visiting a terminally ill cousin awaiting treatments derived from experiments being performed on Truman and his siblings.

JONATHAN ANDERSON

Here's a "yearbook" photo of the individual Tardibabe puppets. I'd love to have a NAMING CONTEST to see what folks come up with based on each puppet's unique characteristics.

JONATHAN ANDERSON

Finally, having noticed that every puppet turned out to be unique, and each one had its share of minor deformities, I was inspired to make a PROSTHETIC FOOD for the final casting from the original mold. You see, silicone molds have a life-span, as chemicals are gradually leached from the rubber into the Urethane castings, and they eventually fail, bonding to the foam and tearing away when you try to extract the casting.  So, I decided to name this little blue babe "Tiny Tim" in hommage to Dickens' "A Christmas Carol".

I plan to use these puppets outside of the movie project, as I interact with elementary students as a full-time substitute teacher...recognizing and affirming each person's uniqueness and reframing disabilities into different-abilties.