DollsArtCats

Tuppy Glossop takes a rest from replying to email...

Photoshop has a lot of filters that will distort your image so it looks like it has ripples, or brushtrokes. I had never really used Distort much except to bend a plaid pattern over the folds of a scarf. Here's how it works with a photo and a pattern: You take this bad blurry photo of some sunflowers, and you go to Select>Select All, then to Filter>Distort>Displace: Then you will get a window asking you how many pixels you want to move horizontally and vertically: Then photoshop will open a window so you can browse to your "displacement map". This can be any image, as long as it isn't too large, is in .psd format, and is in Grayscale mode. Then you apply it and you get something like the first photo. I was curious to see what would happen if I painted a custom displacement map, so I re-opened the sunflowers, copied and pasted it into a new file. On this new file I turned down the opacity of the photo layer to 60%, filled the background layer with a 40% ...

Amusingly, with more clothes than are really in the story, but everyone let me go nuts with flowers and sparkles on this one, so I was happy with it. And the author is a total sweetie--I don't know what it is about this genre, but the writers seem really happy, nice people, and pleasant to work with.(Also the two horror artists I know are also the kindest, friendliest people imaginable--they must just get it all out of their system in their art!)

Amber, my Nanuri 07 " I am-not-a-vampire" has pined for a box or a couch or an elaborate bed, and I have had no space for one (though I do have the legs for an Egyptian couch, and the cover fabric.) On Den of Angels, Dollhausen has been making boxes for his vampire girls, and offered to make one for me. It came yesterday, and it is quite the project. It's heavy, for one thing, with lots of hardware and some splendid purple lining. I knew of course Amber was going to be too tall for it, but I had to at least let him crawl around on it for scale, while the real occupant waited for him to finish. Rilly now has a splendid sleeping place for the moment, though she may eventually be moved over by another small vampire, since technically Rilly is a fairy, just playing at being a vampire. Lisa from Iplehouse would fit perfectly . :D So thank you, Dollhausen!!

My money is on Doria... Ilsonya's post

Those are her new eyes to keep; they are one of the "opal style" ones that Shelly makes, and they are beautiful! I also had Bubbles (who is a Soom Cass, and normally would wear a size 14mm eye) try out the 16mm pink glitter eyes. These will either go in Merry Cherie or my Dollmore goth girl, though my alien Roswell might look cute with them as well. I love these eyes! (The doll that will get the circuit eyes isn't here yet, so no photos yet of her.)

I am still trying to rest my arm/shoulder somewhat, so I spent yesterday weed wacking (instead of mowing with the push mower, or pulling weeds by hand) so the yard looks neater, though fall is setting in and stuff is starting to wither a bit. I really miss my gray cat, too--he would always come up and bump against me when I was working outside. We did find that he was killed by a hawk, and we were able to bury him in the backyard, thanks to a neighbor who found him. We knew we might lose him to a hawk or a coyote,or a car, but keeping him penned in the house most of the time (like we do his less-competent sister) just wasn't an option. The morning glory is still huge, and there are still roses all over: I decided to replace the cabinet pulls in the kitchen as an easy fix-up project, and to save myself bother, I went to Ikea and got Ikea pulls so I would be sure they would fit. But no! The span of the new pulls was just a couple of millimeters longer than the plastic pulls, so e...