I came across a picture set a week or two ago that reached out from the monitor and slapped me in the face screaming MANIP ME, MANIP ME STUPID MONKEY!!! I love to work on those pieces that come together in an instant. Its not always the first time I look at a pic (though it was in this case), but when the story and the imagery leap into my mind in a single instant of inspiration, that’s a project worth taking on.

So, having had this sudden burst from the muse, I decided to take a break from the behemoth manip, and just put foot to pedal and complete this one in record time. In in that regard, I’ve succeeded. You’re bound to notice spelling mistakes. The compisiting isn’t nearly as polished as I usually prefer it to be. But, that wasn’t the point in a sense. The point was to do something fun and inspired and, again, in that regard I succeeded.

When I did my first snake-on-woman hypno manip, it was born out of a feeling it was a sub-genre lacking in representation. Since then, I’ve found numerous artists on the Collective that have done work along similar lines and, of course, Kaa from Disney’s animated Jungle Book film is usually in a starring role. In looking back on my original effort, I realized that I hadn’t really nailed the animation with the eyes. Looking at the film again, I realized that I just whipped up something that seemed correct, but I’ve been thinking about doing another snake-hypno piece, if for no other reason, to take another swing at nailing the distinctive Kaa hypnosis look.

So, that too was on my mind when I sat down to tackle this side-project and, again, I’m quite happy with the results.

Lastly, I’ve been anxious to try out a new tool called Adobe Flash Catalyst. Its designed as a UI to Adobe Flash and (in theory) would allow a person to develop simple Flash applications (like a picture gallery or slideshow) quickly and without writing code. I’ve been desperately searching for a tool like this for months and this project was a great chance to do some testing and see if it lived up to the tag-line.

Which by-and-large it did. I was able to very quickly assemble all my finished panels into an animated Flash slideshow in far less time than it took me to research, code, and troubleshoot the Action Script for my last animated manip. Its not feature complete; I would have desperately loved to include a soft music track playing with the images* but this software is very exciting as it will allow me to assemble interactive manip projects in a matter of hours instead of (literally) months.

So, going in to this new piece, I had a lot of things on my mind and, for what its worth, I feel enormously content with the end result with respect to each of the qualities I’ve mentioned. As for whether or not YOU enjoy it as a reader? Well, I should probably shut up and let you see it.

I do hope you enjoy Kia and Kaa.

-Callidus

*If you’re curious about what music I had planned to include, it was this haunting rendition of ‘Trust in Me’ by the Soul Flutes. Give it a spin as you view the manip for full effect.

The source pic I found recently, during a particularly fruitful day of scouring for images. I didn’t know quite what to do at first, but a little succubi inspiration was all it took to get me going on the image. The story, I wrote this evening while tinkering with the last few aesthetic details. A bit wordy perhaps, but I never seem to be as pithy as I’d like to be.

Besides, its not about me, its about Tera: the woman who’s far too humble to acknowledge what a cornerstone of the mind control community she really is. Tera: who whips htaccess files in to submission and bends php to her will (and probably looks quite saucy doing it <wink>). Tera: who, I am honored to say, is my friend.

<big hug>
Congratulations Devil Woman.

So, in a fit of frustration I posted to twitter that I was going to finish a new manip in the following three hours. Now for those of you unfamiliar with this disease I have called ‘perfection’, know that a quick manip for me is usually measured in days.

So, when I perused my “To Do” folder to find an image I thought would be an easy project, I suddenly realized that two images I’ve had saved could work beautifully together. A quick check in Photoshop confirmed they were of comparable resolutions. So, full of new-found inspiration I set to work and here we are a few hours later and I actually have something to show for it.

Voyeurism carries with it the inherent danger of being caught, but I find that effect is deliciously heightened by some naughty mind control. What if you’re so distracted by the sheer eroticism that you don’t turn and leave quickly enough? What if you’re caught? They can make you stay…and eventually make you forget you ever wanted to leave at all…

Fun themes to explore; and it leaves me plenty to ponder as I muse over writing a caption. Though this one doesn’t have the polish I usually prefer, it feels quite nice to have something after being sidetracked for so long. As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

This pic was one I’d instantly seen the story in when I laid eyes on it. It was just a matter of finding the right props and fashioning the text. I’d intended to keep the text quite breif, just a couple sentances, but what I wanted to convey simply needed more. Influenced very heavily with this one by the terrific betrayal in Daphne’s Fairie Tale, the inducer is right out of trilby’s Watering Hole, and some vibes from a very hot scene in Tabico’s Winter Flesh.

