Curiosity Finally Fulfilled

Long cap is long.  Long description is long.

Well so much for me not posting much without old caps!.  I know I should probably take Dee's advice and hold off on the updates, but I am just too inpatient.

This is a cap for Angel (Cassandra) over at the Haven.  Now instead of trying to recall exactly what I did, I decided to try something new.   Before I even thought of what I was going to do for Angel, I opened up notepad, and wrote out what I was doing, and what I was thinking.  It shows how I read through her preferences and what called out to me.  It shows the inspiration for the story, and how I got the details of the story.  I even go over the design process as I worked in Photoshop.

Now it would be wonderful if I could do that all the time, but this 'diary' was almost as much work as the cap itself. And I think it slowed me down, having to go back and write out my thoughts, instead of just acting upon them.  So this is a one time deal.... I won't be repeating this process.   It is VERY long (longer than the cap itself), so if you have no desire on what I go through while making a cap, don't even bother.

Oh... and as I wrote this in notepad in a hurry, it isn't spell checked, or proper grammar or any of that. Its just stream of consciousness as fast as my fingers can go.

Enjoy!
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I check out my 'Caps I Owe!' thread and see who is next.

Looks like it is Cassandra.  She saw my comments about positions I liked (being bent over and taken from behind *blush*) and made me a great cap about it.  Before that she made me a sexy multi page cap.  I returned with "Angel of New Beginnings".  So I think I can make a good cap for her.  I belive she likes dirty caps, and that sounds like fun right now.

Go check her preferences. (Damn bifocals make it such a pain to find a small name like that)

Thoughts:

She likes the name Angel.  I didn't use that before as I made her into an actual angel.  This time I'll use the name.

Wow... she posted about not having much time to cap, but still found the time to cap me.  Need to make this special, and thank her for that.

Hmm... doesn't feel a connection to Cassandra anymore... maybe transform her to Cassandra, and then again to Angel?

"Last name of Winddancer."  Might use that too... maybe her last name before, and she keeps it?

"Male name, Any, but eric is a good default"  I guess I'll go with that.  I already have so much trouble picking names.

"Age 18-30" - College?  Early professional?  Early family?

"complete changes only... maybe cross dressing to full change."  Hmm... cross dress to Casandra, then full change to Angel?

Blonde or other natural hair colors.

No body swapping.

"anything goes ratingwise.  I generally prefer to make explicit captions,"  YAY!

"no pregnancy, no heavy bondage/S&M, no excessive tattoos/piercings, no smoking, and no gore/scat. prefer no lesbians."

"I love captions that are unique or have well told stories"  No pressure.

"Bonus points for working in subtle references to Angels or Wings"  I did this last time, so I don't think I'll go there again. If I see it and can work it in organicly I will, but I'm not going to focus on it.

"Another possible suggestion is curiousity, Package something as a way to satisfy a curiousity and I'm liable to do anything"  That could work... and that flows with the cross dress to casandra, full transform to Angel.  Hmm... was curious about something that gets him to dress up, but starts to like it, gets to accept it, but curiosity sends him further... what would it be to really be a woman....  I'm liking this direction.

"...As a huge nerd..." Might have to work some nerdiness in there too.  Like the wings it would have to be organic... I wont' focus on it.

o.k.. read her preferences.  I really like the idea of having curiosity drive him to cross dress, and then once satisfied curiosity drawing him into a full woman.  Dirty works for Cassandra, so I know the last trnasformation will be a curiosity of sex.  Does he keep his attraction to women?  Angle doesn't like lesbianism, so I want the final 'dirty' scenes to be a man, but I dont' want to start out as a homosexual.. more out of curiosity.  Maybe goes for the ladies while cross dressing, but the curiosity from that point leads him into a 'full woman' with a woman's desires.  A desire for men.  That can work.

So I will work from that premise:  Curiosity leads to cross dressing shenanigance (maybe one or two panels), then curiosity leads to full transformation and sex with a man.  I need two sets of pictures.  One that could be a cross dresser (probably use a real woman on woman scene), and one of a woman and man gettin to it.

I may only need one pic for the cross dresser... so lets start with google images... brazzers models will be too busty for this part.  Might come back to that for the next part.

