ADVENTURES OF SHAPE DUDE
Welcome to Shape Dude’s landing page! You can find the materials from the May series on identity and reflection here. I’ll be updating this regularly, organizing it on the fly, and negotiating with my inner perfectionist about how beautiful it needs to be.
Jump to: Start here: Guided activity | Booklet | Stories | Collection of emails past | Shape Dude origin story |
Start here!
This booklet walks you through the steps in the guided reflective activity.
It’s 8.5 x 11 and can be printed and folded in to a pocket-sized booklet. (YES, you eagle-eyed readers, some of the images are indeed upside down because you’re doing a fancy french fold.)
Printing directions: Print double sided and flip on the long edge.
Folding directions: Fold along the dotted line that says “fold here first." Then fold along the dotted line that says “fold here second". Pages are numbered.
Collection of emails past
If you joined after the official kickoff, these emails are great for context and reflections.
#1: It begins! Answers the question, “what’s important about using shapes to reflect,” gives tips on how to use the video above, and shares guiding principles for this month.
#2: On honesty. Shares Part 1 of Rio’s I am From poem, offers prompts on honesty, and reminds us that feedback is love.
#3: Why Shape Dude & AANHPI month. Shares Part 2 of Rio’s I am From poem and explains the relationship between Shape Dude and AANHPI month.
#4: On mothers & the inheritance of loss. Shares Part 3 of Rio’s I am From poem and offers a set of prompts to get us from the “what” to the “so what” as we think about our mothers and caregivers.
#5: Midpoint check-in. It’s time for a midpoint check-in! We’re building the plane as we're flying, and I'd love to know what's working and what isn't.
#6: On pausing & blowfishes. Shares Part 4 of Rio’s I am From poem and discusses the difference between our Doing shapes and our Being Shapes.
#7: On noticing without fixing. Shares Part 5 of Rio’s I am From poem and offers prompts that help you notice and move through feels without trying to fix or change them.
Stories
Origin Story
🙋🏻♀️ Who can relate? Life has been life-y lately, and this little shape dude has been helping me answer the dreaded* "how are you" question. Squished, smushed, stretched, stretchING. The drawings were totally unplanned and came out of nowhere** last night; let me know if you want to see more of Shape's adventures and I'll make it happen!
*True story, I once took MONTHS to respond to a text because someone asked how I was doing and I was like, HOW DO I ANSWER THAT PROFOUND AND PENETRATING QUESTION? (Welcome to my brain, people. And to my friendships!)
*And by nowhere, I mean of course my deep and mysterious inner consciousness mermaid that's just been WAITING for a night of 90s slow jams, a clean kitchen, and an ipad. 😂
🔎 BEHIND THE SCENES: Working on the next installment of shape-ing, but in the meantime here's a look at how I made the first Shape video. This is a timelapse video of every stroke I made on the #procreate canvas (up till the reel time limit).
📌 Things you might notice:
↔️ I moved back and forth between different parts of the story. Moving forward helped me clarify the story, images, words, etc. that I'd already written.
📦 The "shapeshifting" sequence was the hardest to pin down. I wanted to draw the different ways in which I'd shapeshifted, but it just complicated my thinking and I decided that it's a different story for a different time. (Which will be coming soon!)
💪 My shape originally had arms and legs! I took them out because drawing body positions doesn't come easily to me, and figuring out where to put extra limbs and how to draw them to evoke a certain movement was crushing my creativity and pulling me back into a shape of perfectionism. (Booooo perfectionism!)
✂️ Outtakes include: (1) Original shape, (2) Being stretched, (3) StretchING, (4) Faces (putting them in different spots), and (5) What it looks like to be TOO good at shapeshifting.
🙋🏻♀️I chose what to keep and what to cut based on what felt good to me... Curious if anything that got cut resonated with you?
🤠 Shape dude is back! I've been thinking about the question, "what was my original shape -- the one before ALL THE STUFF made me forget."
✨ Curious what themes resonate with y'all!
🖌️ And a couple folks have asked for some behind-the-scenes insight, so I'm planning to share a bit about my process soon.