Speaking of the inducer, I wanted something flashlight-ish but nothing too recognizalbe. What I found was the K2 Porcupine tactical light. Its a self defense torch that has a retractable ring of spikes around the lamp. Somewhere, someone is butchering watermelons with one of these things.

This one had a long road to completion. The actual animated frames I’ve had finished for months now, but I knew I didn’t want to just have four individual animated manips that would force the viewer to go forward and backward through browser pages in order to view each panel. That, of course, meant I needed to learn some flash.

Or more precisely actionscript, which is the programing language that drives flash. Animation I can do, but even simple user-interaction (like Next and Back buttons) takes some programing. So early this year I decided I wasn’t going to let my lack of programming knowledge hold me back anymore. I bought a book and started teaching myself how to write flash applications.

It seems almost silly, all this work for what amounts to a slideshow, but such is the nature of my illness. I’m a perfectionist you see; not always in a healthy way. Its not enough to do something, it has to be done right. Also, I’m a hopeless control-freak and know-it-all; if I can’t do something myself I get cranky.

But enough of my problems.

The point (finally) is that it took me a while before I had the programming skill to put together the interactive part of this latest manip (and truth be told I still leaned heavily on some handy online tutorials). Plus there was that whole “lets completely redesign the website” thing right as I was finishing up.

So, I’m very glad to have the new site up and running and very, very glad to finally have this new manip on display for everyone to see. As we’re all beginning to discover, I’m an Aria Giovanni…uh…enthusiast. I’d had a pic set of one of her few fetish video shoots and after looking at them for a while, finally figured out where they could go..with a little Photoshop.

The source pics required some extensive work: duplicating and blending large sections of foreground, head replacement, logo removal, and I still had to fabricate one side of the head clamps from scratch. The large “Enable” button was a 3D model dropped in from the Google warehouse, then textured and lit in Photoshop to blend into the background.

The visual fx were really inspired by an episode of Hart to Hart where a neferious hypnotist uses light bouncing off a crystal chandeler to put Jennifer under. Its a really neat effect and I sort of used that as my jumping off point. The subliminal text and images were added at the eleventh hour when I realized I had more story than would fit into three panels, and decided to insert a POV shot of what Aria is seeing.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. Time to enter The Room.

I’m very pleased to announce that a brand new interview with seminal mc author thrall is now live in the interview gallery. An influential force in erotic mc fiction by any standard of measure, thrall is smart, funny, and delightfully honest about her kinks. So grab a cup of your favorite winter-time beverage and settle in for an entertaining and insightful talk with this marvelously talented lady.

Click here to read my interview with thrall.

Speaking of gracious and talented ladies, I would be remiss not thank another of mc erotica’s finest talents and that is my dear friend Sara Castle. In addition to wowing all of us with her own spicy blend of mc fiction, Sara shares my love for the interview and has her own chat with thrall posted at MC Garden.

In our many correspondence, Sara and I have established that we share more than one or two favorite authors. So, its no surprise that we find ourselves sitting down to talk with many of the same people. What I do find surprising is how closely our line of questioning matches sometimes. While we have never shared notes on our interviews and I kept myself from reading her talk with thrall until after my own interview was concluded, I’m now laughing myself silly that we’ve managed to ask almost identical questions in several instances.

In any case, I want to thank Sara for being so gracious and allowing me to “share” interview subjects with her.

Thanks everyone for the continued support and encouragement through my long, dry spells. I don’t get to post here nearly as much as I’d like to but I do have some tasty things in the works and am eager to share…soon I hope.

Until next time.

Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of my good friends and colleagues, I’m honored to present Royal Audience. We do hope you enjoy it.

-Callidus

Not long now.

-Callidus

Happy Monday everybody. After far too long (again) I’ve got some fresh material for you. Some new and interesting trends in this update. My first vampire pic, I know, I know: what self-respecting mc-fetishist doesn’t have some vampire material? I couldn’t believe it either. Anyway, check-mark next to that box.

At some point while working on some pics and sort of finding myself bored with the results I hit upon on the idea to do some animated manips. The idea sort of evolved through a few different stages, but I’m happy with the end result. When I started animating these particular images, I had no ideas for captions (which is probably why I thought they were a little bland in the first place), but after completing the animated versions: the inspiration, she found me again. Odd sometimes, the winding way we take to finally arrive somewhere.

In any case, I hope you enjoy these, I’ve got (alot) more on the way, keep your RSS scanners tuned for more info…

Two new pics added to the FD/MD Gallery:

One new image added to the Supernatural Gallery:

Three manips added to the brand new Animated Gallery: