Keep the string alive

Well I won't say I've been perfect, but I have been pretty good about posting everyday,
and I'm trying to keep the sting alive.  I didn't have time to work on anything today, so
these are from my secret stash.  The girls in the first two captions are black and white
images that I have colorized (using several layers).  I love the old gowns, so colorizing
is OK because you can study the details while you're working, but it does take about
a half hour to colorize each girl.  The third image is just some simple Photoshop stuff.

I really hate explaining jokes, but anyways here we go - when you see pictures of
the Red Baron, he's not red, his plane is Red, he exudes hate (which is angry=red)
so he is always shown with a black flying jacket and goggles, his eyes glowing red
with hate.  The Red Baron does not wear Red! so if he had a brother who was
the Pink Baron, he would not wear Pink, he would exude "pinkness", he would
be flying in a lovely outfit, exuding pinkness, and meeting the Allied flyers, waving
blowing them kisses, saying "Hi Guys! How about them Vikes!" 

Now "The Prairie Boys" are young men in their early twenties, who filled with
entreprenurial spirit, creativity, and a desire to serve the public have started
their own business.  It's set time time in the mid-1800's on the Iowa prairie.

Dr Moriarity was Professor Moriarty, but he went back to get a PHD in Theatrical
Make-up, so now he's a Doctor  (I hope you didn't spend time actually reading this!)

Now I did a really silly thing and somehow managed to delete the very first post
of "Transformational Honeymoons" (posted way back on November 12th of 2010
Yes, we will soon be celebrating one month of Blogging! Yeh team Samantha1!)
anyways, if you will permit me, I'd like to repost it here, for sentimental reasons.
The title was:

Samantha's first blog (oh, very exciting!)

So let's see, I purchased the CS5 Photoshop package about half a year ago, and I've been learning to use it.
I've had an interest in guys dressing as women or men turning into women for as long as I can remember,
It's all quite fascinating really. So I'm combining these two interests in this blog.  One of my primary goals of this blog is to keep it relatively tasteful, considering the subject matter.  Why don't I just start by posting a couple images, and you can decide for yourself if it is to your liking.

PS - since I've explaned everything else, I'll try to explain these too....
mindscape would be like the landscape of your mind (well hopefully not your mind)

and if you've ever tried to expain a vivid dream to someone else - everything going on
in your dream is weird to somebody else.  So saying the next thing that happens is
a little weird is funny because it implies everything else wasn't weird

Anyways....

Special Sports Edition



"Blonde -Me", because let's be honest,
there are mornings when you would really,
really, really like to forget what you did
last night

So I was added to Femur's link page yesterday,
and a whole bunch of new people visited this
site - so Hi, and thanks Femur.

Of course, after being added to the "Caption Blogs" section,
I put up a Visa card for "Sam's Really Fun Bank" yesterday,
and a box of "Blonde-Me" today -neither of which is a caption.
Boy, to do I get off on the wrong foot.

Here's the front of the box, before the perspective distortion.
That's a steering wheel she's holding on to. The poor little thing's
slumped behind the steering wheel of her car in the driveway and
she's just waking up the next morning, and like it says, she would
really like to forget last night.  [of course, I don't really think blondes
are more spacey and forgetful than anyone else, but some girls do
dye their hair blond so they can "act" really dopey]

Bear with me, because I am posting some special

sports edition captions. Yes, actual captions today!
(yeh I'm trying to appeal to that male demographic
with these sports captions- Hi Guys!, Go Vikes!)

The person I sent this to (at Rachel'sHaven) had made a reference
to a "Gordie Howe Hat Trick" as a goal, an assist, and a fight -
she then wondered what an Ice Girl Hat Trick was -
A hug, a kiss, and a trip to the locker room with one of the guys after the
game - so that's the Ice Girl "Hat Trick" beng referred to.

Well I  hope you come back

Cashing in on Christmas

This card is way cool

Riding Jacket - remember, "Charge It!"

This Bling is the most God awful thing I've done Photoshop -Buy it anyways, remember to say "Charge It!"

So I've got Irving Berlin's "Holiday Inn" on the DVD (kind of
charming - I'm watching the black and white version not the
colorized version -you guessed right).  But it's the post
Thanksgiving  Black Friday Record Sales Period! and I'm
trying to figure how to "Cash in on Christmas" like every
body else.  So those are some good deals up there, and
be sure to charge your sales to your Sam's Really Fun Bank
credit card -you won't be sorry when New Year comes
around.  If you can't trust your Credit Card Company,
who can you trust?

