Our 5th anniversary issue called for a celebratory graphic and "Bug Dance" fit the bill. I got the basic idea for the shape of the bugs from a freeware dingbat font, but actually drew the individual bugs myself, using MS Paint. Creating several different poses gave me enough material with which to work, and I then made them leap vertically to give more interest. I turned them into different colors and used the timing on the animation frames to create the illusion of a rhythm.
The next animation, "Firefly vs. Lightning Bug," began as a verbal pun, since lightning bugs and fireflies are just two names for the same insect. It was only a matter of figuring out the best way to graphically illustrate the idea I had in mind. It turned out to be pretty easy, using the blur function in MS Photo Editor after creating the simple shapes with MS Paint. The timing on each frame added the finishing touches.
Because our newsletter comes out on the 21st of each month, I sometimes use holidays that will occur in the next month. Often, for the June issue, I create an Independence Day cartoon. However, I've done quite a number of those and so chose to highlight the Summer Solstice instead. It took awhile to figure out what I wanted to convey, since there is much mysticism and ritual applied to the lunar holidays. Wanting to play with the idea of the sunlight hitting a carefully chosen spot only once each year, I decided to strip away the solemn and sacred overtones, leaving just the mundane fact that some bugs avoid the light. It turned out to be more difficult to create the animation than I thought it would be. The brick wall is simply a clipart background. The hole was easy enough, with the 3D effect being done in a little program called Z Paint. Even making the light "grow" wasn't too complicated. However, the resulting graphic file size was too large, so I had to eliminate as many colors and frames as possible without degrading the quality too much. The bugs had to crawl out of the light area and end up in the darker part, which necessitated an adjustment of their coloration as well. In the end, it turned out to be a heavier graphic than I would like, but the effect was satisfactory.
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Having no intention of doing yet another animation, I planned on creating a static image. However, the idea came into my head of synchronized swimming, or water ballet, (who knows where these ideas come from?) and the animation just about made itself. "Whirligig Water Ballet" consists of one small animation copied numerous times to give the impression of more activity. The original bug image was one of my own clipart graphics, and I simply manipulated the insects in MS Paint. Having a GIF animator program like the Ulead GIF Animator Lite that I use is essential for working with the multiple frames and adjusting the timing of each. After the bandwidth gobbling graphic of last month, this one turned out satisfyingly lightweight.
During a rather dry period in the creativity department, I simply chose a fetching picture I'd taken of a newly hatched baby mantis. This one is called "Welcome to the World."
The idea of the creativity fount drying up gave me the idea for the next image. "Rainbow Fountain" is nothing more than a little clipart doodad that matched the letters of the heading for that issue. A lot can be done with resizing and repetition.
The approaching Halloween issue was just what I needed to get back into animations. Although I didn't need to make this GIF transparent, it ended up optimizing to a smaller size than one with a white background. The GIF Optimizer program that I use works wonders, and I never know quite how much bandwidth usage it can shave off, but it always does pretty well, especially if I try both transparent and non-transparent versions. This one is called "Shadow Show."
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After several false starts on an animation for our next issue, I came up with "Weapons of Moth Destruction." It was drawn entirely in MS Paint, but is unusual in that it consists of two overlying files. The aromatic moth balls are on a background layer (which also happens to be transparent), with the rest of the image being a transparent normal animation. I knew that my pun probably wasn't original, but I was a bit surprised at how extensively it showed up on a Google search.
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The look of the issue preceding Valentine's Day was Art Deco, so the characters of a freeware dingbat font by Jeffrey N. Levine called "Don't Bug Me" were just perfect. Using just a few of the images, then slightly altering them, made it possible to create a little animated interaction appropriate to the holiday, called "Bug Love."
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