With my current secret project being so complex, I find myself constantly triaging my work; there’s so much to do I can’t get hung up on the little details the way I might if this were a single manip. So, I find myself in a constant struggle to know when I’ve done enough and that its time to move onto the next thing.

Last night, I had one of those ‘forest for the trees’ moments and realized that one of my characters didn’t match across all her images. I had the same model, on the same set, but the images weren’t from the same photo series. The lighting was different and, more to the point, her clothing was different.

Disaster. Calamity. Despair.

I considered my options. The effort required to fix things of that magnitude would be enormous. The only alternative would be to replace the images and totally start from scratch with this character. It seemed an impossible choice. I had spent so long finding this series of images; how could I just let them go now and find new ones? It made more sense to work with my existing images; however long it took.

Somewhere over my shoulder, I heard Tabico whispering sage advice.

In a true moment of inspiration (as in the thought lept into my mind fully formed), it occurred to me that I had a set of pics I’d been saving for a rainy day that might work with just a little photoshoppery. I did a few quick tests…there was a heartbeat here! I got to work and here a few short hours later…well I’m back where I started. But it was a necessary detour and really the only choices were scrap the whole project, spend another week just fixing my mis-matched images, or take an evening to retrace my steps a little (but only a little).

In the end, I’m happy with the outcome and happy with myself for not letting my perfectionism throw a wrench in the whole affair. For a person like me, that’s a profound thing. I’ve quit more things in my life than I’ve finished; all because I felt some shame that it didn’t represent my best effort. I’m really happy to have not let that happen here.

The compromise I made will have consequences; the new model is such a stark departure from how I had intended the character to look, I’m going to have to write my way around her appearance. But, and this just occurred to me this moment, that’s just opens up another opportunity to be creative; why would I cheat myself out of that?

As I’ve hinted at previously, this new manip is quite complex. In the past, I’ve done plenty of photoshopping in order to make elements fit together the way I need. Once or twice I’ve even pulled a character out of a photo and dropped them into an entirely new background. However, in order to really achieve what I want with this new manip, I’ve had to go a step further and create an environment from scratch.

As you can see in the teaser image above, I’ve completely removed the original background from behind my subject. The next step is to place her in a virtual set created in 3D and set up my virtual camera to recreate the perspective from the original photo. I’ve got some temporary grid walls standing in for the background so you can’t see them, but I also have to use virtual lights so the new background I’m creating will match the direction and quality of light that’s hitting the subject.

The immediate goal that I’ve been working to achieve has been getting the virtual set created and integrated with a 3D model that will be visible in several frames. As a proof-of-concept, I’ve selected one panel from the series and completed a full set up with camera and lights just to verify that everything I’m planning to do will work properly. I’m very pleased to tell you that I crossed that milestone this evening and am now ready to proceed, full steam ahead.

From here, I have to create similar set ups (camera, lights, etc) within my virtual set for each of the panels in the series. Once that’s finished, the work shifts to masking all the subject’s poses from my source pics to drop her into the virtual set. Finally, I integrate the animations that I mentioned previously and tackle the detail work, special fx, etc; then, finally, write the caption for each frame and drop those into the completed panels.

Its still to early to give you any idea of a release window, but things are really moving under their own power now. I’ve crossed the two biggest hurdles in the whole process and from here on out its just using the assets I’ve created to start fitting all the pieces together. For now, I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief glimpse behind the scenes and I’ll see you again with another update.

Again, it all comes back to this geometric design that I showed you last time (and which I now unveil in all its full-color glory!); a person with a better grasp of programming or mathematics would probably breeze through it in an afternoon, but alas that person is not I. So, I have had this major hurdle out in front of me for several months now and frankly I didn’t even want to get started because I knew how much work it was going to be.

This week though, I was able to get caught up enough on other things to finally dedicate some time to it and although its taken three days of intense work, I’m happy to report this particular milestone is now in the ‘completed’ column. Now the manip itself isn’t done, but a very significant portion of the groundwork is; from here I move on to more traditional photoshopping and writing. Still no release date yet, too soon for that, but I’m motivated now and I tend to get impatient when I get that way.

