This turned out to be more of a poster than a sign. Sign to me would be either in metal or wood somehow – but for a daily in 20 minutes – a poster is the route.
I Googled licensed for reuse flying pigs and found a rather more rat looking one with wings that was called fantasy. I took it into Photoshop and cut out the scary rat pig and then found a more piggy pig in black.
Increased the canvas size, joined the wings and the pig and then added a layer of background. From there I played with the filters using Difference Clouds. Not sure how the colors change – I will have to explore that more. First time I got cotton candy blue and while a nice contrast – didn’t strike me. Randomly I got a similar color to the wings that changed. Added difference clouds to both the background and pig. I also added a lens flare behind the pig for lighting effect.
Fonts. It is all about Fonts. Not sure I hit it – but seemed it needed a serif font. Settled on this one and then used the word art to arch around the icon.
I did end up with two versions but went with the cloud renders for the submission. And of course now have second thoughts….and also want to do more…but daily and time to move on….
Ever since the movie Twister – a family shout out is COW! – with a little twang and drawl added in. I don’t think we ever saw the full movie. And here it is 20 years later and we still say COW! ANOTHER COW! when we see one while on the road. Here is the 20 second clip.
So the Daily Create 1520Â was Create a Cow GIF and all that kept going thru my mind was COW! Another COW!
Cows dancing, spinning, dreaming, all sorts of cows….here’s my COW Gif – keeping to the 20 minute limit on this one so not as smooth or detailed as a finished gif….
I found the California Happy Cow commercials on YouTube. Used the GifIt plugin and captured a cow mooing – exported the GIF and then imported it into Photoshop. Got rid of the twitchy frames and added a tween on the end. Added the text to go across all the frames – Done!
And then – a little out of practice of doing dailys – I put the wrong #number! So it landed in an ice cream prompt. Well – Cows make milk and cream that is needed for ice cream – so it could fit. 🙂
I had actually started doing this design prior to the official start of #western106 back in October. I was starting to look at cowboys and media. Â Tom Mix was the tangent I was reading – who he was etc.
I found these in my files as I was cleaning up things. I had forgotten it was a quest to try and create a design assignment for #western106. Good community practice is if you create or suggest an assignment, you need to do the assignment and provide the first example for others to take off from and improve and extend.
I had seen an article someone suggested on Malaysian puppet art and super heroes –  The visuals stood out and fascinated me and I immediately thought #ds106 could really do this justice and create many different rifs.
I started playing with the concept in the #western106 theme rather than superheroes. I had actually gotten to a point of creating some pieces, but put it aside thinking I would come back to it and actually make it into something more complete.
Just want to get it posted so I remember to get back to it. I still think this could be really cool. I have some memory of looking ofr patterns so that they were part of the design. The holes for light seemed to be necessary as well  – and how do you put in the sticks??? From the outcomes I have right now – not sure I hit the concept I was going for – which is why they were probably not posted and just loaded into Flickr for keeping. I also remember using multiple applications. Photo Shop, Paper53 – so again – never figured out a path to the end result I was going for….
So here they are – maybe someone else can figure out how to make it a viable assignment or maybe I will get back to it again in the future. And with the shadows – doesn’t that shout out gif to you?
It has been almost a month since making resolutions. I had resolved to do more ds106 Daily Creates – at least 3 in a week. I have fallen short already. One thing I did learn from the 365 Photo a Day was that if you missed don’t use it as an excuse, get back up on that horse and ride! Here are 2 Daily Creates.
Daily creates of creating a imposter selfie and seeing the western landscape in your own window.
Used Photo shop and cut out John Wayne’s face with a photo of me trying to do a Duke face. Changed all to B&W and then cropped it.
Added a photo from @searaympmuffin of a California desert landscape and reduced the opacity. Also altered the perspective to make it fit the angle of the window.
I have been tardy and absent in official Daily Creates. So much for resolutions and keeping up with #western106. In December the all call sounded that Daily Create runs on ideas submitted by the community and to “pony up”. I had looked at #western106 types of things and came across a name generator – so I submitted the idea used for #tdc1470 to TDC.
Dang nabbit! it made the cut and showed up today. How can I not do the one I submitted? Guess this is the keg of dynamite I needed to go off under me to get up to speed and get at least 3 in a week done and posted. Now mind you – I have created each day – just not the tdc prompts. I do read and view others work each day and try to add a comment for a creator on their blog as much as possible.
When the name generator assigned me the cowgirl name of Annie “Tiny Dancer” Jones – my mind immediately went to Elton John’s Tiny Dancer – but that was way not cowboy – well it could be – but not the kind I was looking for and the only Elton John song I found was Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy – interesting – but not what I wanted. Elton has some good music but never fits where I am for some reason. He was the “surprise” artist at the Harley Davidson 100th Anniversary Celebration. We scrambled and were 3rd row from the stage. All sorts of rumors of who was going to be the surprise headliner. As the day went by waiting and the vendors were “Rocket Man” t-shirts it seemed imminent. On the one hand a great opportunity to see a great performer live – but so not what the mood and vibe was for a 100 year celebration of a motorcycle company and lifestyle. Some day – maybe – an Elton John song will connect with what I am seeing in my head – but I ain’t going to worry about it.
I searched YouTube for Cowboy Tiny Dancer and it gave me some choices. I stumbled upon the work of Scott David Winn- a film maker, song writer and director. The video is Old West Dance Battle – Cowboy vs Outlaw. The music pulled me in – catchy tune that reminded me of Zumba class – “Boom Boom Red”. One of the things I have done for me besides creating art, is Zumba classes – mind you – Zumba Gold – more low impact and not as much twisting and hip motions – but the group does get its groove on for sure. 🙂
While the song and music video is longer and tells a story, a short part seemed just right for introducing Annie “Tiny Dancer” Jones. What I did like about the video is that it takes the old west and plays it in a more modern context and it works. Again the western genre for me seems timeless and just the overlay of looking at culture, life, and what is going on. The structures and components don’t seem to have a date stamp on them.
I downloaded the clip, made some cuts, added a title and end. Just enough for a daily create.
The other bag of gold I found was the next video of behind the scenes of making the music video. Some great commentary on steps and thoughts of creating the production and some chuckles too. So very #ds106.