Start with "sexy woman on woman"

cd01: Sexy image, but she is alone, and a little to curvy for cross dressing.

cd02:  nice image.  Slimer frame, but still to feminine?  Shows money, and that might be interesting.. he has the cash to do these trials?  Lonely bachelor? I'll keep it in mind, but still look.  Want some girl on girl action if I can.  He needs someone to be curious about.

cd03:  Hmm... maybe cross dressing in some sort of pagent.  Most of the women  are a little to over the top, but I like the slightly nervous expression on the blond to girls in from the left.  I would have to take out the above images, probably crop them out, but I would also have to take out the white dotted lines.  Nah... to much work for an image that isn't perfect and would require a long setup.

cd04:  Whoa... great photography.  Sexy image.  She looks like she is enjoying herself.  Not to curvy, but good still sexy.  But would a cross dresser be in a string bikini without a LONG time preparing?  It would be hard to believe, but the story could lead into it.  It would only be asking for a little disbelief... nah... to much suspension of reality.  Great photo though..

cd05:  good photography.  Sexy eyes.  it doesn't have to suspend belief as there is no body to judge.  Its a great story telling 'extra' image.. but I don't know if it should be the 'hero' shot on a panel.  I'll keep it and see if I can shoe it in.

cd06:  Very sexy.. sultry expression... but to feminine.

cd07:  another great makeup shot... but still not a hero shot.  Might have to change search terms... but just a little more on 'sexy woman on woman"


cd02:  looking over this again.  It did inspire more story... rich bachelor, doesn't look happy... could be his curiosity isn't satisfied, and that leaves him still curious about the full transform. Maybe scowers the earth for a technology that can do that for him.  Hmm... I'm liking this.  I could even drop the 'lesbian' side and say he was inspired by his many shallow relationships.  Even went over the top and got a little to frilly on the dress.... yea.. he needs to work on being a sexy woman, and not an over the top frilly sissy....

o.k.. hungry.  gonna break for lunch, but I am really likeing this image.  Gonna play with the story for a bit while eating.  If I can get more, I think I'll just use this and not search any more.

!!! Before I go... I can use those secondary images. as part of the make up process... so I wouldn't need to search for more images if this part goes over one panel. NICE!


o.k... lunch is done.  I had some vague ideas, but nothing worth mentioning. I do like the idea of the rich bachelor trying out this cross dressing thing.  I can add in a few bits at each part... maybe thoughts like 'This is great, to bad I can't make it better... or make it more real'

I'll save the second part for after this part.  I know he will end up in the sack with a man, I just need to hint a bit at that.  Nothing overt, just a sprinkle of an idea.

Oepning up word and starting writing.  I'll leave the image up so I can go back to it as a reference.

O.k... got a good start going.  He comes from money and gets everything he wants.  He gets a good degree, and inherits his parents business, which he turns into a big business.  He now finds himelf with time and most of his dreams fulfilled, so why not take that final forbiden fantasy for a test drive?  I've added a hint at where the name 'Angel' will come from.  Might be a bit obvious, but I'll check it out when the story is further progressed.

So far I have about half a page of text, so thats still less than one panel. It MIGHT be to much intro... I'll have to see where the story goes.  I could probably lose about half of these details (assuming I don't build upon them) and not lessen the story any.  I think I"m going to go back and introduce some seeds about lonliness.  I think that througout this he will be looking for that one thing that money can't buy.... companionship.  And that may be leading him further into the cross dressing, and then further into the full transformation.  I almost want ot add another character... a friend, a condidant of some kind so offer the suggestion of taking time off, but that would require more introduction.  I think if I try my hand and the isolation/lonliness and the early curiosity into TG/TF/CD that it will work out just fine without someone else.

going back to write.


o.k.. added in more of the loneliness and lack of friends.  I think that really works and adds to the curiosity.  I had played with the idea of him being a persurer of TG captions, but I think I'm going to drop that.


I'm taking plenty of mini breaks to try and keep the story fresh.  I find if I move away from a longer story every so often, and lookinto other TG/TF material I can come back, read what i have and find some detail to focus on, and even delete some useless details.  So I check the haven, my blog and DX (roleplaing) to get a mini break.


back to writing.  I realize that I'm about a panel in, and have not yet gotten to the picture I selected.  So I will pull in those 'extra' images.  I have him slowly working to get his body more feminine, so its time to drop in makeup.  that way those pictures will just flow.  Once I get a little more story, I will try a test layout.

o.k... done with what I want to fit onto the first panel.  Goign to work on a test layout.  I'll have to just leave blank space for the title.  I think I'm going to work with a  red background.  It won't really match these images, but it will match the red dress.  And I can try to find something 'red' to go with the last few panels of full transformation.

Good.. the two images I have for 'extra' shots are the same size:  1920x1200.  So I can put them in and resize them together and they will match.

O.k... I got a little ahead of myself in photoshop, but here is what I did.  I startd with a canvas of 900x900.  I wrote out 'Project Angel' as a mock title.  It is just a place holder.  I made a solid black 'title line' behind it.  I then pulled the images into photoshop.  I freestyle transformed thier size so that they barely fit into the canvas.  I lined up the lips on the first image with the eye in the second image and then seleced the area that i wanted to keep.  Inverting the selection I deleted the remaining parts of both picture leaving me with roughly squre images.  I then resized them down quite a bit, just using my eye for size.  I decided that I would try to get the images on the bottom both rotated 'into' the frame.  So I freehand roated the lips into a position just slighly moving out of the frame.  I then set up some guidelines at key points (the two upper coerners, and the point where it fell out of the frame) and used those to guide the rotation and postion of the eye.  It isn't perfect, but it does look very close.  I now have to set up a path for the text.  I make a path that is 10 pixesl from the edge of the frame, 10 pixels under the 'title line', and then roughly around the photos.  I adjust the path so that it is roughly even distance from each of the photos.  Its not 10 pixels, but being on an angle its hard to match up directly.  Once I have the path, I copy the story text out of word, use the text tool in photoshop and select a font.  Font selection to me is key.  I try to go 'crazy' with the title, but leave the text font a fairly simple one so that readability isn't compromised.  I select 'corbel' for this one. I figure a 16 font will be needed so go with that size, then paste the text in.  I immediatly see that it flows off of the page.  This font isn't large, so I don't want to go smaller, so I stay with 16, and make the canvas bigger (900x1200).  I select the bottom of the text path and drag it straight down.  I do so stopping occasionaly until I see the last line of text at the bottom of the path.  I finalize the text path, and select both photos so that I can move them down together.  As the path already matches thier shape I just have to move them straight down until they line up with the text.  The last step is to crop the image back up to the text.  I end up with an image size of 900x1092.  This leaves me with this:

Its very plain, but I know where I can add some flair.  I will add a color into the background, and may even add a texture or background image.  Once I have a title, I will work on making the upper bar snazzy, but don't want to mess the that unitl I have the title.  Looking at the amount of text, I now know I will be able to finish the cross dressing part, and begin the full transormation in the second frame.

with all that done, I'm going to take another mini break, and then go back to writing.


o.k... done with my break, but got a headache going.  Been at the computer all day, so I'm going to put this on hold for now.  I might get to more of it tonight, but realisticly it will be tommorow.


o.k. its the next day.  I have opened this text file to read what I've done.  Obviously I normaly don't keep a diary of my actions, so this is a bit abnormal.  I must say that keeping up wtih this is a bit time consuming.  I figure I spent just about as much time writing about what I'm doing, than doing what I am doing.  But its an experiemnt.  I'm now going to re-read what I wrote yesterday and see if I need to edit that at all.  This will be pure story editing, and not back into photoshop yet.


o.k.. read up what I had.  NOthing more to add, nothing major to take away.  I did find some typos and a few bad phrases, so I cleaned those up.  I'm now going to continue writing. I want to get his body more feminine through breast forms, ass forms, corset, and finally dress.  He should start thinking of himself as Cassandra at this point.  I think the 'secondary' character may be the woman the helps him get a corset.  She will guide him through much of this, and also point out how no matter how he tries, he will never really know what it is to be a woman.  That will be the seeds for the full transformation.

o.k.. one of my constant minor frustrations is coming up with names.  I just introduced the corset sales woman, and now I have to name her.  She will be a major character, so I want a good name.  My first stop is back to Angels page to see if she lists other names to use.

And no.. she does not list any other names to use.  My next step is to google search 'girls names'.  This always brings up sites suggesting baby names.  I find the variety of names nice.

And the first name on the first page is a winner!  Isabella.  I like that name.  It shows some class, and has a slight mysterious flair to it.  Just a quick thought... maybe she can be the one that transforms him to a woman.  Angel does like magic over technology.  Hmm... so 'cassandra' starts to fall for isabella, but isabella just wants to help him explore his feminity.  She suggest that he can't satisfy his curiosity as he is not a wman.  He is just going to find out what it is to pretend to be a woman, and that is not hte same thing.  He agrees, so stats searching for a tech way... dna recoding, nanobots... all the standard tech story ways.  But can't do it.  Once isabella finds out that he is that serious she tells him she can do it (or has a item that can.... I'll decide that later).  but it will cost him... he will have to make a choice... I'll have to decide what that choice is later.  I'm likeing that, but getting a little ahead of myself.  I still need to introduce isabella and make cassandra. Back to writing.