So stay tuned for more and if my workload continues to cooperate, I may just have this thing finished before the summer is over.

I’m not ready to say more at this time, but I thought with a “I’m still alive” post, I might at least tickle your imagination with some abstract imagery that will factor into this manip in a big way. So, at this point you may have been asking yourself about the geometric construct pictured above; I can only say that it is the key to this new series. While I have had the story and base images for this manip series finalized for many months, the technical requirements of this image you see now have proven to be quite an undertaking. Perfectionist though I am, I’ve considered several times just going with a non-animated version to put it out there and be done with it.

But, we all know I love a challenge way to much to do that.

So, while that delays the final unveiling, I do think it will make the wait all the more worthwhile. I’ll tease you again sometime as I get a bit closer to completion; until then, know that I’m just as eager to share this with you fine folks as (I hope) you are to see it.

-Callidus

Okay, I lied about that last one but it was a welcome surprise nonetheless. While my friends pretended it was completely natural (and the shoppers around us made sure I knew it wasn’t), I snapped a few photos of this delightful, tranced plastic lady. If the designer of this window display wasn’t thinking about a pocket watch or crystal swinging in front of her face I’ll eat shoes…or something.

I’m repeating myself a bit here, but the part of me that wishes I’d studied anthropology in college, can’t help but look at perfume ads,  fashion photography, and displays like this and wonder what it is about the mind control fetish that keeps it an unspoken yet consistent staple of media. Content that plays into fetishes concerning various parts of the female body are rampant. The last several years have seen latex-clad dommes and candid reference to D/s & BDSM used in television commercials to promote parental awareness and pistachio consumption. Yet, to me, it still feels as though people are quite reticent where the sexualization of hypnosis and mind control is concerned.

Maybe I’m projecting. Maybe I want it to feel more present in mainstream media to alleviate some latent embarrassment at being turned on by an ‘odd’ fetish. Maybe I’m just biased. But maybe the person who designed this mannequin did so just for us; so we could wink at each other as we pass by; so we could share the silent joke that this display is far more lurid than the Victoria’s Secret counterpart next door.

In any case, it made the trip to the mall quite worthwhile; we’ll see if next year’s visit lives up to the precedent.

My memory of the dream picks up post-coitus. The leather-clad domme from the photos took off her trench coat and told me to put it on. She said she had something she wanted to show me downstairs. As happens often in my dreams I’m seeing myself in the third person, my body walking around with ‘me’ trailing behind. What’s odd is that my body never bothered to get dressed and ‘I’m’ the one wearing the trench coat. So both of me get on an elevator and go down (typical right?) to the basement.

In stark contrast to the large manor upstairs, the basement is abuzz with people in white lab coats filtering in and out of rooms into a small hallway. I suddenly feel very meek and submissive; lowering my head and avoiding eye contact. One of the lab coat people sees me and gets very interested. He leads me to a room at the end of the hall. When we enter, I’ve lost track of my body and its just ‘me’ who goes inside. Like the hallway there’s a number of the lab coat people inside a classroom. A couple dozen people sit in front of laptops in the rows of tables and chairs that fill the room. I’m directed to a seat at the front.

I sit down and headphones are placed on me; I’m told to listen to the music; I know it has subliminal commends embedded within. I listen. I don’t like the music; fucking techno. I’m disappointed there’s nothing on the laptop screen to look at, just the music player. After a minute or two I don’t care anymore, its like the music isn’t even there, just this throbbing wash of sound. I stay that way for little while, floating. Then, the headphones are being pulled off me by a real-life friend (who has, coincidentally, just instant messaged me as I write this; weird). I’m suddenly aware I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting there; it feels much longer than I’m aware of.

I sense there’s more I’m supposed to listen to; something my friend is sparing me from. I stand up and my body feels impossibly heavy; I was sitting in front of the laptop a very long time. My head feels strange, like my brain is congested. I walk towards the door of the classroom. I focus on the door handle and suddenly my vision explodes with line after line of repeating text telling me I’m obedient to Goddess, must serve Goddess, and the like. Its all written in the font I do my manip captions in. I have an overwhelming urge to return to the laptop and put the headphones back on. I stand frozen in place trying to decide what to do and then…I wake up.

So I find myself in the dilemma of really wanting to write a post but having nothing to write about; wanting to work on a pic but having nothing finished to show you. So, as John Lennon once did, I’m going to take my lack of inspiration and try to use that as a backdoor to creating something. Bear in mind, its not going to be nearly as fun to listen to and in all likelihood will not include one of the greatest guitar solos ever played on a Fender Stratocaster…but the effort will be equally as sincere.

Today, I thought I’d give you a peak behind the curtain at my process; what goes in on my mind as I look at a pic and the (often slow) development of an idea to a finished manip. Ready?

The pic linked above is one of hundreds (maybe thousands) of images I’ve saved on a whim. Often I see something and I know exactly what it could be; other times I just have a sense that there’s a workable idea somewhere and save it in case inspiration strikes. Here, I found the image to be quite striking and dramatic; erotic but not overtly explicit. I love black-and-white photography and so, for me, this pic already has a special quality owing to that. But there’s more here and the longer I look, the more I see.

The first thing that strikes me is her shoes. Now, I must admit, I do have a bit of a fetish for heels and what I like about her’s is that they are just on the edge of sexy without screaming “stripper.” Similarly, her outfit isn’t outrageous, in fact its maybe even a little conservative (or would be if more of the buttons were affixed) and then there’s the fact that she’s nude under her garment. Perhaps this is a game she plays to excite herself; going out in public wearing some sexy-heels-and-nothing under a loose-fitting outfit that shows off her legs. But why is she playing this game and who has inspired (or directed) her to do so?

Therein lies what piques my interest in this pic and also the beginnings of a story forming somewhere: she doesn’t look like someone’s toy, but maybe she’s on her way to becoming one.

Her pose is very useful as well. With a little caption work I can have her clawing at her outfit, desperate to touch herself but held back by some hypnotic compulsion. And speaking of her outfit; I think one of the qualities I find most attractive here is the fact that she’s not wearing some outrageously kinky harness or lingerie (not that I mind that sort of thing), but just regular street clothes. The juxtaposition of an otherwise reserved woman who is being controlled and manipulated through her own sexuality is somehow more kinky than if she were already a sexual dynamo. Her attire creates a certain expectation and her behavior plays against that expectation to (hopefully) delicious ends.

So with all that worked out, I now turn to the setting of the photo. The furniture, the hardwood floor, the vintage radiator all suggest a contemporary loft apartment or office. Her therapist’s office perhaps. The therapist who is helping her relax and come to terms with the deep need she feels to submit to an authoritative woman. The therapist who graciously offered to use hypnosis to help our protagonist accept and integrate the irresistible urges she gets to express her libido through the increasingly more kinky games she plays with herself. The therapist who can be trusted with all her most intimate secrets. The therapist who must be shown what a naughty girl her patient has been…

Now I just have to figure out what to do with that fan.

I hope you enjoyed this little behind-the-scenes peak. It was certainly an interesting experience to document a series of events that usually takes place in my noggin and, oddly enough, I do feel pretty inspired.

The source pic I found recently, during a particularly fruitful day of scouring for images. I didn’t know quite what to do at first, but a little succubi inspiration was all it took to get me going on the image. The story, I wrote this evening while tinkering with the last few aesthetic details. A bit wordy perhaps, but I never seem to be as pithy as I’d like to be.

Besides, its not about me, its about Tera: the woman who’s far too humble to acknowledge what a cornerstone of the mind control community she really is. Tera: who whips htaccess files in to submission and bends php to her will (and probably looks quite saucy doing it <wink>). Tera: who, I am honored to say, is my friend.

