Dee's Bench

Those tights are SO goth!

Part of my normal morning routine now is to quickly peruse some images of women hoping for a quick 'Obscura'.  That last few days have been busts while looking at fuskator, so I went the Google Images route this time.  My first image search was for 'Beautiful Woman'.  While that turned up a LOT of beautiful women, most of the images were simple portraits.  There wasn't anything in the image to help get a story around.  One of the last ones I saw before changing gears was of a woman sitting in an elegant chair.  While that didn't inspire any story, it did get me thinking more.  I changed the search term to 'Sitting Beautiful Woman'.  That got me a lot more images with possible stories... and then there was the woman on the bench.

Oh yes, I have kept up with Dee's blog and have made a mental note of her park bench series.  So that search term changed to 'Sexy Woman Park Bench'.  I didn't have a real intent at this point... I wasn't sure if I was going to just make my own 'park bench' cap, re-imagine one of Dee's stories, or even make an 'Obscura' for Dee herself.  And then came this image:

First thought:  That is the perfect layout for a cap.  I might have to cut a bit of the right off, but it's laid out PERFECTLY for a cap.

Second thought:  Why the hell is a cute girl coming up on a 'Sexy Woman Park Bench' search?   Unless you're pedobear, this shouldn't be considered 'Sexy'

Third thought:  That is SO not Dee, so probably not a good image to...

Interrupting thought:  It's NOT Dee, and that's why it's a PERFECT image to cap!

That cap was more or less wrapped up.  Dee made a wish to be in her own cap as a sexy goth girl on a park bench and ended up as this cute girl.  I could even make the cap a letter written out to someone (why not me) asking for help.  OH HEY!  I could make the 'letter' as it it was written in crayon!

I opened up work, blurted out the 'story' that you see here, found a fun crayon font, an image of crumpled up paper, fit the story to the paper, flattened that image, moved it over to the image of the girl and was almost entirely done.

I played around a bit with the title, but didn't like it anywhere in the image.  The balance between the girl, the background, and the letter would be thrown off if I put the title anywhere.  Hell, I had to put my watermark in the actual bench to make sure it didn't throw off the balance.  And no... I didn't work at that balance, but once I was finished rotating the 'paper', the balance was there and would not be messed with.

So I threw a drop shadow under the paper and a subtle purple glow to the background image and was finished.  The title worked fine in the headline  image for this post.

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As I don't add much to my 'Obscura' posts, I wanted to just throw a few thoughts up here.

First, I feel the Obscura's are a mixed bag.  I'm glad that I can put these up, but part of me is still disappointed in them.  There isn't a single one that I'd say I'm proud of.  They are what they are... partials.  I thought about asking if anyone would like to see some of them made into caps... but I almost immediatly rejected that idea as putting them in a well designed 'cap' format wouldn't make them better.  In fact I think it would highlight the fact that the 'story' for each of them is incredibly weak.

What I mean by weak is that these are just guteral thrusts of an idea.   Just slightly more polished than 'A sissy's husband talks to her while making her give a man a blowjob' (from 'Focus On The Now').  I would normally try a little harder to work on tone and pacing... but by the time I get any of these ideas to that point.... I'm spent.  So while I may stumble upon a short form that works, it isn't what I'm intending to produce.  It's an accident if they're anything more than 'meh'.

And I'm happy with 'meh' right now.

For example, take 'Spoil Him'.  It gets the idea I had across just fine.  But when I saw that facebook post and thought about making a cap involving it, I imagined a version of 'Happiness Found' mixed with a dash of 'It Seemed So Reasonable'.  A friend takes his newly moneyless roomie and transforms him step by reasonable step to be the girl in the facebook post.  One who sees her place as spoiling her man.  But look at both of those caps... they're fairly long.  Hell, Happiness Found was a short story!  And while I did make a minimal effort to start that cap/story... it didn't get anywhere.  Like a dream in the morning it kept breaking apart and becoming less and less cohesive.

So... I don't think any of them will ever be turned into a cap.  They'll all be there if the inspiration ever strikes me, but I'd first have to work on the story side and make them change from 'meh' to at the very least 'good'.



Graphic wise, I am having a little fun.  Sure, I'm just throwing a semi opaque line over a zoomed in portion of the image and adding a title under a static 'Obscura', but even that little bit of graphic work is fun.  At one point I realized I liked the headline graphic for 'Cum Into The Light' the best and couldn't figure out why.  I had left the image fully saturated while most of them I pull back the saturation somewhat, but that wasn't it.  It finally hit me a couple weeks later... it was the black text 'Obscura' over the black line.  The word itself was obscured.  That tickled me WAY more than it should have, but it stuck.  Future headline graphics will all  have the 'Obscura' text the same color as the underlying graphic line.

OK... enough talking.  Hope you enjoy the tongue in cheek meta cap.