Like nobody knows the difference

So, anyways I've got this really odd string of luck going.
I took my dog to a different dog park today, and some
other dog jumps on top of her and attacks her! The owners
are this older couple who stand there watching my dog
being attacked. So I run over and break it up, and start
looking for wounds, which is tough because she's a long
haired breed. While I'm doing this, they are yelling that
my dog attacked there's etc.  So eventually the Police get
involved and it turns out that their dog has attacked other
dogs, where as mine is a show dog, so she's like a big
fluff ball with legs, but she's trained for Conformation
and Agility, there's is "controlled" by an electronic
shock collar -I mean who are you going to believe?
Luckily she has so much hair that no damage was done,
but what kind of jackass do you have to be to tell the
Police that your out-of-control hunting dog was attacked
by a fluffy little fur ball show dog, and think that nobody's
going to know the difference. 
Hey, friends, lying is for cowards,
I'm not going to go waving anybody's banners, I'm just saying,

So anyways on to the captions - I did two today, each one took
about an hour, not as good as yesterdays, which is still way cooler.
I probably should say something about them, instead of talking
about my dog -What kind of way is this to run a blog?
you are right, of course,next time I'll try to do better

Slats Beeson, the story, the play

that's today's caption -it does look cool, you decide what it means, on to business!

Mr. Herbert "Slats"  Beeson, aka Berta Beeson was a famous center-ring wire walker,
who from the age of 11 to the time he retired in 1936 performed as an attractive female
impersonating wire-walker. He was a headline, center stage act (the Julian Eltinge of the
tight-wire).
He was with Sells-Floto from 1917-1922, and Ringling Brothers/Barnum and Bailey
from 1923-1936.  When he retired as a performer, he worked as a 24-hour man
(the advance man for Ringling Brothers). Apparently in the off-season he also performed
 in Vaudeville, en femme. 
I have read that he was considered masculine by the other performers and enjoyed
playing baseball - so the female impersonation was correlated to his perfomance in the
ring (or on stage). 

I am interested in writing my third play about Mr. Slats Beeson.  I have in the past
performed in an amateur circus as a fire juggler/stilt walker, and it is my intent to portray
Mr Beeson as a genuinely interesting character (I am still a huge fan of the Circus, even
though I no longer perform).  If you do have any more information about Herbert Beeson,
please let me know.

I have attached (2) posters of Berta Beeson that I have found images of below :

M'lle is an abreviation for Mademoiselle I think, so Sells-Floto is advertising
Slats as a girl, where as Ringling Brothers, being more market savy is
advertising him as the Julian Eltinge (a famous and elegant cross-dresser) of the
high wire to sell tickets to men who found this exciting.

I've trained on the low-wire ( a wire at 5' so when you fall you don't hurt yourself)
and it is really difficult - but some people do take to it easily, and Slats was obviously
a natural.  I'm thinking a pretty, petite 18 year old girl in a "pants" role could play the
part of the 11 year old boy and Berta Beeson the performer - so that it wouldn't
offend anyone.

I have, in the past written two musicals, I made several thousand dollars from my
first, even though it was never produced, and completed my second, it was not
produced either, but I can write a play when I set my mind to it.

So the play would start with the retired performer Herbert Beeson trying to get
the circus ready for the next move, he'd run into some some insurmountable
problem, start reminiscing about his days on the wire, the girl would come out
do some "learning to wire walk", do some "manly" stuff, do her actual good
wire walking routine, the scene would switch back to the present, where in
order to solve the "insurmountable problem" Herbert decides that he has
to once more dress up as a woman - meets a guy who for a pretty lady,
bends the rule or signs the lease, whatever, and then in drag, there is
a convenient low-wire around  (this is a play after all) so Slats, thinking
he's alone is on the wire when a couple guys walk by - one says "get
down lady you're gonna kill yourself'" the other pointing to a faded poster
says "oh I think she's perfectly safe" and points to an old faded poster
and says "hi Slats" Curtain falls.

So that's the rough outline - guess who I'd like to cast as Slats Beeson
(oh darn you guessed -and  you'd be right -me.)

Girls Night at the Circus

I watched "The King and I" on DVD last night -one of the
greatest musicals ever written, by the way, and have had those
"swirly, girly" songs in my head all day (I'm not complaining,
I'm just saying). 

I'll be spending a Traditional Thanksgiving (hint - traditional)
with my parents, and my brothers family.  It'll be nice, but it can
get long sometimes, so you sit and smile, and eat too much.


On to business!
I made this caption this morning from a hand sketch I've scanned
in, and I thnk it came out really good - it took about 2 and 1/2 hours,
and what really jumps out as I read it is the central figure is now married,
so yeh, what's up with that?

Well, honestly, I've been wondering if there might be a little bias in TV/TG
captions against people who present themselves as having an interest in
men (which sounds kind of funny really, but I'm going try a few married
couples, and see if I get a more positive reaction)

So without further ado:

I'll explain who Berta Beeson (the guy on the high wire in the posters) is in my next post

Here's the drawing I started from (most of my hand sketches look like they've

been in a war zone - I use the eraser a lot)

I think I'm going to lay low

Well there's some good news and some bad news - got a call back from the
Attorney and they're going to petition the Court to reinstate my drivers license,
so that's cool

I had to do it over the phone because I had to take the truck to the shop,
so yeh, I'm having a run of it lately.  But while I'm waiting to hear what's
wrong, I'm vacuuming my room (stop laughing, it has to get done doesn't it?)
and I'm going to go ahead and post my first annual Thanksgiving Caption!

Basically, I'm kinda thinking tonight I'm just going to pour some Bailey's on ice,
put "The King and I" on the DVD, and curl up with my dog, and see if I can
lay low and wait until this ill wind blows over.

Anyways, I did this caption this morning, it's one of those where you wake up with
something in mind, grab a pen and 10 minutes later you're done, then as I took
a shower I figured out what background I wanted, and the little gag in the corner,
so the whole thing took me maybe an hour -but it's a good caption, especially
for this Thanksgiving:

It's sort of like driving drunk, only with pictures

So, I'm new to this blogging and as I re-read the last post it occurs to me
this blog is sort of like driving drunk, only with pictures  (and words).
To reiterate, this blog is about TV/TG themed pictures, and some of the creative
and technical side of creating my pictures ("artwork", if you'll permit me that term)
in photoshop.  It's not about speeding tickets, so let me get this out of the way
and move on:

I've calmed down from yesterday, I'm not going to go storming into the Police
Department and raise a stink because some government employee stole my money.
It happens - it happens all too frequently, and that is truly unfortunate, but I have
the receipt. I need to just take care of it and get on to the important things in my
life.  Let's be honest - I have enough problems all ready (and that's not self-pity).
I'm going to get my drivers license un-reinstated, I'm going to write a letter
documenting this to Sen. Al Franken, and then "wipe the dust of my feet" as the
Bible so aptly puts it.

So I've beens sleeping since the last post, which means I'm just going to have to
pull something out of my secret stash of Photoshop captions that you haven't
seen yet, and pretend that it's new - are you ready......

My Newest Captions!

I was trying to show-off a bit in this picture, combining several captions, light effects
and trasformtions.  But when I look at it it seems a little cold and desperate - there's
a human connection missing (which is what happens when you try to show-off)
Still, technically, it is impressive what you can do in Photoshop

There's a really funny line in this note, which is sort of in bad taste.  I won't spoil it for you,
I'm just giving you a little warning:

 Fighting for Truth, Justice, and the American Way, and a peek up his girls' skirt

Hi Helen!

Never pay a speeding ticket in cash

Never pay a speeding ticket in cash! I found out the hard way that the City Clerks
steal the money, and when you go to renew your driving license some guy tells you
"Did you know your license has been revoked?" and of course, like the dead beat
scoff law that I am, I'm saying  "No, what do you mean, etc, etc" -so that's how my
day went.

Fortunately, I kept the receipt, but I thought I'd paid by credit card or check, so
it took me 5 hours to finally find it (as you may have figured out my "filing system" is
an absolute disaster).  But I get to go over to the Police Dept  tomorrow and call these
people out for being a bunch of crooks -I'm really PO'd about it - I could have been
pulled over and thrown in jail for the expired license, and I really don't want to spend
a night in jail with a bunch of drug addicts and rapists
(no offense to the drug addicts and rapists reading this - Hi guys.)

None-the-less, I did work on my new avatar, as promised.  It took about three hours,
and I really like how it turned out - this is a lot closer to what I think of when I
hear "sexy picture" -holding hands as the sun sets, the couple fading into the mist,
for their eventual union under the stars, so yeh, I like how it turned out:
(It would be so easy to interpret this as the girl being a spirit emerging from
the guy.  That's probably why I gravitated to this specific color/filter combination,
but the original drawing is clearly a pretty transvestite and a handsome naked
guy holding hands, if you go back to the last post)

and a couple bonus book covers - generally silliness -I do get a kick out of
"men were coming in, but they weren't coming out" at the Transvestite Club,
but I will admit "they weren't coming out" may not have been the best word
choice

 and yes, it does say: when "she" isn't a he (because that would be so disappointing)

Avatars - you could write an entire post about them

I joined a website forum recently called Rachel's Forum which is, for me a pretty
fun site, but considering that it is a site for captions about transforming and transitioning
to being a female, it can get frustrating, because so much of it is "guy porn" really -
where's the "girl porn" - the excitement of suddenly being kissed (when you want to be),
things about buying shoes and purses, dressing up for a night out, the dear diary tonight..,
evaluating the guy you are dating (girls all do it), long walks on the beach (I mean for
Heavens sake, what's sexier than a long walk on the beach - you know where that is going
 to lead), etc, etc.  Anyways so I've been trying to fit in over there, and suprise, suprise,
I don't feel like I fit in - who'd a thunk it.  Being in a bit of a bitchy mood about that I went
and changed my avatar from the flirting girl drawing (I didn't do that drawing -I found it on
the internet) to a Cow in the Box (it is one of the exercises I've completed in the
Steve Caplin -How to Cheat in Photoshop) -  so all the other guys have avatar's of this
large chested half naked lady or that large chested half naked lady, and I am portraying
myself as a cow in box, which is funny actually, if you're in a bitchy mood.  I'll go and
change it in a couple days, because and some point it won't be funny, it will just be weird.
That's such a fine line.