<big hug>
Congratulations Devil Woman.

So, in a fit of frustration I posted to twitter that I was going to finish a new manip in the following three hours. Now for those of you unfamiliar with this disease I have called ‘perfection’, know that a quick manip for me is usually measured in days.

So, when I perused my “To Do” folder to find an image I thought would be an easy project, I suddenly realized that two images I’ve had saved could work beautifully together. A quick check in Photoshop confirmed they were of comparable resolutions. So, full of new-found inspiration I set to work and here we are a few hours later and I actually have something to show for it.

Voyeurism carries with it the inherent danger of being caught, but I find that effect is deliciously heightened by some naughty mind control. What if you’re so distracted by the sheer eroticism that you don’t turn and leave quickly enough? What if you’re caught? They can make you stay…and eventually make you forget you ever wanted to leave at all…

Fun themes to explore; and it leaves me plenty to ponder as I muse over writing a caption. Though this one doesn’t have the polish I usually prefer, it feels quite nice to have something after being sidetracked for so long. As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

When I wrote about her blog last year, I talked about how her entries were more than just something to get hot-n-bothered over. Serena talked honestly about spending money she didn’t have on hypno-fetish videos and mp3’s, letting real-life plans take a slide to indulge her mind control fantasies, and losing the man she loved because he didn’t feel as important to her as her fetish. These things spoke to something in the very core of me…because I understood them all to well.

Shortly after my blog post, we started talking and became very close as the months went by. We formed our own little support group; encouraging each other to do constructive things with our love of hypno and mc, like writing and manniping. And I’m here to tell you, when serena, mind control, and writing got together, good things followed. She (and I) was very proud of a script she’d written for Nikki Fatale called The Black Room. It was a theme she’d later explore in a story she penned called The Brainwashing of Nina; which, after me bugging her about it for two days straight, she finally posted to the Garden where it belongs.

We shared an intense love for film making, screen writing, and all manner of creative endeavors. We dreamed up main-stream film ideas with nefarious mc plot threads like all those tv shows that had kinked us so many years ago.We marveled at all the quirky indie movies that shared a spot in our dvd collections. We talked endlessly about television and the amazing writing that’s happening there right now. We wasted many Mondays comparing notes on the previous week’s episode of Battlestar Galactica and Lost. We brainstormed dozens of ideas for scripts that we’d write together some day.

When Erik came back into her life earlier this year she was so happy; she loved him so deeply. She was so glad to have another chance to be with him and I delighted in her joy. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long after that her cancer returned. Over the last several months things were getting worse for her, but our friendship was as rich and alive as it had ever been and through everything we always found away to get ourselves laughing.

The day we shared our real names with each other was a good conversation; lots of humor, some poignant realizations, and some very good advice was traded that day. The last time we spoke, although the it didn’t start that way, it sort of became our “last conversation” talk. We said the things we wanted the other to know, made some promises, and said goodbye. I remember thinking afterward that if it was the last time we talked, then we went out on a good note.

Earlier today, I finally got to speak with Erik who passed along the sad news that she died over the weekend. I don’t know if its better or worse to have a great deal of time to contemplate mortality; I’ve had months to come to terms with the fact that she was going to die. Today, I don’t feel angry, or cheated, or regretful; I just miss her. I miss talking about writing and directing with her, I miss sending photos with heavy hypno overtones back and forth (one of our favorite past times), I miss our conversations.

I’ve been thinking all day about what I wanted to say about her, how to communicate how amazing she was. She was the most unique person I’ve ever known. She was delightfully vulgar; she was ridiculously funny. She was wise beyond her years and, though she disagreed, she was always the clever one between us. She was much better at giving advice than following it herself. She was supportive, encouraging, and comforting. She was very talented. She was kind. She was braver than I will ever be.

Mostly, she was my friend.

Her name was Alina and I miss her dearly.

Goodbye ‘A’, I love you, and I’ll always remember you, and I will keep my promise.