Greetings all, hope everyone had a good weekend. As promised, I’m back again with some new material to share. A four-part animated series I like to call Trending. Check it out then read on for my director’s commentary!
This piece has had an interesting journey to completion. The story taking place in this animation began life as a commission piece from last year. My patron sent me an image and some ideas and this is eventually what I wrote. Which I was quite pleased with, as I thought it was a fun little story that had some hot moments. My patron was kind enough to grant permission to share the text publicly, without using the original photo I’d been supplied. So, I set about looking for some new imagery to go along with the words. Which is the opposite of how the process normally works.
As it happened, I had a terrific gallery, which I’d saved years ago, that I stumbled across during this search. I was able to pull four images with facial expressions that I thought lined up nicely with the story as it progressed. We first see the model with a “bored at work” sort of expression followed by something akin to “Hey, what’s going on here?” The third panel suggests the beginnings of hypnotic fascination and the fourth conveys deep, irresistible entrancement.
For most of them, there wasn’t much in the way of manipulation to be done. A little fiddling with color, contrast; a bit of business with the eyes. That sort of thing. The fourth image, however, did involve some of the more liberal use of Photoshop that I enjoy.
It occurred to me that all the images are mostly safe for work. So, deviant that I am, I thought I’d try and make the final panel as naughty as possible. So, I stole the lower half of the model’s body from another picture where she was showing much more of what was beneath her skirt. I composited this into the existing photo which turned out far more suggestive than the original had been.
The animation that is revealed over the course of images three through four was a fun exercise in reverse engineering what I’d described in the text. The challenge (as usual) is finding a balance point between conveying this malstrom of subliminal programming while still making it clear enough for the viewer to enjoy.
And speaking of you, dear viewer, what did you think? I certainly hope you enjoyed Trending. As always, your comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome. I’ll be back again later in the week with an update on the current front-runner in my upcoming projects poll: Pleasure Professionals.