I'll start off with a section stolen from the "Geology" page about my motive for building Kakalea, then show the nuts and bolts.

Kakalea was created to make a point: worlds with plenty of air, water and land, with Earthlike temperature and chemistry, can still be largely barren due to geography alone.

There's an easy example of my point in Earth's past: Pangea. It's still true, in fact: the Old World is really a supercontinent, with a huge, harsh interior, mostly desert, steppe and thin boreal forest.

But I wanted to show a different ecopoverty, due only to continental locations, orientations and shapes, not bunching. Hence Kakalea has deliberately un-grouped continents with plenty of sea around them; it's an anti-Pangea.

That means what dominated Kakalea's development wasn't tectonic plausibility. I roughed in the continents first, then worked backward, defining plates, rifts and trenches. The result looks plausible on a continental scale, even a hemispheric one, but looks too even, too neatly spaced, when seen as a whole by a geologically literate Terran. Kakalea's creator isn't an Intelligent Designer, but a Pedestrian sort: call him Plod.

What Kakalea's evenly spaced lands look like, really, is a child's fantasy--an ecotopia where it's all fertile, happy, neat... a veritable suburbia of laid-out continents. Or a well-ordered farm district: the Shire, not the wilds of Middle Earth.

And it should work. Ocean all around! This is known as Geographic Irony. Though I suppose for most readers the irony will be, um, dry.

The physical construction of Kakalea was simple--one of the easiest worlds I ever built. I bought an old globe in a yard sale and just started painting on it, enlarging Australia, then adding more desert continents, then even more, in an orgy of orange. My reasons weren't scientific but emotional. I'd just finished Lyr, a huge oceanic super-Earth, and I was sick of blue, blue, blue. I wanted hot. And not a bone-dry world, all red the way Lyr was all green and blue. I wanted CONTRAST. Hot and cool colors. Dry and wet jammed together. I wanted... paradox.

Relief was built with a tube of thick white paint, mostly right out of the tube, then dabbed at with a stick, pulling the thick paint into sawtooth mountain ranges, which I wanted not just for scenery but to block rain on many coasts. Waited a day and then started painting colors--mostly hot ones. Red & orange deserts rimmed by golden savannas... just narrow green shores framing endless outbacks.

I photographed the globe against black-painted cardboard, and added a little atmospheric haze on the horizons, using GIMP, a free (open source) graphics program. I'm amazed people still write to ask me what software creates my planets, after all these years and all these globes, so I'd better repeat: there is no fractal generator, no spherical renderer, no software. It's a physical globe just a foot tall. Think of it as a planetary Barbie doll. The same scale.

Here, I'll prove it--

Kakalea's unusual for me in that the globe came first, before I charted or calculated a thing, and the initial mapping was based on that globe. Usually it's the reverse. But even on Kakalea, I think the key to understanding the plausibility and detail of the model (if any) still isn't the globe, it's the cartography--it's where I calculate and think things out. That's true for ALL my worlds. So...

For the first time in building a world-model, I thought to save enough steps in my mapping process to create a short animation showing my picture of Kakalea evolving from first sketch page to the final world map. For the moment you have to click on the sketch below to start it. It's under 2 minutes; 6.7Mb. Eventually, I'll set these 455 frames to loop as an animated GIF or embedded video, but so far my attempts have been too big/too slow, or else they don't work on all browsers.

You'll notice that about 30 seconds in, and again near 45 seconds, I seem to start all over from scratch, with a clean map-grid. It's true! The early phases were more about LEARNING the planet's cartography in detail, building a clear, consistent MENTAL map--I knew those early sketches weren't worth cleaning up.

But the second half of the animation is all a single detailed 16-color GIF that I refined and corrected over and over as I learned more about local details.

These animation-frames are NOT full-size. My real master worldmap is 3840 x 2160 pixels--SIXTEEN TIMES the area you see! I need the master map that big and detailed--I use it to bud off the regional maps for each tour (except way out at the edges where regions get distorted or sliced in two. For tours of Kera, Iba and end-of-the-world archipelagoes, I had to remap by hand.)

What this mean is: modest changes from frame to frame--say, an area the size of your thumbnail--reflect the construction (or rethinking, or RE-rethinking) of a whole regional tour--a day's work, or a week.

Worlds, even simple barren worlds, are big.

The ground-level scenes of pure landscape are a mixture of media. A few are pencil sketches I scanned then shaded & tinted in GIMP, the open source graphics program (since NOT ONE of the three versions of Photoshop I own will run on my new computer--and Adobe no longer sells it, only leases it! Adobe has abandoned the artists it once fostered. I won't go back. GIMP's name says it all, but despite its clumsy features, it does run and gets the job done.)

NW Ata: skull, sand

Tetek Crater

lizard, pinecone

fall, Rikani Is.

skull & tibia

vertebra, sand

I've begun adding a few landscape sketches in pastel/crayon, ink, watercolor, gouache and acrylic paint.

