I took her post to heart and decided that I would cap for the sake of capping. I would go back to my earlier days and care less about making something great or grand, and focus more on the process itself. I made this decision about 30 minutes ago. I fired up Photoshop, MS Word, and Google image search with the intent to make a cap. Good, Bad, Ugly or otherwise... I would post it up here. I admit that I was a bit apprehensive that I would make a crappy cap, but I ignored that feeling and trudged on.
It is very liberating to make a cap without focusing on anyone's preferences. It has been a LONG time since I have done that. I didn't have to worry about the model having certain traits, or lacking certain traits. I didn't have to worry about seeing an image that told me a story, but not a story to match my targets desires. And I didn't have to worry about someone liking it. I wasn't making it for someones approval... I was making it for practice sake. I was making it simply to make it.
I started with my basic image search criteria. Sexy girl. One of the very first images was of a woman looking down at a tattoo on her chest. Immediately the idea came to me.... a guy goes to get a tattoo to bring attention to his chest, and the artist brings attention to his chest by giving him a bit set of tits. Tit for Tat. Sadly I hadn't made Google display only large images, and this was fairly small. Much to small for me to have fun with. But I liked the idea. Was it a cliche? Sure. Had it been done before? Yup Did I care? Not a bit.
So I had Google only display large images and changed the search term to sexy girl tattoo. A lot of images came up with women showing off their tattoos, but none of them gave me the same look. And most importatnly none of them were of a woman looking surprised/upset/unhappy with a tattoo on or near their chest. So I started considering several of the images, and manipulating the story to match it. It would still be a guy getting a tattoo that changed him into a woman, but it just wouldn't focus on his chest. But then I started falling down that hole again. The story now felt more forced... not nearly as organic and free flowing. I briefly considered not doing this experiment, but pushed myself. I decided that I would look at one more page worth of images and then pick the best one there.
Thankfully the image of the woman you see here was on that page. I enlarged it, saved it, dropped it into Photoshop and then turned to Word. I wrote out the first and last paragraphs quickly as it was the basis of the inspiration. I know I could probably have just manipulated that down to a single paragraph, or even just a slight modification to those two paragraphs and have a story. But my compass always points to writing out more, and I figured there was more story here. So I kept writing. I didn't add much, but I feel that it brought a better soul to the story.
Now on to design. I knew that the image of the woman needed work. The background wall behind her was a bright lime green and a pale baby blue. Eww. Plus the tattoo on her chest was barely noticeable. So I wanted to de-emphasize the walls, and emphasize her chest tattoo. I figured taking out all of the color in the image EXCEPT for the area around her tattoo would work nicely. I think it did turn out nicely and was now happy with the image.
I started with my standard 900x900 layout, threw Ms Carl in, cocked her to the right, and added a drop shadow. Now I had to finish the design. I could make the background of the cap a dark red and the text a pale gray... that would make your eyes focus on the black and white image, which would in turn make you focus on the tattoo. I tried this, but it was a little heavy. The red background just sucked all the energy out of the image. So I reversed it making the text a dark red, and the background a pale gray. Plug the story in around the image and a few last minute manipulations to get the story to fit just right.... and Voilà!
So I know that the writers block isn't as bad as I first thought. This won't be a repeat of last summer.
Thank you Dee for coaching me through this ordeal.
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