Day: November 26, 2017

Animated Head

Clip Studio Paint offers the possibility of animating drawings and, since there’s now a new version of the program for the iPad, I thought that it was time to give it a go.

This rotating head is my first attempt. The layers have a degree of transparency, so that I can see my previous drawing, as a fainter, bluer image, as I start on the next frame.

Onion Skinning

It’s like the traditional animator’s light-box, what’s sometimes referred to as onion skinning: viewing several frames at once.

I drew the animation test (above) using the Clip Studio pencil tool then went over it with the pen tool (right) trying to make a few corrections as I went.

As I’m still not up to speed in Clip Studio Paint, I export an animated GIF from Clip Studio to Adobe Photoshop CS5 for the final adjustments of repeating the eight frames in reverse order to make a continuous loop and cropping the final image.

I still need to work out the best way to add pen and colour layer to each frame, but that’s as far as I’m going with this head: something went wrong with the eyes!

Link

Clip Studio Paint

Blackbirds at Dawn

Anglers Country Park, this morning. Photo credit: Barbara (my trusty Tough TG4 let me down temporarily this morning, so here’s the equally good iPhone version of what I was going to photograph).

There’s a fiery sunrise but, unlike yesterday, there’s no frost and the pond isn’t iced over. As they often do at this time of year, blackbirds have gathered on the lawn first thing and I’m pleased to see that one song thrush has joined them as thrushes – song or mistle – haven’t been a regulars in the garden this autumn.

Anglers Country Park

We take a stroll around the lake at Anglers Country Park, south-east of Wakefield this morning. About seventy-five pochards are resting in the quiet corner of the lake near the Main Hide, while a smaller flock of wigeon, perhaps 20 or 30 of them, are at the less-sheltered far end of the lake.

It’s a while since we saw a treecreeper, so we’re pleased to see one meticulously making its way up a trunk of one of the conifers in nearby Haw Park plantations. There seems to be a reasonable number of wrens about, so hopefully they won’t be caught out any prolonged severe winter weather.

The star bird of the morning though, is back at the car park, coming down to the bird feeders: tree sparrows, perhaps a dozen of them. The tree sparrow population has plummeted in recent years, so it’s good to see them again.

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Room on the Broom trail at Anglers Country Park, an ingenious way of breaking up the two mile circuit of the lake for younger children (but wouldn’t it be better to get them really interested in ducks instead?).