It’s always interesting what you learn in processes like this.  While I’m determined to finish the dragon project using only the still camera on my mobile phone and my computer’s inbuilt editing software, I got frustrated enough to look into (cheap) animation software.

I spent far more time manipulating photos yesterday, than I did creating images.  About four times more.  The images (including a ‘rehearsal’)  took nearly two hours.  Getting her face right (on the surface it takes up roughly a square centimetre and remember, it’s made of sand) took the longest.  Once that was done, the rest was fine.  That’s the fun part.

Getting the images to be sufficiently similar in size and orientation took upwards of seven hours – a shoulder-achingly, mind-numbingly, not-fun seven hours I would much rather spend making more images.

Halfway through, I had enough and looked for software option.

Of course, my research didn’t find me anything that was going to be any more useful than what I was already doing, at least for this project.  But that’s okay.  At least I knew, during the remaining time and while I was nudging a photo using a cropping tool left half a millimetre, then checking against the previous image, and then moving it back a quarter of a millimetre, that there wasn’t any easier fix for this.

I already knew that getting things right ‘in camera’ saves a lot of effort further down the line, but there are so many variables in the shed.  The floor and box are slightly wobbly.  The light can be variable, especially during the day.  Mounting the camera on the aperture is the the best place for it, but how to do it so it’s the same every time?  How do I attach my phone solidly enough that this doesn’t wobble it’s position and so I can still answer it?  I still need to use my phone, as a phone, after all.  The aperture sinks over time and needs to be repositioned every now and then, or the picture is out of focus.  The phone’s weight is only going to increase that… And so on and so forth.

I am going to try it today.  Yesterday was just plain ridiculous 🙂

But I sure learnt a lot.