Sunday, February 28, 2021

Space Kitten #28

 Here we are, at the end of Thingadailies! I think we can all agree that this image keeps well within my general theme of photo manipulation for fun without any particular talent. And nobody can argue that this isn't a kitten in space, so I feel that I've held up my end of the bargain.

Kitten being transported to space with a red planet


I hope the rest of your year carries a little of the frivolity of space kittens with it.

Saturday, February 27, 2021

Space Kitten #27

 I'm not sure how well this one will show up here. I probably should have blended it with fewer frames or made the image size smaller, but this is how we learn things.

I watched a tutorial which showed how to use a GIMP plug-in to help make things less manual, but then I found out that plug-in isn't supported on a Mac, so I just messed around with some things manually. Maybe tomorrow I'll find a plug-in that works for me.

Kitten on a colorful planet with twinkling stars


Friday, February 26, 2021

Space Kitten #26

 I feel this one really lives up to the "space kitten" title. I think I'm going to try to animate something tomorrow. Just imagine how that will turn out!

Three colorful kittens whirling in space


Thursday, February 25, 2021

Space Kitten #25

 All I can say is that I would be sad if the wave tool ever disappeared. That's probably a sign that I should put it down and walk away, but who doesn't love a good wave?

Kitten in space with aura


Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Space Kitten #24

After tracing outlines for twenty-four days, I can confidently say that young kittens are blobbier than older kittens. They're all pretty cute though.

Kitten in space with three planets, some space dust, and yes, a supernova

Planetary textures:

grass texture: Photo by Eriks Abzinovs from Pexels


cracked dirt: Photo by Santiago Manuel De la Colina from Pexels


sea foam: Photo by Brady Knoll from Pexels

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Space Kitten #23

 Subtlety is not my strength. I love this.

Kitten on a colorful space background


Monday, February 22, 2021

Space Kittens #22

 Again, sometimes it's good to try things, even if they don't quite work out.

Three kittens floating on plasma clouds in space


Sunday, February 21, 2021

Space Kitten #21

 Once again, I was playing around with book cover ideas and then added in the space kitten. Neither book cover nor kitten are very successful, but this is how we learn things.

Kitten face in a moon over a dark planet with sheep and tree in silhouette against a red and purple sky


Saturday, February 20, 2021

Space Kitten #20

 It's a moon kitten. Or something.

It helps if you don't try to apply too much logic to these.

A silver kitten-faced moon shining down on a planet


Only eight more days of Thingadailies!

Friday, February 19, 2021

Space Kitten #19

 This is as close as I could get to a metallic sheep. Why did I want a metallic sheep? I've been playing with book cover ideas and I wanted to see what it would look like. Except, you know, with the addition of a kitten because that is the theme of the month.


Metallic sheep + kitten out in space

Original sheep: Photo by Trinity Kubassek from Pexels

Thursday, February 18, 2021

Space Kitten #18

 Today it's all about the colors.

Two kittens in space with color warping


Wednesday, February 17, 2021

Space Kitten #17

I mean, if it's any consolation, I don't know what I was trying to do here either.

Two kittens, one green, the other purple on a spiral green background with two supernovas

 

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Space Kitten #16

 When kittens play dice with the universe...

kitten in purple space with multiple universes
The picture looks better if you click on it, I promise.


Monday, February 15, 2021

Space Kitten #15

 I got busy doing other things today, so I threw together some random things today. It's not a complete success, but it is a kitten in space.

kitten in space with random things happening in the background


Sunday, February 14, 2021

Space Kitten #14

 Someday I will figure out how to make all the layers look like they belong together, but today is not that day. I'm rather fond of this one anyhow.

Kitten on a lava planet

Tree silhouette pulled from: Photo by Alexander Zvir from Pexels

Saturday, February 13, 2021

Space Kitten #13

So... this isn't quite how I imagined it, but my technical ineptitude is showing. Still. I wanted to make a kitten in a flying saucer and this is a kitten in a flying saucer, more or less, so I'm counting it as a success. Besides, I have a bunch of plants that I need to put in the ground before it gets dark, so I need to stop messing around here.

kitten in a flying saucer in space


Friday, February 12, 2021

Space Kitten #12

I'm sure this is how solar systems are created, and nobody can tell me otherwise.

Kitten barfing up planets

 

Thursday, February 11, 2021

Space Kitten #11

 I started messing with this when I got on the treadmill, and it took just under 45 minutes. (That might have included a few minutes of web surfing...) So if nothing else, practicing using GIMP has made me faster. There's also 100% less aggravation because I sorta, kinda know what I'm doing now.

Lest I get too proud, I should relate that I needed to draw a simple diagram at work today and it took me 10 minutes to figure out why I couldn't just draw a straight line between two points of text, and that was with the help of two tutorials. Worse, it turned out to be the solution it always is -- the wrong layer was selected. (In my defense, I thought there was only one layer. I hadn't realized that each time I added text, it was creating a new layer.)

