Two pronged post... or hit the dodo between the eyes a couple of times

Right up front, hard sell, but not really. I'd been meaning to blog and I confess to dragging my feet. Not only about writing here, but taking the next step in the books that I'm actually very excited to work on. Except the last couple of weeks the fear has gotten to me. I'm living on a shoestring and I can see where it's wearing thin and fraying. My life is totally in flux and truth be told I'm kinda weepy. Sometimes it's easy to fall over into the oh-poor-me category. And not only am I learning worlds new, kinda hard technologies, but I've promised to put them out there to be judged by the rest of world. Not to mention I love Margot and I in no way want to let her down. So I've twiddled my thumbs a bit.

And then yet again, I'm rescued by the Folio Academy. I was kind of feeling the same way last year, but a friend Sherry Rogers offered me her old Wacom for a remarkable price. I got a fabulous job through the wonderful Deborah Nourse Lattimore,  I found myself knee deep in learning Photoshop. Something I'd tried for about seven years and failed miserably. I can credit the Wacom and Will Terry's wonderful Photoshop course with my success and getting me over that hump. It has been exhilarating (I've even "converted" a few friends and family into the world of PS and Wacom, lol) not only conquering (a little bit, I have SO MUCH MORE TO LEARN!) the media that had stumped me, but the job is designed to save lives and I got paid for it. It doesn't get any better than that. So I feel I owe the Folio Academy, and Will Terry in particular a great deal because it not only addressed my need for knowledge, but staved off my technical apprehension enough to move through the learning process.

Here I am again. Feeling like I did right before Sherry and Folio rescued me (truth be told I was massively depressed as I couldn't see well enough to work, which PS allows me to now, and had become mostly a recluse). I've felt guilty all week, because to download the programs I need is to commit myself enough to this project, if I don't succeed, I would dig a hole.  But had determined today was the day.

Then I got the email. The offer was wonderful. Seriously? I blog about Folio Academy, link back let them know and they will GIVE me a course? There were five I wanted to take right off the bat, whether it's to renew old rusted skills or tackle some new systems. The problem will be CHOOSING the one I want MOST right now, and such a problem is good. They didn't even necessarily want me to plug them well, just mention them. Gladly. I've been plugging them all along and will continue. Hope to get a few proposals of my skills together as well. (would anyone be interested in Calligraphy, Pysanki, or if I master the application/animation thing, that there?)

As I told Wayne (Andreason, Will's partner in art) my ONLY complaint is I wish I could download the course, so when I didn't have internet connection I could access the course. He even said they were working on it.

So I finished the BILLABONG (say that a bunch of times and try not giggling). Tonight I will download the Cloud, and perhaps play with it. Gone on Saturday. But will be playing a bit and the first bit of animation I will be sharing here and to my other venues, Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin because by gummy now I know I WILL DO THIS. I won't let Margot down, because it's too important, (and Kobe and Oscar would kick my butt--- especially Kobe). So here's the billabong. Here's the Blog post. And HERE'S TO FEARLESS, 'k?

Mama got back-- OUTBACK!

Any good writer knows  you have to have backstory, background. It's the same for illustrators. In this new venture of ebooks, the great hope is to animate the books. In order to do that, all the characters have to be made separately so they can be activated as it were. So thinking about the illustrations for this has been a different process. I was lucky through a series of posts to have found Tom Bancroft's books mentioned earlier. They've not only helped with considerations of how to build and animate the characters, but also with how those characters act within their environment. In this case, I'm trying to think of the background (and approaching it) as another character.

Because of time constraints, consistency and my computer's limitations, my plan has been (we'll see if it actually works out that way, HA!) to paint one overall background. I can crop for closeups and build on it. This is the very early planning stages, but I can already visualize Oscar's sleeping log, and where he looks in the waters edge while Kingfisher dives for a meal. Have to reference more flowers and mulberry bush and gum trees, and place them within, will also need to RENDER this (this is a very rough sketch). I also found a great blog on Background art... just a mighty fine thing (coming from someone who always resented having to concentrate her drawing on anything she didn't want to and that would be surroundings, until I realized that surroundings ARE part and parcel to story and character): animation backgrounds with Rob Richards

I need to get new ear buds, I think when I do, I'll put on some outdoor sounds (maybe I can find an actual billabong recording ala Edgar Winter?) when I do the finished renderings, but I'm loving the process! I think I will also include my thoughts on my own book (Duke Day for Annie) as I'm working on them simultaneously and hoping they will both be presentable before Christmas. Yeah, when I take a bit of the pie it's not a small bite, I oftenshove the whole thing into my open maw!

So the ROUGH background!