Greetings once more dear reader. I’m trying not to pat myself on the back too much but I am quite pleased with the amount of work I’ve been able to put out this year. Tonight, I’m even more pleased because I can finally put a check mark in the ‘complete’ column for my longest-standing in-progress manip.
Read on for my director’s commentary but first please go enjoy Escape.
I’ve had this image saved since 2007 and have been actively working on it through various drafts since 2008. For whatever reason, I was never able to get the animation of the orbs into a place I was happy with them. In some respects I was probably trying to be too clever. At one point the orbs were making much larger orbits and going out of focus as they entered and exited the focus plane.
Neat effect, but it just didn’t work for this image.
So a little while ago, I drug it out and started from scratch. I think I had built it up in my mind to be some sort of apex-manip or something. The source material was so strong and I felt like if the manipulation wasn’t *perfect* it’d make the whole thing garbage. The down-side-schwartz to my perfectionism strikes again.
So this time around, I let go of all those expectations and just treated it like any other manip project. I got the animation where I was happy with it, played with some light effects and then sat down to write.
That part was quite painless as I’ve had six years to write and re-write the story in my head. I knew exactly what I wanted to craft with the narrative when I first saw the image. I’m finally glad to get that out of my head and in front of all of you.
As always, your comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome.