ClicksyPicsWiggle animations and more!

Finally, a new animation! Per Jullian’s request, here is the first draft of Lincoln in color. It’s pretty rough, but I’m glad to have started moving my fingers (and my brain) just a little bit more. I think I’ll do some touch-ups, this is just color and alignment, no cleaning. I’d also like to add some kind of movement, even if it’s just a simple blink… maybe a smile? I’d be glad to hear any suggestions!

Here is a page I wanted to point out because the writer has taken an ordinary, every day event and looked at it differently.  It’s a picture of lightning, the bottom is a composite of several images that’s been made interactive by moving your mouse across the image.

It’s different, it’s cool, and props to the creator for sharing:  Click here to see it.

“We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public”

View the original image here.

It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy.  It’s what you think about.   - Dale Carnegie, Writer & Lecturer

“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.” -Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

Above is my progress so far on this animation.  I like the colors, but they’re too monotone and the bag is too blue.  I’m working on cleaning up the colors on the second frame, they’re a bit out of line.  Most of the faded areas have been lightened or darkened with level adjustment layers.  I’ll probably clean them up a little more, especially around his belt area where there was a bit of extra scratching.

While cleaning some scratches and spots, I noticed that dot (left) on his hand was on both frames. It’s a fly, I could probably have a little fun with that, there’s not much room for any other sort of environmental movement.

I’ll probably crop it a bit closer, but I like to keep it big until they get closer to complete.  His hands will have some pretty drastic movement, at least compared to what I’ve done so far.  The blowing movement with his cheeks will also be an interesting challenge. Then the movement of the bag, potentially with moving layers of the pipe and hands above… but that might be too much.  Perhaps I can just adjust the shadow around his arm to create the illusion of inflation/deflation.

I’ve shied away from too much movement for a couple of reasons.  Mostly because the way I create the movement.  I’ll be tracing his hands and making a new layer of them two times, one for each side of the stereo - I’ll just call them frames since that’s what they become in the animation.  Then I make a new layer for each frame recreating what would be under his hand if he’s moving - the background.  Otherwise, when I create the movement, you would see his original hands under the moving hands and well… I’m not really into sci-fi animations yet.  I don’t know if that makes much sense, but when I get to that point I’ll use the animation to illustrate.

The other problem is the movement itself.  I’ll have to work his fingers like like cut out dolls, piecing together joints and creating new skin in the bends then softening up the edges.  Sometimes I’ll warp them but for this that will kill the quality because the amount of warp it would take, the definition would be lost, shadows would blur, etc.

That’s getting a little deep into it, but that’s where I’m at so far.  Would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

I’ve ranted a lot in these last few months about having a hard time working on these.  Turns out, I’m allergic to a medicine I’ve been taking during that time.  I knew it was making me spacey and I was having a hard time concentrating, but eventually more obvious signs turned up.  Now I’m back in business.  I’ve been working on a new one for about a week and hope to get it up in the next week.  I’m pacing myself, and for this one the movement will be much more drastic… if I can pull it off.

I’ve talked about taking suggestions and posting my progress on these animations.  Anyone want a sneak preview?  Comment and I’ll post progress on this one.  But if there’s no interest, it’s not worth the trouble.  I could always use the input and critique.

1900-1920 - The Samaritans of Nablus (Shechhem). Baby Samaritan.

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

Bikes on rails, how cool is that?  But uhhh… the baby?  Not exactly up to the safety standards of today.  From the “America on the Move” collection at the National Museum of American History (click the picture to go there)

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.

UPDATE - You can now save this TIFF file and open it up in Photoshop (or comparable product), if you would like to pick it apart to see how it works!  Click here to download.

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