Learning Curve

Welcome to day seven of Thingadailies!

As I was writing a note about Affinity having quite the learning curve, I realized that it was time to just sit down and force myself to use the pixel mode (similar to Photoshop) so I don't have to switch to GIMP if I want to change one little thing while creating a cover that has images instead of vectors.

But first...

More Gnocchi!

I don't often get pictures of her sleeping. She does relax enough to snore while I'm working, but she usually wakes up when I move to a spot where I can get a picture. So this is a rarity.

Learning Curve

I'm working through a tutorial: Fantasy Photo Manipulation Speed Art | Photoshop Tutorial

You'll notice it has Photoshop in the name. There are a bunch of Affinity tutorials that explain how to use various tools, but I wanted a speedrun through the creation of an image. That means I need to translate the actions into Affinity. The options are pretty similar, so it's been pretty straightforward so far.

Anyhow, this is my image so far. I'm about 1 minute, 25 seconds into the tutorial.

That's two images and another hand-drawn layer, plus some color adjustment and warping of the forest image.

And now it's time to medicate Lulu and clean Mister's ears. More tomorrow!

Pretend

Welcome to day six of Thingadailies!

Today I continue to pretend that I know what I'm doing with book cover design. But first!

Gnocchi

I'm in my office and I hadn't taken any other pictures today, so Gnocchi gets to be my foster cat of the day. She was stretching when I caught this photo and I wish I'd managed to get her tail in the frame. Oh well. She's a great cat.

Back to the Thing

I learned how to curve text in Affinity, so that's what I did with the first part of the title. Then I decided it needed an extra pop of color, so I added the frame under the series name. Again, I'm trying to make a template of sorts so the books all look like they belong together, and I think that will help.

I need to check the centering — I find that it's harder to center things correctly in Affinity than it was in InDesign, but I'll add some guides and fix it.

And now it's time to do a bunch of medical stuff for Lulu, so I'll leave this here. My plan is to create a couple more in the series before I finalize any of them so I can figure out what works and what doesn't.

Old School

Welcome back to Thingadailies!

Today we're kicking it old school. But first, the foster of the day!

Lulu

Remember yesterday when I said I was using a bunch of pictures of Mister the Amazingly Scruffy because after he went back to the shelter it was going to just be Gnocchi all the time? Well, it's 24 hours later and things have changed again!

I took Mister for a vaccine appointment this morning, and the foster coordinator said, hey, while you're here, can I show you another cat? Then I got the "we don't know if this cat is going to make it, but would you be interested in fostering her?" speech. (I get that a lot. It's my specialty, probably because they know I won't freak out and quit fostering if the cat dies.)

So now I have Lulu. She probably has FIP. She also tested positive for calicivirus and chlamydia. Fingers crossed the meds help her. She's a sweetheart.

Aaand... she's actually modeling the thing of the day.

Old School

Thursdays I spend a few hours at the local library's makerspace with my friend Teresa. The makerspace has a ton of stuff, from woodworking tools to sewing machines, but I wasn't feeling particularly creative, so I converted a bunch of my old cardboard into a scratcher for Lulu.

Could I go to the pet store and buy this? Yes, but they're like $20 and I'll have to discard it after Lulu leaves. So there we go. It's my thing of the day.

Typography

Welcome back to day four of Thingadailies!

Mister

Mister is once again the model for the day, mostly because he's leaving next Tuesday and then it's going to be all Gnocchi, all the time. But in the meantime, look at his ridiculous whiskers!

Typography

I wanted to see how the vector cover would look with the title, so I threw some stuff together. I also added paw prints, which I think helps it look more like a mystery. Affinity 3 still has some quirks I haven't quite figured out, but I'm getting more comfortable with it.

Tomorrow I may learn how to curve text and see what that does. Or maybe I'll finally get around to recording audio, though that may have to wait until Friday since I have a bunch of stuff to do tomorrow.

Vectors

Welcome to day 3 of Thingadailies!

I'm sort of cheating today because I didn't finish the thing, but... <shrug>.

But first, here's more Mister

Professional scruffy boy Mister is still here. And honestly, that's fine because he is absolutely adorable and he's really easy to take care of. The only reason I'm laughing about it is that when I was asked to take him, the email contained the line "...will be out of town Friday 1/23 until Saturday 1/31 and I'm looking for someone who can care for him during that time."

So today (the 3rd of February) I finally sent mail that was just sort of "hey, do you want me to bring him back?" and apparently I'm keeping him until he goes in to be neutered next week.

He is perhaps not the sharpest tool in the shed. I put all his toys into a small (open) box this morning, and when I left the room he was meowing at the box. He eventually figured it out!

Drawing with vectors

I'm reasonably comfortable doing photomanipulation with GIMP (similar to Photoshop), but my cozy mystery covers are created using vectors. I've been thinking about recovering the cozies for a while, and this is giving me a chance to get used to the new version of Affinity.

Here is what I have so far. It will look more like a book cover once it has the typography, but it needs a lot more work before I get to that point.

I'm not sold on the background color and I think it just generally needs more stuff, and specifically more stuff that says "mystery!", but it's a decent start.

My goal is to get something that gives me a template so I can modify the background and a few things on the table. That will make the series cohesive and make it easy to create a cover for the next book.

At least I'm figuring out Affinity, so even if I end up scrapping this, I've learned something.

Advertising

Good news: I figured out how to get iMovie working for me. If my phone isn't plugged into my monitor, iMovie doesn't keep popping up the stupid import window. Easy workaround is to just not charge my phone when I'm editing. No problem.

I didn't have the energy to do my own audio today and I couldn't find good trailer music for another book trailer (partially because I'm looking for free things and partially because I don't know how to effectively limit my searches).

Was I going to give up on Thingadailies on day 2?

Then I remembered that I have a foster cat who needed an adoption advertisement.

This will probably not encourage anyone to adopt her. But it's still funny.

Spite

Hi there! It's day one of Thingadailies, the blogging challenge to create one new thing every day and write a post about it. Now's a great time for you to join in!

I run on spite

I'll try not to rant, but I have a hate/hate relationship with generative AI. It destroys the planet while making you stupider, what's not to hate?

So a few weeks ago, someone created a mini-movie for a friend's book with genAI. And I know his heart was in the right place, so I'm trying not to judge him for this. But... 

It made me realize (again) the difference between shoving a bunch of poorly scripted, weirdly angled, and horribly edited scenes together versus doing the work to create something that's watchable. Seriously, I made it through the first five minutes of this "movie" only because I was trying to figure out why I was reacting so poorly to it.

So my challenge for the day was to create a trailer for the same book that used no genAI and was better. Because I run on spite.

Sure, no problem, I can do that...

Did I achieve my goal? I think so, if only because mine is about 30 seconds long. Is it great? Meh. It has problems. Finding the right images on DepositPhotos was a challenge. I'm unfamiliar with iMovie, so my titles look pretty amateurish, and the text itself could have used another pass.

(Also, wtf iMovie, why are you popping up an Import window every two seconds when my monitor is connected? I had to disconnect my monitor and edit on my laptop screen. So irritating. I'll be looking for different editing software if I can't find a fix for that.)

(Music by soundbay: https://www.youtube.com/@soundbay_RFM)

(Images licensed from DepositPhotos)

Do you need to be a speed reader to catch the captions? Maaaybe. Or maybe it was intentional to make you watch it multiple times so I can get the view count into double digits. We'll never know.

Anyhow, welcome to Thingadailies 2026.