Thursday, July 14, 2011

Anticipation - Satisfaction

A forced cap can still be good... right?



So it looks like the writers block is still there.  To be completely honest, there was no inspiration for making this cap.  I didn't wake up 'in the mood' or see something that got me there.  I just logged into the computer and realized that I hadn't made a cap for two and a half weeks now.  I checked my list on the Haven to see who I owed and my heart sunk.  Bren.

Now I've mentioned before, that when I cap Bren, I try to bring my 'A' Game.  I don't want one for her to be merely 'good', I want it to be great!  Well... when I've capped her before I could count on being 'in the mood' soon.  So if I wasn't 'in the mood' right then, I would skip her and move on to the next person.  Well next on my list is Dee.  Great... I try to do the same for Dee in bringing my 'A' Game, but I also want to push myself creatively whenever I cap her.  Next on the list?  Jennifer.  Jennifer who made me part of the Succubus universe started by Smitty (yea... I'm a name dropper! Big Deal!), and that series was 25 panels long!

Since skipping ahead didn't get me to an easier target, I decided to go with Bren.  Bren does have the advantage of not being picky about much in her caps.  She likes a good 'karmic' balance which is where I often start thinking about stories, so that works for me.  And while she likes XXX caps, she also likes tame ones, so long as the story is good.  So capping her left me wide open when it comes to models to choose. I can really just look at any image and if it inspires a good story, I can write it up.

Oddly enough these images didn't inspire the basis of this story.  This image did:


When I saw that image I was immediately captivated by her eyes.  What I saw was someone transformed into a woman having to practice being a woman to get her manhood back.  And that preparation was making her like being a woman enough that she was considering not changing back at all.  I looked a bit more but the idea stayed in my head so I sat back and thought about fleshing out the story.  I figured Brian would have corrupted a girl making her beg him for sex and even becoming a slut.  So he was transformed by her brother into a girl and 'trained' into being a sexy woman.  He would get his manhood back once he honestly begged to fuck a man.  I liked it.  I even had some bits that became part of the story (in a college town, targeting young innocent freshmen (freshwomen? freshgirls?), having to do feminine things to get any satisfaction, and ending up wanting to stay in the body).

But then when I looked at the image it had one major problem.. it was an image from the center of the story.  I like to have the images be the end point.  If there are multiple images they can be the beginning of the story, but I honestly don't like having the beginning of a story, the image, and then the ending of the story.  I thought about dropping the ending of him having sex AND remaining a woman, but I really liked that twist.  So now I was in my worst dilemma... I was afraid that I couldn't start over (writers block really is a bitch!), but to make this story work I needed a new image.

I quickly gave myself an ultimatum.  I would search for images that I could shoehorn into this story for 30 minutes.  If I didn't find one then, I would write the story up to the 'kissing the didlo' part and have it be a cliffhanger style ending.  Not my cup of tea, but I wanted to write.

Thankfully after only a few minutes searching I came across not just one, but two images:



As you can see there was one problem.  Brenda had a friend.  A cute redheaded friend.  But the look in the blonde's eyes was so close to the look in the dildo girl's eyes that I felt it really fit.  And if the looks on the girls faces in the last picture isn't one of satisfaction then I don't know what the hell satisfaction looks like.

So I started writing with Calvin as the friend, and Caitlyn as the red head (hey... I like being in my own dirty caps!).  The writing was very hesitant and very choppy, but I didn't give up the ghost, and kept back stepping so I could edit it into something better.  And before you ask.... no I didn't save the edits. Doing so would give me to much opportunity to fall out of the what mood I had so I just kept on trucking.

When I finished with the first draft I looked at it and realized I had a little problem.  In the story, both images fit at the end.  Originally I was thinking of having it be one longish cap, and have both pics at the end, but I had just written to much.  I went through with a pretty liberal knife and cut out a lot of the 'fat' but it was still far to long for a single panel.

I had an idea... and I sorta wish I went through with it.  My idea was to write up the first section up to the blowjob, and have that be in Caitlyn's voice, and then make the 2nd panel more of a stand alone cap from Brenda's voice.  I even struck on how this could work for posting.... I could convert Calvin/Caitlyn into her Havenite doppelganger:  Peter/Petra.  Then I could give the first cap to Petra, and the second one to Bren! I even had the idea for separate names.   Anticipation for Petra and Satisfaction for Bren.

YAY!