I had to stop and do some research.  I don't really know what is involved with getting someones hips and ass to look more feminine.  I did some google searches and found out about butt and hip pads.  Much like breast forms, they glue on and enhance your ass and hips.  I didn't know they exsisted, but adding them here will bring a little more realism.  back to writing.

And that should be the second page.  I will have to make the second panel a little longer as I have slightly more text, and a much larger image to work with.  I'm going to go into phtoshop, but this will be easier than the first time.  I will simply delete the text and photos from the first panel, add the cd02 image, manipulate it around to look good, make a new text path, and then add the text and resize as before.

And now that is done.  The final size turned out to be 900x1300.  Not my 'tallest' image, but still fairly tall.  I'll have to make sure and cut down the text for the next pages. It also has a LOT of 'wall of text' feel to it.  So I'm going to have to add something really nice in the background.  That will still come later.  Here is what panel 2 looks like now:

Right now I have.... oh I don't know.... two more pages?  I want to have some disapointment that he isn't female.  Maybe at their dinner they both get hit on, but Cassandra realizes that she can't risk being found out, so she has tu turn down any offers, but isabella takes one, and makes a date forherself.  This lead him to a final conversation that there is nothing fmore isabelle can't do without hormones and major surgery.  That leads Casandra (staying as cassandra) on her search for the technology.

Hmm.... maybe with long trips to Japan, China, and Germany.  The story will be cassandra's disapointing return from each trip and discussion with isabella.  I think that will be half of the next page if I keep the story down to a minium... then she can transform him.  so the image for panel 3 will be the new 'Angel' body.  Knowing that, I will need to start by getting images.  Off to brazzes I go.  I want a dressed beautiful woman from a set that has sex.... I'm thinking a bedroom or hotel room.  Ritzy as Cassandra still treats herself well.

As I minimze the windows to brign up chrome, I look at panel two again, and realize that with the crop I did, I have a bunch of empty car dashboard and door that just isn't needed.  I think I'm going to recrop the image, and make it more square.  that way I can make the image shorter, as the text can wrap around it more.

Doing that resulted in this iamge:

I like that a lot better.  Not only because its size (900x1208) is more manageable, but it flows better.  the text isn't all bunched up.  Now back to the 'Angel' image search.

And here is one of the problems of writing before before the images are selected.  I still only have a basic idea, but I may have to open it up a bit more.  My idea is that 'Angel' remains just as rich and classy, and her body matches it.  But after searching for about a half hour, I can't find any images to match it.  I mean first of all finding 'classy' at brazzers just doesn't really work.  ever notice how much porn stars LOOK like porn stars?  Anyway.. I've 'searched my way out of being intereted in the story.  I'm going to save what I have, and take another stab tommroow.



Its the next day.  After saving all of my work and moving away from the computer I just let the story go to the back of my thoughts.  It was still there, but I wasn't conciously working on it.  While watching some television I realized what my problem was.  I was getting myself stuck as if I had already written the story of the classy Angel.  Now if I had writtent that part of the story, it would be understandable.  But seeing as I haven't written it yet, I decided to open up story idea, and see if I could find images first.

My first re-thought was having the transformation cost Eric/Cassandra his money.  NOt that it would cost millions of dollars, but that he would have to give up everything about himself to get this new body.  so I looked at jobs like waitresses and stuff like that. I didn't find what i wnated there, so I just started searching around looking for anything that would spark my interest.  Thats when I came upon this image:

She has that 'No, I'm not a porn star look' that I want, and also just struck me as sort of uncomfortable in her skin.  The way she is plucking at her clothes, and the hand playing with her hair just 'worked' for me.  I investigated the scene and sadly it was a threesom.   Now I have nothing opposed to threesomes, but I imagined Angel falling in love and finaly commiting that last act of surrender.  She wouldn't be surrendering to a man, but surrendering to femininity.

So I kept looking, but that look just stayed with me.  I went back and looked at the porn part of the set (purely for research I swear!) and started imagining another cap for it.  I realized halfway thorugh that this would also work for Angel.

The idea I had was someone got transformed into a young woman, where her roomate 'teaches' her to have sex for the first time.

