Hiding From The Rain

Don't forget that umbrella!

So next up on my capping list was JaySeaver.  I double checked his preferences and for some odd reason this stood out to me listed under his 'Some pet plots I tend to like'

"Hey, leave my dog out of it!" / "So, are you still man's best friend?"

I don't know why, but that struck me as particularly fun.  I imagined finding a picture that had a woman and a cat on her lap, and developing a story that included him getting changed into a woman along with his dog getting changed into a cat.  I'd let the other details come from the photo.   So I headed off to Google Images and used the search terms "sexy woman with cat".

The first dozen or so images were all of cat woman or women with cat ears.  Not exactly what I was looking for. I have no idea how this image comes up under those search terms, but when I saw it my mind started racing.  She looked beautiful but apprehensive.  I know that Jay generally likes the transformations to end up with him accepting his new gender, so I didn't want her nervous about being a woman (which is the direction my caps tend to go).  Instead I thought of her being nervous about the rain itself.  It didn't take to much thought to get from there to having her changed to a woman in the rain years ago, and now she's afraid that the rain would change her back.

Before I started writing, I decided to write less than I normally do.  I know, I know, I normally try to write less and end up with 5 paragraphs... but this time I really wanted to rein in my writing (rein in?  rain in?  Get it!?  ohnevermind).  The caps I've made for Jay before have all been fairly long winded and I wanted to make a cap that left a lot of the story up to the reader.  Instead of laying out who did it, or what Jay did once changed, or how he came to love being a woman, I decided to leave that up to the reader and let them focus more on the beautiful photo.

I also wanted to keep it short, so that I might be able to fit the text into the cap in an interesting way.  I saw the black stripe of the umbrella as the perfect place to put the story.  So once I had the story done, I went ahead and pathed out the area I wanted.  I wanted the text to flow diagonally, so I rotated the path, laid in the text, and then rotated the text back into position.  Sadly... I wasn't really happy with how i tlooked.  It was interesting... but it just felt more sloppy than anything else.  Here is where I left off before dropping the idea and going back to a more standard layout:

I think I made the right decision.  In the end the only 'fun' thing I did with the layout was having the title hide a bit under the umbrella and that was just a matter of copying out a bit of the background and laying it over the title.

Maybe one day I'll come back and try the whole woman/cat idea out, but in the meantime I hope Jay enjoys this return.  I of course hope that you enjoy it as well!