ClicksyPicsWiggle animations and anything old timey!

1864 - Aiken's Landing, Virginia (vicinity). Young girl at Aiken house

I fell in love with this image when I found it about 6 months ago.  Since then, I’ve struggled to imagine what to do with it.  She’s too stern to smile, her hands are fixed and her dress is too complex.  Then I noticed a bit of a wind blur where the ribbon on her dress is, and it occurred to me - the movement can be made primarily in the environment.  I focus too much on the subject when, sometimes, manipulating the environment can give it more of a real feeling.

Some details struck me when working with the full sized image.  She was married, and she was a very hard worker.  She’s young, yet her hands are scarred.  One nail appears to be just growing back in.  Her face shows a hard life, yet her hair and dress are immaculate, despite the windy day.  So I guess because of all these details, it was important to me to get her right.  Seeing things like that make the person more real to me and, hopefully, more real to you as well.

Check out the original here. Find out how these are created here.  Get page updates on Facebook here.

This is a bit of a spoiler for my next animation, but I wanted to share an illusion I see often making these.  Notice how her dress looks blue, then orange? And the brick looks orange, then blue?  This animation only has one colored frame, the second frame has no color.   It’s just an illusion, the brain filling in the gaps.  Most are not so pronounced because they have more colors.

1900 to 1920 - Trees and shrubs. Old olive trees. (Olea europaea L.).

I was digging around looking for my next project and found this one.  I really love the depth and detail in this picture.  I thought of a few things I could do to animate it, but they would all make him look like he was… frolicking.  And that’s kinda weird.  Plus it would be hard to get it to look right.  But I thought it was worth sharing anyway.

Check out the original here. Find out how these are created here.  Get page updates on Facebook here.

I played with fire.

Don’t let your Christmas tree do this.  Go in there and smell it a few times a day or something…

Check out the original here. Find out how these are created here.  Get page updates on Facebook here.