Well that works for angel.  With just a bit of tweaking I changed it to this:

Isabella's transformation of Cassandra to Angel also transforms her.  They both become young college age women, where Angel will begin her new life.  Angel is enjoying learning about being a woman from Isabella (who will keep her name of course) but is nervous about letting a man have her.  Isabella knows that this is a big step, so she brings a man and starts to show Angel how good and feminine it feels.  And boom.. I have angel submitting, WITH isabella.

I like it enough that I am going to start writing.  I still have to have Cassandra learn that she isn't enough of a woman, and 'scour the world' for a way to make it happen.



Just finished writing panel three.  I didn't go into as much detail as I thoguht I would.  I tried a few times, but it just seeemed to take away from the story.   So I am going to repeat what I did for panel two in photoshop.  Since I brought Isabella with Angel, I decided to use a pic of them together.

Here is the result:

Its funny, This is already taking longer to make than Girly Girl, which was the longest I had ever worked on a cap before.  I mention that because I'm going to put this off for another day.   Not a headache, or even a lack of desire this time.... I'm just to freaking tired.  I had to get up at 3am for work, and haven't stopped yet. The desire to continue is strong, but I'm having trouble typing correctly, and trouble keeping to a single idea.

the next part of the story is going to be another 'recap' of Angels first few weeks (months? year?) as a full woman.  Showing how she has grown, but her fear of making that last step.  I want to have clear thoughts when I write that, so I'm going to again put this down for the night.



Another day and another swing.  I opened up this document and read what I had done.  I then opened up word and just started writing.  When I felt I had another page just about done, I looked through some more images in the set I had decided upon.  There was a great sequence of 'Isabella' and the guy inviting 'Angel' over to their sex.  the problem with the images is that 'Angel' was pretty far from the action.  So I picked out three of the images that showed what I wanted.  'Isabella, with cock in hand, wiggling her finger at 'Angel'.  A close up of the cock in hand and the finger wiggling.  And then one of the guy looking over his shoulder at 'Angels' nervous face, wiggling his finger at her.  I cut out portions in the same size, and put them all at the bottom kind of overlaying them.  I had seen this done before in other caps, but most recently in one of New Daughter's caps and figured it could work here.  Here is the result:

Now that I have them action set up, I believe I will use a large image of Angel having sex as the 'hero' shot, but others of her 'getting into' the act.  I will pepper the other images around the story.  Writing this last part should be fun, so I'm going to get right back into it.

wEll I jumped the gun a bit.  I need to pic out some images first.   This part of the cap for me is always equaly about the images and the story.  I will still write about Angel submitting to her femininity, but this is also action, and I need to know where the action is going.  So I picked out these images of Angel joining in.

I may not use all five images, but it gives me the action that will go through this last panel.  I'm thinking she joins them in a blow job as her curiosity is peaked (I even hinted at that in the previous panel without trying).  She then undresses and gets on top of isabella.  Here she will realize that she isn't attracted to her, but jealous of her feminine confidence.  Then the man begins having sex with her, and by the time they stand up to finish, she will submit to her femininity.


Her curiosity will finaly be fulfilled.  I'm also at this point playing with the idea of curiosity as a name.  I want it something longer than that... maybe 'curiosity finally fulfilled'.  Yea... I think that will work.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I need to finish writing.



Damn it.  I've over written to much again.  I have a full panel's worth of text and have just gotten past the blow job into the sex.  I've re-read it several times, but don't want to delete anything, as I love the slow build up and realizations Angel is having.


Soooooo I'm going to have to split this into a 5th panel, and then have a short 6th panel.  Luckily with all the images I selected, I can still do this.   So I'm going to use what I wrote to make panel 5.  Being that I have the three blowjob images, I'm going to lay it out similarly to the 4th panel, but vertically instead of horizontally.


I layed it he pictures out how I wanted them, and then drew out the path line.  After pasting in the text, I found that I was only a few lines short.  Instead of rearanging the photos (which would really requre me to shrink them) I decided to on the fly add some more text.  The part I added was "As he told Angel how beautiful she was, she felt her confidence returning.  And stronger than that, her curiosity.  If he was really there to help her, and not just for is own greedy pleasure, then this may be the only chance Angel would get to explore this last bit of femininity."  With that bit added, I got this:

The only difference is for spell chcking and such, I copy the text out of photoshop, and back into word.

