JFlah's Blunders

Curse of Royalty 4 Volume Series Read them now! All four volumes are available at Smashwords at a discount! Or get them at Barnes & Noble or Amazon or request them with Overdrive . And just for you sweet people who visit my blog - discount codes!   Drayden's Queen, Vol 1, FREE on Smashwords . No code needed. Abandoned Queen, Vol 2 , discounted 75% on Smashwords. Enter code: ED27P   Foolish Queen, Vol 3 , discounted 50% on Smahswords. Enter code: BG78W   Cursed Queen, Vol 4 , discounted 25% on Smashwords. Enter code: RN63N

Got to do a fun video today - check it out. Just a few phone video clips to work with - the children's minister had some fun music and we had a title template that worked - might should have shortened that bit... anyway - was fun. Our new AVL guy should be showing up soon so I won't get to do as many videos like this. And he'll probably take over creating the bumpers :)  

Each year I have the privilege of making HD slides out of photos that parents send in for the Parent/Child dedication. I extended a lot of backgrounds this year but this one was one of the most challenging. Thankfully, this year, I didn't have to add any elbows or shoulders.   This is the original   And here's the finished slide - painted in the bench end and some bushes/grass Probably should have done something about the overexposure on her skin - it was a bright day but it turned out cute.

Help me decide on the omnibus cover - this one or the following one? And would one of those work better for volume 4?     Omnibus cover option 1   Omnibus Cover option 2 These are the volume covers:     Book 1 Cover Redesign     Book 2 Cover     Book 3 Cover     Book 4 Cover - Should I nix this surprised expression for something a bit more subtle? Which ever image doesn't end up on the omnibus?

 

  Had a blast digitizing this character that our children's minister drew for me. I changed a few things but not much - he's got skills LOL

Yep - we're getting close. Just wrote the last sentence of my epilogue and now I'm on to formatting. Several people have asked when the next installment of  Curse of Royalty . now I'm so close that I can start planning the release. I'm about to break out the chocolate cake and fireworks. Can't wait to shove this thing out of the nest but I don't want it to be half baked either. Once it's out there, it's out there forever. Thoughts on these cover mockups? Are they eye-catching? Legible?  I'll re-cover the first one and then choose one of these or something that feels like one of these for the physical book that, unless it turns out to be 400+ pages, will have all three volumes included. And brain storm with me? I'm struggling to solidify titles for the next two installments -  Series Title: Curse of Royalty Book 1: Drayden's Queen [pretty much set in stone] Book 2: Abandoned Queen ? Nine Years a Queen ? Book 3: Cursed Queen ?     Other titl...

  Current bumper [spring 2021] - it's not quite what I planned but Pastor was ok with it. Would've loved to have found some BRoll that could follow a person walking into frame and then away from the camera that would echo the series graphic a bit more, but this turned out ok. Found copyright free video stock and it worked well enough and then found some copyright free audio too.  

 In addition to the sermon bumpers, I've gotten to do several video collages lately. The ones that are the best are usually the ones when I'm not the only one capturing video on the front end and when I have an idea of what the end product needs to be. Yep, this pants-er will plans videos but not when writing fiction - go figure.  Did a baptism video last year shortly after our media director moved to a new job. Turned out pretty good - would've been better had we been able to figure out how to turn on the lights at the beginning instead of right at the end LOL - yeah - live and learn or you get smurfs, right? And then I did this one earlier this week. I wasn't there to capture video so we only had one camera man and it was not communicated to him that Pastor wanted to include a clip of each verbal testimony during the baptism so none of that got captured *shrug* It happens. But the camera man did an edit cut I was thankful Pastor was ok with us using in service [I flat...

 So... the boss sent copy and asked for a promo slide.  This design today reminded me of doing design for my Dad - he only knows what he doesn't want when he sees what I've done and I just have to laugh, make the changes and go on. So glad my Dad is like that - it's made me take change requests in stride - not take the comments as personal attacks but as statements of preference and the back and forth nearly always results in a better overall design. This is the true nature of the beast, folks. I took a risk and used a modern design fad for the design. I handn't refined it, but wanted to be sure I was moving in the right direction before spending more time on it. After it, he's says, "I like it, but could we include more of the choir too?" [Translation: That's not what I want; let's do something else.] Me: Sure After this second proof... Him: This is nice but, can you put men in there? Me: um, ok - more men. Gotcha. After seeing this next one...

 Got to play with a Final Cut template to do a quick sermon bumper with our vision info. I'm showing my ignorance of the program - it's not really refined this time, but Pastor liked it. I think I enjoyed editing the audio almost as much as working with the graphics.

 Got to learn something new - Played around with making 2D photos look dimensional. Was super fun and turned out great. Did the animation in AfterEffects and added the music in Premiere Pro. I usually work in Final Cut Pro but am trying to stretch myself some LOL  

 Got to do some photo edit and general restoration this week. Here are some before/afters. Even though I've been doing these sorts of things for years, I find that I still have lots to learn.

 Since everything else is getting a face lift, we're considering doing something to the main Mpact Kid's worship area. We'd probably project the text and logo onto the wall and use tape for our lines.  Books of the Bible design is a knock off of WildEyesSigns design. Here's a general mockup of what we're thinking:

 More stuff for the renovation for our Preschool area. Got to paint - love these kinds of projects.

 So much fun - designed three ovals for installation in the new preschool rooms.  Here are proofs and photos of them installed:

 Lots happening around here lately. I knew we were going to be doing wall wrap murals and graphics in the Family Life Center, but wasn't given directions. Then on a Monday, one of the bosses drops by the office and says basically, "oh, by the way, those murals and things need to be done by the first part of October - you can have the artwork done in two days, right?" LOL - yeah, that's how it works the whole world over. High bar for expectations and almost always last minute details. I spend two days with the decision maker trying to create a mockup that would make everyone happy for the new registration area. The FLC is a dual use building, so they wanted the graphics to be visible mostly if you're entering the main doors and not so much visible from the gym floor. Original: One of the many mockups: Final mockup: Mockup view 2: Directional wall which is also in that foyer: Here's a shot of the final directional wall after installation: And now I just need to ...

A friend brought me an old photo to digitally restore. Was pretty moldy, faded and such, but the final turned out pretty good. Here's the original scan:     This is the photo after the color correction filter. Had to fix levels, white balance, etc.   Then remove mold and scratches and dust one click at a time...   Fix the sky color and add sharpening and viola - almost new.

They're moving the little ones into the FLC too and they allowed me to design the wall mural in their main worship area as well as a few decals for the rooms. They put up the mural today. Here's one of the first proofs - scene too stylized for the audience.   Here's a screenshot of the almost-final version. Created it in illustrator and it took almost a week to complete. Most of the graphics are pieces from Vecteezy - mostly from artwork by Graphics RF . And here are a few terrible shots of it installed. Unfortunately the guys who installed were in a hurry so the seams aren't great, but the kids won't notice.