Anyhow, I decided to spin the stars a bit today. I think it adds an interesting touch.

Kitten on a whirl of stars


Planetary texture created using: Photo by Scott Webb from Pexels

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Space Kitten #10

 I'm not sure I can create a career out of a daily kitten in space, but at least I'm getting better at it. (For some values of better.)

All three planets are based on the same photo of lichen on rocks (credit below), but I randomly changed the colors and blurred it a little differently for each one. I think they turned out well.

The supernova is back!

Kitten on a blue planet with two other planets and a star on a space background



Planetary texture based on: Photo by Laker from Pexels

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Space Kitten #9

 Look how restrained I was this evening! I didn't even add a supernova, which is pretty much unheard of.

Two sparkling kittens in space


Anyhow, I pulled a lot of suggestions from this tutorial (https://youtu.be/am-QcH90iuE). That tutorial is also a great example of two hosts that despise each other while pretending not to, and it also shows why you should work out the numbers you want to use before you do the demo -- half the demo is just "oh, that's too big, let's undo it and do it again with different numbers", which just makes the demo drag.

Anyhow, lessons from the evening: feather selections, and also... Sparkle!


Thingadailies is one third over with!

Monday, February 8, 2021

Space Kitten #8

 I was doing some random things, but I can see the seed of a way to make a planetary surface. Except with the addition of the wave tool and supernovas because I am weak and I just can't help myself.

Kitten in space

I believe the handsome kitten of the day is Shanty. He and his brother (available for adoption!) have mild cerebellar hypoplasia, but that doesn't seem to slow either of them down.

Sunday, February 7, 2021

Space Kitten #7

Kitten Tina is traveling through portals in space. Or something. I'm not sure there's really any logical explanation.

Kitten in space


Saturday, February 6, 2021

Space Kitten #6

 I almost forgot to make a space kitten today, and after looking at this masterpiece, I think we can all agree that would have left the world a poorer place.

Kitten in a warp bubble in space


We do all agree on that, right?


(Also, I'm pretty sure my only artistic influence is Lisa Frank, and I'm okay with that.)

Friday, February 5, 2021

Space Kitty #5

 Carmen's son, Filch, discovered the bowl of dry food in the last couple of days. I grabbed this frame from the video. Because you know kittens would play with planets if they could...

Kitten in space playing with a planet


Thursday, February 4, 2021

Space Kitten #4

 This turned out more or less the way I wanted it to. I wonder if I can make a layer completely transparent except for the stars... I'll have to try that at some point. I've crashed GIMP enough times for one day already.

Tuxedo kitten with stars in its black hair


Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Space Kitten #3

 At some point, someone should probably ask what the heck I'm doing, but therein lies the beauty of living alone (or at least, alone with a bunch of animals who don't speak English).

Three kitten planets, plus another planet, and a supernova


In addition to making this... work of art... I had a successful day in other ways as well. The galvanized pipe did not, in fact, splinter into bits when the T-joint was unscrewed, so I don't have to live in a hotel while trying to figure out how to have people fix a buried pipe.

I think I'm ready to live in a retirement community and let someone else deal with all that stuff.

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Space Kitten #2

 Again, it didn't quite come out like I was aiming for, but... well, it certainly is something, isn't it?

kitten on lava planet

As far as reproducing this, all I can say is that there was a lot of the lava rendering, some mapping to a sphere, wandering around with the wave tool (always my favorite!), and then a bunch of fumbling around with layer masks. Perhaps I'll truly figure out layer masks by the end of the month.

Monday, February 1, 2021

Space Kitten #1

 I did mention I was doing Thingadailies, right? Part of the reason is so I don't forget how to use Gimp (which is similar to Photoshop), but the other part is so I can do things like this!

A kitten out in space with a pink planet in the background


Notes on how to make your own space kittens:

  1. Find a kitten picture! Mine are taken from House of Floof with permission. So many cute kittens.

  2.  To mask the kitten, this time I tried doing a quick and dirty selection manually, creating the mask from the selection, then blurring the edges of the mask. I suspect there are better ways to do this, but this seemed like an improvement over not blurring the edges.

  3. The planet I created using this tutorial (https://youtu.be/wWb9G_ck4dY). The key steps were
    1. Filters->Render->Noise->Plasma
    2. Filters->Map->Map Object (Map to: sphere)

  4. I also added a semi-transparent background of plasma noise, and then some supernovas because I just can't help myself.
The first time it took about 45 minutes. Then Gimp froze and I hadn't saved anything (of course), so the second time only took about 20 minutes plus a lot of swearing. Save early and often! I should know this by now.

Could it be better? Of course! But I think this is a fine start to the month of space kittens.