But after writing out the story for so long, when I went to cut it into two distinct yet overlapping stories, it just fell apart.  I knew that feeling... my mood had left the building. I may have been able to do it if I really set my mind to it, but I could have also taken a really good cap (at least I hope it is) and turned it into crap.  So I scrapped the idea, but left Petra in there as a secondary role.  I took the easiest path of having the story start at the blowjob (hence it being at the top of the first panel), and then 'flashback' to most of the story, then pick it up at the end for the last picture.

I don't think that edit feels to forced, but you tell me.

So after all that I went into design mode. I had to trim quite a bit of the images to have them fit what I had written, and cropping them so tight really didn't leave room for my normal big title to overlay the image.  But luckily the last time I capped Dee ("Promise"), I had used a different layout (I told you I try to be more creative for Dee!), and having the title fit into the image would work here.  I just needed to flip the image otherwise it would fit over the cock (and hey, most of us girls wanna see the cock right!?).

So now I had the basic layout.  I just needed to work on the text color, the background color and any background image. My first choice was to go for a red background to match Petra's hair.  But I have to tell you, I have such problems getting a good looking red background.  And this time I couldn't get it to work.  It didnt' help that even the original images were under saturated.  So the background couldn't really overpower the images and be over saturated.  Well under saturated red is an ugly dark muddy pink.  Ick.  I must have messed around with various red and pink gradient backgrounds for 30 minutes.  None of them looked good.  so I figured I would add a background image and that would help make it look better.

My image search turned up this:


I really liked the 'cloudy beehive' look on the sides.  The middle was just to overpowering to use, so I copied the image and stretched it just enough to get all cloudy beehive and no big bold line. I then colored it in with that same muddy red/pink I had used before.  It looked o.k... but not good.  Here is what I was looking at:

I know some out there may well like this version better, but it just sat in my craw the wrong way.  Out of frustration I pulled all of the color out making it grayscale, then got up to go get a cigarette (yea yea yea... still smoking).  when I came back I liked it.  It wasn't perfect... but it was better.   There were two problems... the grayscale was a little too light with the white text, and the image REALLY popped out being that it was the only color in the cap now. But that was two very simple problems to fix.  I simply went into the 'Levels' of the background image and did a rough darkening, and then went to the image and pulled back its saturation about halfway.  I then copied these changes to the second panel and after re-reading it once I called it done.

I'm sure there are some typos and misspelled words.  There is probably some writing that I could make better even now, and then better a few hours from now.  But I was so ecstatic at getting a 'Bren Worthy' cap out of no where.  Sure it took me much longer than normal, and it was arduous at best, but I did it!

One last note... I got a song this morning and played it over and over while making this cap.  I have no idea what the lyrics are (and purposefully didn't look them up), instead focusing on the sad yet hopeful sound of the song.  Now for all I know this is about a school shooting, or some other inappropriate topic.  But it was part of the driving force for the 'tone' of this cap. I figured it only fair to share it with you:


This is Dan Auerbach's "When the Night Comes" off of his Keep It Hid album.

5 comments:

  1. The caption is.. outstanding! I loved it! I've done my share of the twist endings, but I still like it when it's more of a punishment for them. which is where it thought this was going, but it still worked out with it's twist ending. ^_^

    And you have to be one of the best captioner's working in photoshop. (Dee and Simone being two other Very wonderful artists working with the program. ^_^)

    It's your details of events that lead to the ending that always get me and I really need to work on that myself. I'm always left thinking.. wow, I could do soo much better! After I read one of your caps.

    And I'm very glad you added the song, I know not everyone listens to music while capping. but it helps me tremendously and and it's great to see others doing the same sort of thing.

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  2. If you like Dan Auerbach, you should check out The Black Keys. He's part of that duo. They are quite a bit more "rock" than this song, but the same sensibility.

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  3. @ petra

    I'm not 100% sure if you use Photoshop or not, but if you do you would be another capper I would put at the top of my list when working with that program. ^_^

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  4. If this is what happens when you get writer's block I'd almost be worried to see you get inspired. This is easily one of favorite caps. Palpable tension that really drives the story.

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  5. @ Jennifer
    *blush* thank you! To be honest when writing the story, I felt that it wouldn't have that overt of a happy ending. But when I got to the end it just fell into place that way and felt right.

    @Petra
    Oh yea, I rock out to the Black Keys fairly often. Interestingly the Black Keys was the very first 'recommendation' that iTunes gave me. And after years of use, its the only recommendation that I liked and I hadn't heard before.

    @smitty
    Thank you! I am glad to hear that it reads that well. I was hoping that the main difference between this and 'inspired' caps would just be the amount of effort and 'work' it takes me. It helps to know that I can still produce quality work when I'm NOT in the mood... it just isn't nearly as fun for me.

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