bookmark_borderGif Art: Remember Me When I’m Dead

I’m pretty sure my gif art will last longer…existing forever in the digital space.

I made this in After Effects following this tutorial on YouTube, rendered a 30 second video and brought it into Photoshop, converted it into frames and saved it as a gif.

bookmark_border✨Friday Mood 12/21/18✨

“I know this steak doesn’t exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss.” Cypher // The Matrix 1999

How does it feel knowing you’re a slave existing in the matrix? I’ve been practicing all the self-help shit consistently, reprogramming my brain telling myself that I’m ‘free’ from all of this…

and yet today, this is how I feel. Coming in to work everyday going in waves of contentment to dissatisfaction then back again in a continuous, infinite loop.

Rest your mind, unplug for a bit. But will you do it though? Probably not.

My mood is definitely bleak today.

I suppose I should tell someone to “give me credit” for creating this, but I just don’t care. Credit me or not, none of it matters.

Also, reminding myself to grab a Selenite & Rose Quartz for my MIL this weekend, I’m hoping it will help with her Parkinsons.?

bookmark_borderWhat is Self-Love?

Loving yourself has been on the rise as of late and I really think it’s here to stay. Maybe perhaps it’s WHAT I’ve been choosing to see/experience more and more of and so now I see it everywhere; at least in my digital/real world. It’s a beautiful thing to witness people loving themselves, but what does it mean exactly?

Continue reading “What is Self-Love?”

bookmark_borderHappiness is the Center

happy-face-stars

I couldn’t come up with a better title for this post, so this will do. I’ve been wanting to blog, but I’ve run out of things to talk about. Truth be told, I really don’t have a whole lot to say other than life is good and all is well in my world. And I really don’t want to force it either; perhaps sometime soon, more ideas will come through that will be worth blogging about.

In the meantime please continue to pursue peace, love and happiness for yourselves; continue to sparkle and shine on no matter what’s happening around you. You deserve to live a stress-free life. Don’t feel guilty that others are miserable, remember that you are only responsible for YOU.

Maybe I will write a tutorial on how I created the animated gif above. We shall see!

bookmark_borderAnimated GIF: Trippy Flower

I was trying to get this GIF to loop seamlessly in After Effects. Haha, it’s a 10.4 MB file, original drawing on my Instagram.

I started off with a drawing that I did today, took a picture of it and sent it to my email. I then separated the stem from the flower in Photoshop into 2 parts so I can animate it in After Effects. I also had to fill in the gaps on the stem – so when I rotate & scaled the flower, the top of the stem doesn’t disappear.

Trippy Monday, life is good.

bookmark_borderFear of Promoting Yourself with Video?

Fear is a strong word and not the word I prefer to use, but merely wanted the title of this post to jump out at you.

I’m sure you are aware of this already – people are posting more videos these days, whether it’s on Snapchat, Periscope, Vine, or YouTube. Do a Google search and you’ll see that YouTube is in the top 5 of the world’s most visited websites.

I feel like I’m one of the very last people on planet Earth to get on board. Why?

I’m not exactly new to video marketing; I’ve posted some videos on behalf of the company I work for. But no real, live people were involved; and I only used my voice, once. It was awkward, at least for me. The videos were mostly made in After Effects with existing photos and audio. I’m still learning how to edit in Premiere.

I’m terrified of the thought of people looking at my face, let alone watching me talk. I know I’m not the only one, right? Plus when you come from a graffiti subculture where your painting skills were more important than your face (NOBODY ever showed their face)…you kinda see why this is a challenge for me, right?

It’s not like I’m hiding or am deliberately antisocial in everyday life…video is just very new territory for me when it comes to myself.

Although for me personally, I’d rather go with the artsy type of video like this one. It just seems like people are starving for content though – like how to videos, tutorials, life hacks, etc. If you are a business owner or just promoting yourself it’s just not enough anymore to have a website or blog, or to just post on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Video is pretty much already part of the internet landscape. A lot of people don’t even want to read anymore, for fuck’s sake; they’d rather watch a video. I like to do both.

Anyway, so I’m trying to figure out how to leverage using video for my stuff. I guess the main obstacles are:

1) come up with a video that will be of use to others and
2) get over myself and the fear of my face being shown in video :/

The video above was made in After Effects – just playing around with the CC Mercury and Particles plugin. Then I made the movie into a GIF in Photoshop. If you pull the file down, you’ll see that it’s a 10.7 MB file with 353 frames, lol. Your GIFs shouldn’t be that big but I did it anyway. Maybe I’ll make a tutorial soon once I have the steps down…

If you happen to be reading this and have posted videos on YouTube, how do you get over being nervous when it comes to creating videos that feature yourself?

Not sure what to post or vlog about? I searched for 10 Simple Vlog Ideas for You to Try Out

bookmark_borderThe Unicorn: A Magical Symbol

Most girls grow up loving unicorns when they were young, I was definitely one of them. I had an insane collection of My Little Ponies and She-Ra’s unicorn.

As I learn more about spirituality, metaphysics and symbolism – I’ve come to realize that the unicorn is not just a mythical creature to be adored but also a symbol of magic – a symbol that you can meditate and draw upon when you need some imagination and creativity in your life.

The unicorn is synonymous with imagination, dreams, fantasy, magical things, otherworldly realms, thinking of the impossible. And I totally get it now.

Here is an old drawing that I made into a GIF.

So today, dare to dream. Dare to imagine that anything you can think of is possible.