Palm canyon, Grakse Pen: Watercolor

Ara: desert sunset: crayon

south Fika: islands: acrylic

karst crags of Liarote: watercolor/digital

"oaks" on Siba: thick acrylic

foggy ridges, Orak: gouache

'mangroves' of Liufai: ink brushwork

Much of the newest landscape work is sketched directly on screen with a pen & tablet (a Wacom Bamboo--even their cheapest is quite nice). These are in chronological order, from experiments when I'd just switched to GIMP, to more controlled as I learned...

Iba: flowering trees

Ara: Chass Mts

catamaran

Tua: sphinxes

Bima: desert crags

Tasa: the cliffs of Spine

Loiba Islands sunset

Artaho Is.: Felak

Fika: Slot River canyon

Sia: Cape Astonishment

Sia: ice wall

Sia: sunset

Great Tasa: Sun Coast

The Kakalean natives, as I've described on the Peoples and Creatures page, are all Barbies cut and glued together into centauroids--thick acrylic paint hides the sutures. I posed them in dioramas around my house, with found props to add that Kakalean whiff of klunkiness. The Planet that Doesn't Quite...

It's an interesting dance, being almighty Plod, the Subtly Inept. So I'll reveal more than is proper, spoiling my own effects. It's Plod's way. As the bumpersticker says, "What would Plod do?" Too much. So behold my...

Recipe for Centaur Creation
(requires 6 days labor (rest on 7th), 2 Barbies, tiny saw, drill, a nail, glue, paint; no Eden or spareribs required)

1. Find two Barbies with similar hair-color, both deserving to die. If you thought "that would be all Barbies", you are cynical, but may proceed with the recipe.
2. Lift up the Barbie with more character in her face unto your right hand, and spare her. For now.
3. Grasp the Barbie with the blander smile in your left hand. Saw her in two, cutting armpit to armpit.
4. Cast her sappy head and arms into the outer darkness. All you care about is below the neck. You are apparently that sort of deity.
5. Glue these loser hindquarters onto the better Barbie's butt.
6. Fish the severed head up from the outer darkness. Oops. Next time cast into limbo--easier recall. Snip off falls of hair, and glue them on a bendable wire or nail in successive waves till you've built a tail.
7. Drill a hole in the hind-butt but only when other gods won't see, because it looks too kinky. Insert the tail. Ditto.
8. Smooth the junction between fore and hind-torsos. You may have to file ragged edges. Think of this as tough love. Caulk the cracks. Let dry.
9. Dab thick paint to create spiky fur. Scrape with comb or pins for finer texture. Let dry.
10. Paint colors--fur pattern, bare skin, lips, eyes. Let dry.
11. Touch gloss on the eyes, lips, nails and elsewhere if she's all excited, or you are. Let dry... et voilà! One Barbietaur.

For example, here's the frankensteining of Fuchsia, a flower-tattooed dancer-explorer you've seen sailing up jungle rivers and seducing the sun in metaphysical musicals.

TRIGGER WARNING! if you're about to undergo colonoscopy, skip #4. If you're not, skip #4 anyway. You'll never trust a power drill again.

But I cannot tell a lie: the Barbie figures weren't made for Kakalea. They began as a separate art project, The Cendancers--a whole dance troupe of centauroid Barbies. It was shown, with no references to Kakalea at San Francisco's annual Altered Barbie Exhibition in fall 2013. But I was already thinking of giving them a planet. Kakalea, the world gone pleasantly wrong, seemed a perfect fit.

Since I am Plod, the very file-clerk of Creators, of course there's a Chart Of All The Barbies.

Centaur Barbies		Aifelle in The Coming Dark	Archa in Diamonds	Ariel in Coral Dream	Bergia in Rain is Skygrass	Dlana in Snuggle Up	Filia in Kelp Gets Me Wet
Flora in I Dreamed I Built Mtns	Frizia in Tundra	Fuchsia's I Made the Sun Come	Kentaur in Red Hot Desert	Lia in Morla's...	Lina in Stride On!	Lotora in Ruby Heart	Nila in Too Many...
Proni in Mirror	Riraa in furs	Shya in Summer Heat	Sidera's Hidden Succulence	Spira in Microgravities	Storia in The Mail from Tasa, Probably	Suplica in Balance of Dark & Light	Zara in Rain, Fertilize Me
Chimera Barbies made of spare parts		Bulba	Octana	Pelva	Tenta	Tiara	Trifida

This chart shows only the dancers appearing on Kakalea. There are a few more. For a portfolio of the whole dance troupe with more pictures, see The Cendancers; for a complete photosets see the Art Gallery under each dancer's name.

Why Barbie? Why centaurs? Why dancers?

