I can't believe Society6 favourited one of my tweets!

I suggested something on Twitter, and they noticed. Click on the photo to see it bigger.

Follow me on Twitter @frisky650 to enjoy my other stunning comments.

Photoshop animation experiment worked - stick figure and tweening

I've gotten a lot of ideas for simple animations lately, mostly involving cats, no surprise. I heard many times that the video tools in Photoshop also work for single frames and the "tween" feature fills in between the frames to make them appear animated.

I wanted to be sure at least basic animation could be done with the Photoshop I already own, so I created 4 frames with the brush tool then looked at them in the video timeline. At first I couldn't figure out how to animate them, and fill in frames between their poses. After some pasting and fiddling with features I learned in a video editing tutorial recently, a few seconds worth of animation and tweening appeared.

I'm not sure why the ghost effect appears but I'm pretty sure it can be turned off. I have some other projects on the go that need to be finished so this was the result without too much fuss (maybe an hour's worth of trying different arrangements and tools):

As you can see, Photoshop does indeed allow quick and dirty animation to be done. I'll be a lot happier when I grasp the video and animation tools better. My goal is to add animated line art and possibly whole characters to my video projects. This is why I've been practicing watercolour, pastel, and charcoal drawing, and practicing with my new Wacom tablet. I like the idea of splicing or pasting in different hand-made effects into digital modern video recordings (websites too), to create an engaging story.

I enjoy making art, of course, but animation for websites and videos is the real application I want to excel at, for making modern low-budget but invigorating short promotional videos for non-profit agencies or sports teams, and similar.

As soon as my skill evolves, I'll be sure to share the news and examples here and on my YouTube channel.

My skills are now for sale on Fiverr, for sketching and painting on demand!

My latest ad on Fiverr is for freelance sketching and painting website illustrations. I'm trusting that people will search for "illustration" and "website" - and hopefully mine will be one of the ads that comes up. My sample is below:

My sketching and painting skills are available on Fiverr.com

I'm also found on Fine Art America and Society6 websites so far, but those sites are not oriented to making custom work as much as print or merchandise sales.

Last time I created illustrations for pay, I was discovered in Craigslist...boy, those were the days!

Places to host a portfolio: Carbonmade is no fuss, no cost

Carbonmade is one place I show off my work. It's free, allows up to 5 categories, and 35 total images. A paid account is also available that offers more space and features.

I'm happy with free! The layout is beautiful and clean. The first thing viewers see (when you give your "you.carbonmade.com" address) is photo-icons of your categories. When they click a category (a "project"), they'll see whatever images you uploaded, in a simple gallery viewer, with or without thumbnails at the bottom.

The free account also includes an About page, where I tell how to reach me, hire me, and what my artistic interests are. I get to have fun there, because I'm only sharing my best work and not trying to sell it. Some buyers just need to see a portfolio, and I agree it's a good idea to provide one. Sites like Fine Art America make your artwork look great and clickable, but don't allow a traditional portfolio viewer.

While it's a pain to upload to both, the combination of these two serves my main purposes to show and sell my work, and provide methods to contact me.

And on that note...

Check out my portfolio and prints for sale!