Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Getting The Gig

A collaboration between Angel and myself


Much the same as "Lipstick Negotiation" this is a collaborative cap between Angel and myself.  Angel was gracious enough to write up an ending to my cap "Sing Sing Sing" where I couldn't make an ending that worked.

Angels ending is more in line with what I had in mind when I started writing "Sing Sing Sing", focusing on the humiliation and a situation spiraling out of control.  But her addition of the character 'Angel' and all of the extra duties that 'Caitlyn' was being signed up for was well beyond anything that I had in my head.  They take a humiliating experience and add so much more!

Now much like Kendall in "Lipstick Negotiation", Angel wrote a far longer ending than I had in mind.  12 Paragraphs to be exact!  Admittedly these are shorter paragraphs than mine, but it still eliminated my original design.  I briefly considered just dropping the text into the same layout as I used for "Lipstick Negotiation", but that didn't seem fair... even if I changed the color scheme, background image and title, it would still just be a rehash.  I also really wanted to emphasize the differences in the stories.  Kendall's is an empowering story of a cross dresser embracing his new persona and using it to 'her' advantage, while Angel's is a humiliating tale of a cross dresser getting sucked (pun intended) into something far darker than 'she' intended.   They aren't exactly flip sides of the same coin, so the layout shouldn't be similar either.

But the first time I went to play around with the layout, I didn't come up with anything fun or different.  So I set it back on the shelf and waited.  Last night as I was driffting off to sleep, it hit me... it's a technique that I hadn't used in quite awhile.  Cropping the images down to their bare minimum.  The first image int he story is of a girl, eyes closed, in front of an old fashioned microphone.  The second image is of a blowjob.  The curtain in the background of the first image and the office in the background of the second image were really irrelevant   Sure, as a photo essay they're needed to tell the story, but Angel's and my story cover all that.

So first thing this morning I opened up the files and started playing with the cropping.  It was easy enough to get a good crop on either image, but getting the images the same size while using different angles was a pain. Especially considering that the first image was a straight up and down crop, while the second image had to be angled to include his cock, her lips, her eye, and his hand.  Once I had the two images I was presented with another problem... I had originally thought to make both of them vertical... some BJ picks can work either vertically or horizontally  but her hair just didn't work that way this time.  So I had to layout the images separately   I still wanted to match the overall feel (that slightly tilted 'off' feeling), so I kept both of them viable.  When I had them laid out, one on top of the other, though... I liked it.  They actually worked together.

Sadly there was no way I was going to fit both images and the entire story in one panel.  Well... I could have, but the text would have been absolutely tiny!  So I kept playing and playing and finally came across this idea... having the 'primary' image full color with a gradient and on top of the other while the secondary image was black and white, faded out, and translucent enough to let the background image show through.  It was just pure luck that when the first 'primary' image covered the 'secondary' image in the first panel it also obscured that the secondary image was a BJ pic.

Dropping the text in wasn't quite as easy as it was for "Lipstick Negotiation".  With the longer paragraph forms, I had to play quite a bit with the text to make it fit.  Cutting out a line or two to give the text more  room meant cutting out a lot more, and adding text to line up the final part of each paragraph meant adding in a bunch more.

Overall I think this design and layout works for the story.  It has a darker, edgier feel to it.  But like my previous collaboration projects, I await Angel's opinion on the project before I'll call it finished.  Only when she is happy with it, will it be well and truly done.

4 comments:

  1. Loved the Cap, Caitlyn. *huggles*
    I wish I was THAT talented. ;-)

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  2. Wow! Great collaborative effort Caitlin and Angel! Awesome!

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  3. A very interesting technique with the layout, I like how it plays out. And you caught most of my major grammatical errors as well. Though there was one minor discrepency between your writing and mine. You have Caitlyn closing her eyes, but then just a sentence or two later it hits my description of Caitlyn starring out to where the rest of the band is waiting. A minor bump in the flow, hardly breaking, but I thought I would mention it.

    Over all, well done. As always, you take my rough work and elevate it to an art.

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    Replies
    1. I did notice that (eyes closed, then later open and staring toward her band mates) problem... but even adding in something about her opening her eyes would require editing something out (to make the paragraph fit). I decided to go ahead and leave it as the compromise instead of taking more of the story away.

      I'm glad you enjoyed it Angel... I certainly enjoyed your story!

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