To let Barbie stand on her own. As a rolemodel or body image, Barbie's so footbound she's a pushover! Not just socially problematic--sculpturally, too. So I challenged myself to build a Barbie who CAN stand up for herself, in every sense. So I needed Barbies with more feet. Centaurs!

Why dancers? I took years of ballet, jazz and modern dance before my joints got too sore (probably from Lyme, not dance). Dance is a strange art, fusing sexuality, emotional expression and intellectual artifice, from the earthiest feelings to the most spiritual--in the same piece, occasionally in the same moment. I wanted to dance again, and choreograph my own pieces, and this was a way to do it.

Spira in Microgravities

Sidera in I Made the Sun Come

Bergia in Mount me Outdoors

The Seven Pillars of Cendancers

Archa of Cheirin in Dyeing for Freedom as staged on Tiao

1. A cendancer stands free. No need for wires, stands or other props.
2. A cendancer has a unique pose and gesture. They're active dancers caught in motion.
3. A cendancer has a unique color/pattern. Many are rather equine, but you'll see Raccoon Barbie, Zebra Barbie, Poodle Barbie...
4. A cendancer expresses a distinct mood; try to get beyond that generic Barbie smile
5. A cendancer is sexy. Barbie, meant to be sold to kids, hid her fetish origins (her designer, Ruth Handler, was inspired by Lilli, a sultry German fetish doll; early Barbies have Lilli-like sly, sidelong glances. Very seductive. See the film Barbie Nation) Cendancers are as openly sexual as Lilli. But never ONLY sexual; they're true dancers; sex is integrated into their life and art, and not taboo. Innocently erotic.
6. Cendancer anatomy is diverse--as long as it's broadly centaurian. Digitigrade (horse, cat) vs. plantigrade (human, elephants), breast arrangement (0-8), faces (various animal-human mixes), ears, tails...
7. A cendancer must be posable in SEVERAL stable orientations plausible as dance moves. Some may be wall poses using support, some may be floor work, but at least one should be freestanding, as per goal #1.

Barbie Biases

1. Most Barbies smile; it's one reason I built a dance-troupe, not a therapy group or riot squad. To make Screaming Barbie, Sobbing Barbie, Whistling Barbie or Puking Barbie I'd have to sculpt the heads from scratch. Hard work! But then, what's wrong with happiness?
2. Barbie plastic is tough. Drilling and sawing's not easy. Every centaur ended up--not by intention, I assure you--with at least a smidgen of my blood in her. Every single one. So I didn't do dare plan anything too drastic or freeform for the dolls. Really. No matter how they look.
3. The Ken shortage. I never found a single used Ken here in San Franciscos's thrift stores! I assume gay fetish sculptors snapped them up. The troupe's lone "Kentaur" contains one Ken a friend gave me, fused with a broken, musclebound Ken knockoff (non-Mattel) from a Mission flea market.
   

   
   Kentaur in Red Hot Desert

   Fusing a real & bogus Ken to make a male centaur took drastic surgery, design compromise and TWC (no, not Tender Wuvving Care. Tedious Weenie Construction.)

4. Most dolls I used were older, since they came from thrift shops, yard sales and friends. I did buy a handful new--mostly Latina Barbies, who had good hipjoints and a strong swayback that's ideal for the bend inherent in centaur anatomy, and for the raised tail that's a sure sign of centaurian sexual excitement. Because the dolls ranged so widely in age (from 1 to over 50 years--one was from 1967!) their anatomies varied shockingly. New Barbies are admittedly thin and leggy, but they're way less anatomically grotesque than older Barbies with wasp waists but quarterback shoulders and nose-cone boobs. Despite Barbie's reputation for promoting unrealistic body images, they've made slow progress--roughly reflecting the society that buys them.
   • Barbie's changes over decades were a blessing not a challenge; that range let me build individual centaurs from short buxom chunky wasp-waist Marilyn Monroes like Bergia, to muscular dancers like Spira or Suplica, to willowy teens like Shya, to little pixy ponies like Filia.

     Bergia, busty

     Flora, muscular

     Shya, delicate

     Fuchsia in Floral Dream

   • Barbies also varied from fully articulated joints and fluid poses to quite stiff--no elbow or knee joints, limited shoulder & hip joints. The latter were a real challenge. And one limitation was universal: Barbies of all eras have rigid spines, bending (at most) only at one waist-joint, and that's rare. So few cendancers twist their mid-torsos much (Bergia and Spira are rare examples); most of their expressiveness as dancers had to rise from the centaur-joint where the dolls fuse, or the hips and shoulders and neck.

