I always enjoy creating special holiday images, and the end-of-year holidays provide a wealth of material. With the Winter Solstice, Christmas, and New Years, there is plenty from which to choose. This time I wasn't particularly creative and borrowed an idea I'd seen in an older clip-art animation I found years ago. The original animation followed the real song "Twelve Days of Christmas" but my version is new. I think it might be easier to memorize than the verses in the original song. The creature graphics came from various clip-art sources and I just multiplied and rearranged them to fit the words. This one is called "Bug Gifts."
The next animation had been an idea for quite awhile and I finally figured out a way to easily depict it. Most of the elements are clip-art (which saves much time when creating animations - no need for drawing and scanning), with only a small amount of "drawing" being necessary and done in MS Paint. The words were added with Ulead Photo Express. Unfortunately, it's subtle. Even with the words at the end, which give the title, some people don't get it. It helps to have raised dogs or cats.
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With a basic theme of water for the next issue, I wanted an illustration that depicted the microscopic life in a droplet. Not wanting to spend a long time drawing or creating the images, I found a water-like button in some clip-art that would do. The little organism that is swimming around in one of the "drops" is reminiscent of the tiny Cyclops copepods that I used to watch in our aquariums. Computer animation is perfect for depicting their characteristic jerky motions.
Looking through some dingbat fonts, I was taken with the idea that font characters could be reproduced in any size (the reason that you can change the size of the text on your computer). The shadowed caterpillar is based on an image from "BugsNFriends," a freeware font by M. Klein. The single image was manipulated in Ulead Photo Express, which allows for distortion of fonts. Whether it's fish or bugs, unusually large specimens are always impressive.
 Catch of the Day |
By our April issue, here in Texas we are well into bug season. Some years, the spring leafrollers drop down on their little silken threads by the hundreds. Nobody is sure why they do this. Could it be they are just having a good time?
 The Original Bungee Jumper |
After two years of drought we have had a very wet spring. Many people are surprised to know that you don't have to have furry pets to get fleas in your house. They live all over in the outdoors and, when they are particularly numerous, fleas will attack ankles just as if they were any other passing animal. They are not adverse to hitching a ride into a house while they feast, then settling into the carpet. Was the vernal season named after the antics of fleas? Probably not, but it is an amusing play on words.
Based on a very elegant pixellated bit of clipart, the roses in the next graphic turned out to be one of the prettiest images I've used. The moving bugs are based on ones that I made for my own clipart site.
 Days of Bugs and Roses |
Anyone who's watched tumblebugs for real knows that they don't work as an organized team. Usually, one does the rolling and one sort of climbs all over the ball. I just took some anthropomorphic liberties with the comedy of their situation. "Tumblebug Tiff" was made using a clipart beetle, hand-drawn dung ball, and text added with Ulead Photo Express.
Considering my penchant for puns and other word play, I'm surprised I didn't think this one up before. It is simply a combination of clipart insects arranged in MS Paint, with text added in Ulead Photo Express.
The idea for the next animation came from our own yard, which happened to be filled with spider webs that we believe helped with keeping the burgeoning mosquito population in check. The web was made with a neat little feature called "quickweb" in Serif DrawPlus. There are a whole slew of similar images that can be made by just a click, along with adjustments for various parameters. Saves a lot of time if one wants an aliased image of this type. I just drew in the mosquitoes by hand with MS Paint. Although the graphic's concept is very simple, I used the timing of the frames to add a bit more interest.
