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Al...most the...re...
2007-04-14 11:29:41
Provided I don't get stuck in this weekend's freak blizzard somewhere between the NH and VT border (that is possible, I could go over a bridge and wind up in the river), I am committed to wrapping up the pen tutorial and uploading it Monday. This is funny, there's a "Read the Guides" banner up above me right now. lol
For some reason the hits on my journal have recently skyrocketed. Since you're reading this, you're contributing - isn't that special? Yay!
I just made a semi-promise to someone to finish my "Addict" video before the end of 2008 ... wait, I meant 2007 (wow, talk about a guilty conscience) if for no other reason than I REALLY want to get on to "In the Key of V." The latter will require some heavy-duty graphics work that I should be able to get through much faster than the last time I tried because now I know what I'm doing. I also intend on making some Photoshop scripts that will do a lot of the repetitive work for me. Maybe for my next tutorial (ahahahaha *wipes away a tear*) I will write about the benefits of scripting for AMVers.
Why are my logo contest entries not being approved? ONE was...but they all were uploaded at the same time! The rest are still pending. :( -
More logo stuff
2007-04-10 12:45:58
My dog's bored-to-howling expression as I worked on another logo last night has reminded me that there are more important things in life than messing with graphics programs in one's free time after spending all day at it for job. I PROMISE tonight I will take me dear, dear Welsh Corgi for a big walk - I even left her outside today so that if I don't end up doing so, I won't feel as guilty. She'll burn off some energy running around the farm and getting into trouble.
Mmmm...it's hard to make those vector swashy ornament things you see everywhere. The swirly ones, I mean. I need to stick to hand-drawing/scanning/tracing my own drawings, I guess. I hesitate to make this logo version too splashy because, as previously stated, banner makers tend to wreck the logo anyways. There should be a caveat that says a logo must remain a certain size - and no smaller - in a banner. I've also noticed a lot of the newer banners are actually breaking UP the existing logo, which to me is just quite cruel. It's a LOGO, people, you can't go in and chop the "Cola" out of "Coca Cola" and still say it's their logo. I don't care WHERE on the page you put it!!
Photoshop conference was good, learned a bunch of nifty stuff. No motion graphics sessions for me and it's just my luck that they weren't covered in the conference workbook. How evil. I intend on downloading the session videos, however, and studying them intently. I believe they touch on using Photoshop for documentary film making and certain "wow" effects in After Effects. Apparently CS3 has some whiz-bang new capabilities for processing frames. HA . . . if you computer can handle them, that is. -
Success!
2007-04-09 13:01:24
Uploaded five designs for the logo contest yesterday. I suspect this year the competition is going to be pretty stiff in retaliation for last year's (IMO) dearth of worthy submissions. I'm toying around with the idea of making a hyper-techno logo that will a) cater to the "ooohh it's so cool" crowd, b) give people something to think someone spent too much time on and c) exploit AMV viewer's penchant for eye candy. This last is kind of like the first, but is more subversive. I figure I already made a bunch of logos that I, ME, like, so now I can worry about making logos OTHER people will like, which is the name of the game, after all.
I will say, though, that I would never submit a swash logo thingy.
I think my adherance to a black and white/grayscale logo theme is going to hurt me. I really hate throwing in color, though, because a) banner makers mess it all up, anyways and b) people have their own ideas about what color schemes are pretty. This is a problem for a few of the logos I already submitted, because I was ignoring the site's color scheme completely. I wonder if the contest organizers will put up a disclaimer like, "ignore whether a logo matches this site!" That would be nice of them. :( -
Boston, here I come - too bad it's not for the anime convention :(
2007-04-03 10:19:26
Portrait of the Addict
Pre-editing: 95
Editing: 87
This Photoshop conference I'm going to tomorrow has a whole track just on video editing that I'm DYING to attend. Unfortunately, I can't because my company is footing the bill for this learning experience and should really stick to the stuff that's actually going to further my graphic design career. However, rest assured that if the sessions I intend to attend are full and they lock me out, I will be racing down the hall to the room with Premiere and After Effects.
Still waiting for pen tutorial reviews to all trickle in. I really hate it when you send people light e-mails and they respond promptly, but then, when you send them a really crucial e-mail, you hear nothing back. Hellooo? Yeesh! I'm giving everyone until the weekend and then I'm going ahead and wrapping this project up.
In convention news, I'm not attending Anime Boston - which I'm really ticked off about - but I just can't afford it right now and going for two half-days just isn't worth it. Anyone want a 3/4-finished Blood+ Hagi costume? -_- -
D'oh!
2007-03-31 16:48:21
So my happy little editing session the other day turned out to be a colossal fake. Turns out, in my over-exuberance at Premiere not crashing/finally getting back to work on "Addict," I set the pool table conversation scene to the wrong refrain. The problem is, it works beautifully, so beautifully that I'm not beset by incredible doubts about yanking the whole thing and resetting it to the lyrics it was SUPPOSED to be paired with, which are very different. This is a minor crisis because this whole conversation gimmick was kind of tying everything else together and now that I'm tempted to do something completely different, most of my plans for this AMV are looking seriously screwed up. I guess I'll find out tonight when I reset the video and see what it looks like. *stomach roils*
In other AMV news, I've been rewatching Melancholy to get a grip on what stuff I want to pull. It's not looking good. That series is actually pretty bereft of "normal" anime scenes and what I'm looking for just isn't there - I'm now on episode 10 with barely a handful of useable clips in mind. Grrr... one of these days AMVs are going to start displaying scenes that never were in any series, mark my words, when people have the time/technology/knowledge to cobble together completely fictitious clips. Ok, so this is kind of what I'm already doing with "Addict," but I mean in an extreme sense - cutting and pasting characters, their expressions, backgrounds, etc. to make completely original, never-before-seen scenes. And then people will say, "Wait, I don't remember that being in the series." Yah, it wasn't!
JOURNAL: DriftRoot (Lauren C.)
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