dcorsetto
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A dozen little things!
🕑 Added 2022-05-23 04:47:10 +0000 UTCI've been doing a lot at once these past two weeks, and none of them are completely done, but they're close! Here's a list, I like lists.
The End of Chapter 1
The main thing that's been keeping me from finalizing the Elephant Town website has been interpreting the original final animated GIF pages in Chapter 1 (the ones in the gallery format) into static panels.
The GIF was an experiment and I quickly realized that I'm not a good enough animator to do full animations in ET (fact #2, I'm using PHOTOSHOP to animate). I like animating little things, like the moon in the last page of that chapter, which I'm keeping. But big Kris-moving trough-the-room animation is too much animation for my limited skills and time.
So I've plucked away at changing the ending of the chapter into four separate pages. They're being inked now, but here's the digital color proofs (the final page will still have the crazy moon flash at the end, a more reasonable animation for someone like me to tackle!).
I was happy to add this dumb ongoing yuk that Kris falls out of bed all the time, to lighten the mood a little. I had to fall off my couch a few times to get the fall right. I am DEDICATED and so are my elbows.
The Prologue
If you've been following along since the beginning (two years this month!!), you may recall that I also made an animated GIF of the old neighbor guy letting out his cat to introduce the book. It's nothing huge, just a little flavor intro. But I wanted to redo the timing (and have the cat blink right away, so people get used to stopping and slowing down to read this book).
I haven't optimized the size of the GIF yet, so here's a link to it so that you can see it without breaking this post!
The Title Page
Right after the prologue there'll be a simple title page. On the website, I want the title page to also be sliiiightly animated. Here's a tiny scrappy video of what that animation will look like (minus the bounding box).
Chapter Breaks
The chapter breaks will be super simple, just one color, and follow a schedule based on local flora throughout the year, as a sort of subtle way of defining the passage of time. (These will be used both in the printed book and on the website.)
Website Extras Pages
I just found out I can give y'all a sneak peek at the website prototype today! There's not much up there, just the About page and Cast page, but you'll get the idea.
I'm sure I'm missing one more thing, but I can't think of it now, so here are photos of the garden progress, because that's my default.
Today I put in my cantaloupe, sungold tomatoes, and habaneros, finished the trellises, and made archways out of thin bamboo braided together. My scarlet runner beans will climb these suckers like it's their job. (It is their job. It's their dream job.)
And on a final note, here's my hose pretending to be a black snake that disappeared and now presumably lives somewhere in my yard.
May your week be snake-free if you wish it to be! We'll return with Miranda's next chapter in a week. :)
Comments
Danielle Corsetto
Oh that's great!! And I wasn't specific enough when I said "doesn't bend it" - you can totally use the angled feed that you're probably already using. It doesn't bend my bristol board nearly enough to damage it, and the board feeds right on in. :)
Amy Crook
Hah, I actually have that printer! The ink is SO pricey and I always forget it has a straight-feed path for "lives up against a wall" reasons. Thanks for the reminder! *^_^*
Danielle Corsetto
It's my FAVORITE because it's so beautiful and (mostly) straight and easy to cut (pro tip: coping saw!), but especially because it's UNWANTED, and plentiful in the area. It's so invasive people are generally stoked when I ask if I can cut some down. If you want any tips, feel free to ask me! (Or YouTube it, there's a lot of advice on how to use bamboo on there!)
Theadora
You use the bamboo so creatively! (among other things, but the bamboo stands out to me; maybe because I want to build things like that for our local Community Garden...)
Danielle Corsetto
I'm pretty sure any printer that feeds paper in a way that doesn't bend it should be able to print on bristol! But this one, I admit, is the best printer I've ever had. It's a Canon Pro-100. The printer itself is reasonably priced for a large-format printer, but the ink is expensive (though I've tried some of the generic brand inks and they've performed just fine on it). It prints up to 13" I think? Highly recommend it!
Amy Crook
I have so much love for this whole post but I have to ask... what printer do you have that can print on bristol? I am starry-eyed (and also covet your scanner, you're the 2nd artist to rec that one).
Danielle Corsetto
Oh! I didn't remove them, they're still there. (In the "gallery" format, not the "images-in-body" format.)
Weird, I got an alert for your earlier reply but I can't see it either. I think you answered my question, I was just wondering if where you had removed those GIFs from the original post if we would never see them again.
Ruth Merriam
So much <3 for all of this. Take my money now for the book.
Danielle Corsetto
Weird, I just replied to this but the reply is gone! The intro GIF has been tweaked and will be included on the website, and one element of the end of Chapter 1 will still be a GIF. I can't tell if that's what you're asking, though?
So are the GIFS gone forever?
Ripley LaCross
SNAKE.
Danielle Corsetto
Thank you for all of this, Jeffrey! This guy slithered into someone's wheel well, so we had a slightly panicked half hour until he was out. Luke and I got him into a recycling bin and moved him to the back of my house where, hopefully, he'll live a relatively dull life. Several others who saw him said "black rat snake" so I think you're spot on. :)
Jeffrey Nonken
If I had to guess, I think that's a black rat snake. Rat snakes are my favorite -- a little high-strung as compared to, say, king snakes, but quite tamable. That handsome fellow will help keep the rodent pest population down. He's non-venomous, so no danger to cats, dogs or children. He'll also try his best to hide from you. Should you alarm him, he may rapidly hit his tail against a surface nearby, which sounds similar to a rattle. This is adaptive mimicry -- he's trying to fake you out. Just leave him alone, you'll both be fine. ... That's all assuming he's a rat snake. I can't 100% guarantee that, of course. But he sure looks like one.
kaitou
Reminds me of the old (forget from where, but I want to say some Scandinavian country), "I'm too busy running to try to take the bicycle off my back." But, yes, PS inertia has been the biggest reason I've heard for not going to CSP. Sorry I don't know of any better GIF-making programs. I haven't tried using CSP for GIFs, but I have used GIMP in the past and it wasn't as easy to use as CSP appears to be. As I recall, in GIMP you put each image on a different layer and then specify the time for each. GIMP is open source (free!), but yet another learning curve. I used it for my comic until I went to CSP.
Danielle Corsetto
Thank you so much!!
Looks good now!
Danielle Corsetto
OH! Thank you, that problem occurred with another DB link I hastily linked. I just fixed it; lmk if it's still borked!
Danielle Corsetto
I so wish I had time for it!!! <3
Danielle Corsetto
I've heard great things! I even bought a copy a long time ago. It stayed in the box. I eventually gave it to a friend. I don't have time to learn it, and PS is basically my third hand, I know it so well. The bigger reason, though, is that the CS stuff that I hear great things about wouldn't really benefit me, because I both ink & letter traditionally. I don't know about its animation abilities, though! I'll have to poke around and see if anyone can recommend a good GIF-making program to me.
The "Here's a tiny scrappy video of what that animation will look like (minus the bounding box)." link is trying to open the file in my Dropbox. I assume it's not a proper share link?
kaitou
PS: Miss you on Trash nights.
kaitou
You really should try Clip Studio -- it's made for comics (PS really isn't), it's likely easier to do animations in it (caveat: I haven't tried it in either CSP or PS). It's cheaper (one-shot payment for PC and Mac). You can try it for free. Check with Unca Lar.
Drazi
Love it all, as usual. It's fascinating to follow your process, and garden, and... everything.