Now that I have the penultipate panel, I can concentrate on the last one.  It will more than likely be shorter than the others, but without major redesigns I don't see how that can be helped.  I'll just have to see how the writing goes.  I figure this will mostly be Angel's internal thoughts.  Comparing and contrasting to sex as a man, and realizing that there isn't a better or worse, there is just different.  Maybe go into how this feels more 'right' for her.  We'll see... back to writing.



And I have finished with the first draft.  I really like the ending, and think that the slow buildup was wroth it.  I am now going to re-read it from the begining to make sure that one part doesn't contrast to mcuh with any of the others. I'll also be looking for any area that I can drop a hint to the ending.  Not that I want people to figure out the ending, but I like stories that progress and build upon themselves.  After I am done with that I will proof read the last part.  I will also hold of on a test desing for the last cap.  I will just make it when I hvae the deisng work all done.


I've finshed the read throughs.  Suprisingly after writing on this for several days in a row, I didn't have to connect many dots.  I think that it flows very well.  IT even shows the long slow process Eric had to go through to finaly satisfy his curiosity.  That wasn't intended, but it is appreciated.

Now I have to go through and finish up the design.  I will start with the first panel  Since I have done several subtle changes to the text, I will delete the previous text layer and make a new one.  If it requires a change, I will edit it as I did before.  ONce I am done with the text layout, I will start working on the design that will follow through all the panels.

O.k... I've got the text and picture layout done.  I now want to color the background.  Recently I've been a fan of using anbtract backgrounds found on Google Images.  Its just something to sit in the background and look interesting, while not taking away from the text or the title.  the one thing  I always keep in mind is that this background has to be very low contrast.  If its all light, or all dark, that is fine.  But if parts are light, while other parts are dark, it won't work, as the text will blend in to the background in some areas.

The first image that catches my fancy is this:

Now its a bit contrasty, but it is also big.  So I can manipulate it, and maybe make it work like I want.  I throw it behind the text as is, and immmediatly see that there is just to much contrast.  I played with it for a bit and got something better.  I kept working instead of writing down what I was doing, but some of the things included Inverting it (making the black whtie, and the purple yellow).  I then changed the hue, to get it back to a red/purple blend. I had to change the text to white.  I enlarged it, and rotated it to get the lines where I wanted them. I then made the background behind it a gradation between black and a dark gray.  The last step was to reduce the opasity until it sunk into the background.

Wtih that I ended up with this:

I like the suble color, and think it will work just fine.  Now I need to work on the title.  I have two titles in mind:  Curiosity Finally Fulfilled, and Curiosity's Long Road.

I like the finally fullfilled better, so I'm going to play with that.  This is to replace the 'Project Angel', so once I paste the text, I will play wtih differnt fonts.  I really don't hae a goal in mind, just seeing what works.

I like the Dauphin font.  It is a little classy, but also feels a little myserious. The font of course didn't fit perfectly, so I just stretched it out a bit to make it take up all the space.  I keep this as an option, but try to never over use the stretch, as many fonts look obviously stretched.  Now I need something to set off the title bar.  I don't have a graphic idea, as nothing pops to mind when I think finally fullfilled.... but wait...

I could always go back to Curiosity's Long Road.  Then I could use a subtle road graphic... Hmm.... Lemme play with that and make sure the text still looks good.


I liked the idea, but If I'm in for a penny, I'm in for a pound.  I went a head and researched high way sign fonts, and found out that they commonly use 'Highway gothic'.  so I downloaded that and am going to install it (which requires photoshop to restart).

I like the font... now I have a theme to work with.  I think I'm going to see if there is a 'road' graphic that will fit.  Back to google images searching for a 'large' image using the term 'long road'

I don't see anything that can work, but I get the idea of using a 'happiness' street sign, so I start searching for that.

I didn't find anything for happiness that I could use.  In fact I changed search terms quite a few times, and spent about 20 minutes searching.   This is a minor design idea, so I don't want to put any more time behind it.  I'll just stay with the abstract idea.

I'm going to look for a road texture to go behind the text, and see how that works out. I quickly find a road texture that looks good. I size it down, and lower the opacity over the black background.... and it still loks like crap.  I try various other textures from bubbles, to speaker covers, but they all look bad.  I finaly just delete the texture, and the damned title line.

I go back to 'finally fulfilled, and back to the dauphin font.  I add a outer glow, and remove the actual title line.  , and realize that it looks good.

I may not have ended up with a new design feel, but I still like it.  The last part of the design is to add a drop shadow effect to the photos.