I learned to animate a picture!

Anyone who knows me knows I crave knowledge. When I learn something new, such as a skill, it encompasses my world for a time. Since To Muse and Dream Heavenly has been published for a week now, I wanted to make something special for it (as part promotion, part look at this cool thing I learned).

I have longed loved Morgan Wright's animated covers and I have wondered for some time how to make such a thing. I do have experience in Photoshop as I took a class on it in high school and my first official job was a photo-restorer.

Animation is different though. It uses timeline queues, which reminds me of posing rigs in Blender. As a long time sim player, I have dabbled in posing rigs, but I have never used the animation portion as it seemed very complicated and intimidating.

Saturday night (3/19/22), I decided to no longer be intimidated by it and set off to learn as much about still image animation as I could. I found some tutorials online and through Youtube, but most were just broad strokes explanations and not the step-by-step tutorial for dummies that I needed.

Then I stumbled onto Cristi Kerekes's Youtube channel. Not only does Kerekes articulate clearly and simply for the viewer, but he creates a fun environment for learning. Moreover, I found the tutorial I was looking for to begin my journey into animation.

And - as any novice knows - the frustration began.

Learning a new skill is always difficult. My Photoshop is an older one so, I had to learn that certain elements were named differently. I did not have all the easy tools the later versions have, but I adapted and overcame by using my knowledge for photo-editing to help ease that frustration.

Blue Fire also gained a new snappy animated cover. I still have loads to learn, but it was a lot of fun.

Can't wait to do more!

- MDP