Anyways, I'm going to change it to the third drawing it's just a hand sketch now but I'm
going to colorize it in Photoshop and it should look really nice -so this is the before,
and hopefully tommorrow I'll post the after.  Then finally a really silly "motivational
poster" - the starting point was a Steve Caplin -Art & Design exercise, but obviously
I altered the exercise to suit my own sense of humor (with "friends" like these....)
it is obviously meant to be humorous, no one in there right mind would take it
seriously - but a genuine observation: in real life if you walk into an office and the
guy has a motivational poster on his wall, you're dealing with a real phony.

I really like the hand sketch as a starting point, just that expression of joy as she
leads the guy -it's like "holding hands can be sexy, really" so it's interesting
visually, but it makes a subtle point too. It will make a nice avatar when I'm done

Somewhere between here and there

I really like this caption a lot.
The visual idea behind it is really simple: somebody stepping out of
the shower and seeing themselves in the mirror and a silly idea pops
into her head and she writes "Hi friend!" - but I think a lot of people
could relate to coming to a point in your life where you finally stop
hating yourself, and start accepting yourself and then you can make
real plans and achieve real goals (and realize that the goals you are
setting are the real goals).

When I finished this caption I sent this to someone over at Rachel's
Haven, and I had to modify the weight lost because I didn't want to
make it seem like I was calling her fat but in my case for 11/15/2010
the real number was 30 pounds, and I'm pretty proud of that because
it has all been eating healthy meals and excercise, and getting a good
nights rest. So, obviously I'm not the girl in the picture (bummer, eh?),
I'm just someone on the road between here and there. Probably
won't ever there, but so what -  "hi friend!"

Technically the effect is really simple - I took the original image
copied it to a new layer added the mist effect on the second layer,
then erased the letters using a wide, soft brush to reveal the
underlying image - it took longer to write about then to do
simple, effective and like I said I really like this one.

hot off the presses

I just finished up this colorization of one of my drawings, and I thought I'd share it here,
along  with a caption I included it in over at the Rachel's Haven forum:
(feel free to post a comment)

The first "Pink Silk" caption

Continuing this trip through the archeaology of my months of Photoshop
experience, the next step was a little bit more creative still -
more careful selection of the figures, shadows, layers, the computer
generated pink silk background, fonts, layers, etc - so this is the
first caption that I really like simply for its graphic manipulations.

Which pretty much bring us up to date, because you'll see a lot of
pink silk captions, along with other new things as we go forward.

Little Baby Steps

So then I made some little baby steps (in a creative sense) -
I added a stained glass effect, an eliptical selection, simple
these like that - but grapically it is getting more interesting

The Good Old Days

Two Months ago, I owned Photoshop CS5, had spent a ton of money on the software,
and couldn't do a damn thing with it - it almost made me cry.  But I persevered, bought
some Steve Caplin books, worked diligently through the examples and in three
months went from not being able to do anything to where I am now -but you do
have to actually do the examples, not just read it and think "OK I can do that" because
no, it won't work for you at first. And don't skip anything, if the example says you do
x and y happens, and it doesn't when you try it - you need to figure out what you are
doing wrong, not just give-up and go on to the next step.  The simple early exercises
took me several days to do things that now just take me a few minutes - you have to
figure out why you can't do what the books say you can do - it's tough to explain, but
once you get it, it starts being fun (yeh, it really sucks (in the negative way) at first.

The other point is you can't just do exercises - at some point early on, you need to start
using the software creatively -you still have to keep doing the exercises, this is additional
work - yes, your right friend - that sounds like it will take a lot of time to learn at first.
but the results can be impressive.

After about a month of exercises, I started doing some really simple captions (this would
have been three days work last month (Mid-October).  Nothing more than a background
layer, a picture I found on the internet, and a humorous caption I'd make up to go with it.
(I was going with a Fairy Tale theme on these)

So these were my first captions, back in "The Good Old Days" (last monh)
(basic captions like these are really, really simple  to make - but it does let you start to
use the software in a creative way):

I've been a busy little bee

 here's my latest, I kind of like these colorized hand sketches, and here's using it in a caption:

 and a bonus poster - this one cracks me up (which is why I did it, because no one
else is going to get it, so enjoy it as artwork)