5. Barbie hair won't readily tint, so I matched colors of head and tail as closely as I could--not easy! Fuchsia, right, was inspired by a doll with magenta hair so long I could use it for both head and tail--no matching, no dye jobs. Fuchsia's the only dancer I thought to photograph through all her stages of construction.
6. Fusing two Barbies into one centaur left spare heads, shoulders and arms. I cut off the hair from the uglier Barbie head (surprising variety here, from full of character to hideously insipid) and used it for tail-hair. That plethora of hair unconsciously biased me toward horse- and fox-tails; without that supply maybe I'd have tried more round cat tails, poofy rabbit tails, spiky dragon tails.

   Oh, well!

The All-Barbie Centaur Dance Ensemble, or ABCDE

Personal Biases

1. I favored modern dance over ballet--I hate formality, stiffness, impersonal prettiness.

   Suplica in The Balance of Dark and Light

2. I favored asymmetry and unusual weight distribution. Occasionally I did sacrifice the former to the latter, as in Suplica, an experiment in cantilevering; symmetricality made floating that zebra easier.
3. I favored poses that seemed sexually inviting. I wanted to make them erotic fantasies as explicit as Lilli, the Weimar German inspiration for Barbie.
4. I favored females. I like girls not boys. Yes, there's a used Ken shortage, but I could have looked harder for new Kens for sale if I'd been motivated. Besides, lots of queer fetish art uses Ken better than Barbie--there's a deep, persistent bias across the whole American sexual spectrum, believing butch is innately more outrageous, braver, healthier, more cutting edge--not just in art, in life.

   The Cendancers are my testimony that femme is just as brave and funny and hot.

5. I favored mammals because I'm lazy and let Barbie sway me. I should do a Dragon Barbie, but that luxuriant Barbie hair just seems her trademark, so I went with more of it... as in all over... And Falcon Barbie or Fairy-Tern Barbie, sexy though they'd be, posed practical and legal factors. A birdwatching friend did donate a lot of shed feathers she'd found over the years, but without proof the source didn't involve harming any birds, a sculpture using them would be ethically dicey and legally unsellable. If I can find an easy way to create vinyl feathers--I'm looking at old Venetian blinds now--I may do an avian Barbie or two.

Ah, but what to do with the extra head and arms? They build up, you see. And plastic is forever. We must recycle! And so...

Octana, an amphibious girl, Biarati Is.

Pelva, a soccer fiend on the Isle of Ksurbai

Trifida, a handy girl from Thathai

Tenta, a slippery girl from Leira

Tiara, Queen (and apparently King) of Uups

Bulba from the Isle of 'A'o

For these Chimera Barbies, I had to figure out how and where they'd evolve (isolated archipelagoes like our Galapagos, mostly). I ended up with half a dozen Monster Islands in four widely separated regions--each an authentic Island of Misfit Toys.

But for the centaurs, it was simple. Wherever they evolved doesn't matter. Kakalea's seas are shallow and island chains connect all the continents. So the centaurs quickly spread by boat to settle the whole world. The only adaptation I had to make from Barbie art to Kakalea was the idea of giving their troupe a catamaran and letting them sail round the world, dancing wherever they went...

And why not? Pavlova did that a century ago. Really. The first worldwide superstar wasn't a movie actor or a singer, but a dancer. The universal art.

Most of the dioramas and stage-sets the Barbietaurs pose in use one-of-a-kind fabrics (from shibori & tie-dye to op art to full-on quilts) made by my friend Joy-Lily. She teaches workshops in the techniques you see.

Nila in I Married Too Many Rainbows, Resin Cove; set by Joy-Lily

Shya, Rose of the Quilted Plain, Orra Bay; set, Joy-Lily

Just notes for myself! What's still to be done?

• Flesh out the text of the tours--some are mere outlines. Kakalean culture and city scenes, not just geography with flashes of culture, as now. Urgent: NE Ara, NE Fika, southern Tsufan islands, islands of the Teardrop Sea off Bima, west Suma, northern Tasa
• Reconcile glitches between scenic sketches, maps and text--Kosh Port for example.
• Finish maps--be sure each has a scale, latitude and longitude numbers, and add all the placenames mentioned in the text.
• Add at least a few sketches or dioramas emphasizing architecture and artifacts, even if it's not my thing. A dock, a cafe, a theater, an observatory. Wood homes, and homes built in lands with timber shortages--stone, brick, mud, thatch. Hot, mild and cold climates.
• No need for more Kakaleans on stage, dramatizing... well, everything. Kakaleans do. Drama nerds! Unlike you or me, of course. We don't live on the World that Gets it Wrong.

"Mattel" stamped on the back of Storia of Kuri, a Kakalean centaur

A parting shot. Just to prove they aren't just furry fetish sculptures fiendishly employed to further the Marriage of Art and Science... they really are Barbies too.

O ye Doubters! Trust in thy Plod.

LISTS AND LINKS: More worlds? Planetocopia! - dreams of other worlds - ecology - climate change - evolution - natural disasters - terraforming - sculptures and 3D art -

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sk - Sl-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites