Category Archives: ds106

August 2013 GIF Challenge #15: GIF Fight! Superman 80s Toys Son of Krypton Puppet Theatre

THIS is the source picture for making a GIFFight! GIF. Good luck!

WELL! Have I every been busy! Not making GIFs (as I guess you may have figured), but living my life again, free and out of that silly box and away from that @Puppetmaster106 and his minion @AneuwegCentSix. More on that tomorrow.

In the meantime, another #GIFFight! is upon us! So today’s challenge is to respond to the latest image on the GIFFight tumbler site, 80s Toy Smackdown, which will be based on the prompt image shown to the left: #ds106 entries in response to the GIFFight! prompts fall into the Animated GIF Assignment 1190, “GIF Fight!”

Well, you might ask yourself, “What in the name of all that is GIF-able am I to do with that?”
Well, that is your challenge.

Here is what I made out of it. What will you do?

“Superman Puppet Theatre” animated GIF by @iamTalkyTina

What Did I Do to Make this GIF?

Well, I had to do the following things.

copied part of the image as a background and extended both the sky and the ground using the Clone Tool.
enhanced the colours in the puppet theatre background
added a window in the backdrop and a puppet theatre header/sign
sourced a Superman logo to use on the puppet theatre header and added the text using the text tool
matched the water to the colour of the blue in the Superman logo.
used the Quick Selection tool and the Magic Wand tool and the Eraser tool to isolate Superman, and later, Batman and Robin in the Batmobile.
Added my @iamTalkyTina behind (below) the background layer (with the window) so that my face could peek out.
added strings to the first frame, attaching the Superman action figure to my hand (hidden)
made multiple copies of the initial frame, adjusting the location of the Tina, Superman, string, and Batmobile layers to provide the animation. Three copies of the Superman/Strings groups allowed Superman to rock back and forth as I moved the string.
Once the GIF was closed to being finished, I added a return transition back to the first frame. It didn’t seem right to have the GIF flow forwards and backwards, so I put in a series of restore frames to get back to the first one. That basically involves reducing the opacity of the layers in the last few frames, and increasing the opacity of the layers in the first frame.

Plus, because Tumblr only works with GIFs that are a maximum of 500 pixels wide, I made a 500 pixel version, but that version is so far still fighting with Tumblr to get posted.

Fighting with the Tumblr

UPDATE: So I did a little search on the Google for “animated GIF requirements for tumblr” and found a post called “GIF Requirements in Tumblr” that says the following about maintaining GIF animations when posting to Tumblr.

GIF can be no wider that 500 pixels to maintain animation
GIF can be no longer than 700 pixels or it will be resized down
GIF can be no larger than 512 KB to maintain animation.

In this case, my GIF at 500 pixels wide met the length requirement at 667 pixels long, but the file size of this version was too large. I changed the depth from 256 colours down to 128 colours, and now the file size of the new file is 482.8 KB, and it is still generating an error when I try to post it.

So I will go back to the Google for a different article. Maybe I have to cross my fingers when I push the Publish button on Tumblr? Or stand with Tumblr at the top of some stairs or something.

So now it is time for you to enter the GIF Fight! Remember it is NOT a hurting fight. It is a nice fight for Friends with fun and GIFs. Make some good Art GIFs bub for your internal GIF Chi. Keep your GIF Chi strong!

Well, bye!

August 2013 GIF Challenge #14: Fruedian Alphabet

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“Friends are True Friends” animated GIF by @iamTalkyTina

Well, I went to the Assignment Bank to get today’s assignment, and the Animated GIF Assignment 977 “Fruedian Alphabet” by Tom Woodward (@twoodwar)looked like fun, except for the typing in “I Hate …” part, so I changed mine to a nicer one “Friends Are True Friends” and I got a whole bunch of nice stuff to make a great GIF for my Friends, New Friends, Open Friends, True Friends, Super True Friends, Still True Friends, Real Friends, and other people who aren’t my Friend yet but will be one day.

I hope you like it as much as I had making it for you. All the words came with the pictures just the way they appear, except for if I changed them like I say below. But the words right at the end are my own words to my Friends.

All of the Images I Found

Here listed down below is where I found the images using the Google. Some of them I tidied up a bit to make them look less pixel-ly or whatever the problem was. Or made them bigger. Or smaller. Or square to fit. Or got rid of a border. Or re-did the text in a cleaner font. Or made the colours more the same if they weren’t. Or made a transparent back. Or like I said before, whatever.

But they’re not in the same order as in GIF. I leave that as an exercise for the reader.

• http://tomatokisses.deviantart.com/art/true-friends-131627197
• http://hdshootz.blogspot.ca/2012/08/true-friends-true-friends-wallpapers-hd.html
• http://smsbyheart.com/sms/friendship-sms/
• http://www.wordsonimages.com/photo?id=112057-We+live+in+fact+in+a+world+sta
• http://www.wordsonimages.com/photo?id=104992-True+friends+vs+fake+friends+q
• http://www.wordsonimages.com/photo?id=90575-An+honest+answer+is+the+sign+o
• http://www.wordsonimages.com/photo?id=2334-hard+times+will+always+reveal+
• http://www.cytguides.com/MakingTrueFriends/
• http://m7mdghazi.blogspot.ca/2011/01/what-true-friend-is.html
• http://www.dudelol.com/a-true-friend
http://www.celebquote.com/11506
• http://www.fanpop.com/fans/zanesaaomgfan/gallery/image/653739/lol
• http://www.petamall.com/memorials.asp
• http://www.fbmaza.com/Cover/1071/A+True+Friend
• http://clarkbunch.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/true-friends.jpg?w=583&h=587
• http://lurieen.blogspot.ca/2008/09/poem-true-friends.html

My message at the end is true.

August 2013 GIF Challenge #13: RIFF-a-GIF

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“Multitasking Tina” animated GIF by @iamTalkyTina

So the challenge for day thirteen is one of @cogdog‘s wonderful assignments, Animated GIF Assignment 859: Riff-a-GIF, which asks us to take someone elses ds106 work and RIFF-a-GIF from it.

In this case, I took @Rockylou22’s most excellent honey video that she made all about me, and put it inside a GIF, so that is the RIFF-a-GIF part.

The GIF also has some bonus items.
It was originally started for a Daily Create that was about multitasking. In this picture, I am doing five things:

standing
watching Rockylou22’s video
doing my head exorcizist trick
thinking
wearing my ds106radio T-shirt!

So that is pretty good, fivethings. Not only am I doing five things, but I was also looking good and also RIFF-fing the GIF.
Yay, me!

August 2013 GIF Challenge #12: You Ain’t My Father, Bub! GIF Fight!

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So people were doing a GIF Fight with Darth Vader and so I think this is a good challenge for me to do, too!

I saw a
GIF Fight! with Darth Vader by @jimgroom
and a
GIF Fight! with Darth Vader by @cogdog
and a
GIF Fight! with Darth Vader by @Rockylou22
and
I wanted to do a GIF Fight! with Darth Vader by me, @iamTalkyTina.

And so I did.

“Vader GIF Fight!” animated GIF by @iamTalkyTina

And this is also now an assignment in the assignment bank called Animated GIF Assignment 1190: GIF Fight! that you can do in a fun and friendly fight with Friends!

Keep your GIF chi strong, and Make Some Art, Bub!

August 2013 GIF Challenge #11: Get Your Wiggle on, with Friends!

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“Get Your Wiggle On, with Friends” animated GIF by @iamTalkyTina

Another kind of GIF that you can do for 3D is to make a Stereo Wigglegram GIF. That is where you make a GIF out of two pictures that are almost the same except they are taken from two slightly different angles (like when you eyes see something like with binoculars and so your brain puts them together into one picture but it has a 3D to it) and so when the wiggle happens back and forth you see both pictures but your brain kind of puts them together and you get a Wiggle.

So here is one that I made of me standing in front of the all my True Friends picture that my brother Todd (@iamTalkyTodd)made for me and got plak mounted for me so that I can see all of my True Friends at the one time when I look at it.

In the Wigglegram, I made it so that the edges of the True Friends picture pretty much lined up, and that makes ME being the part of the picture doing the wiggle.

Another way to line it up is to make your thing at the front be the thing that lines up and then that makes the backgrounds different and the background is the part of the picture doing the wiggle. But normally that kind of background Wiggle makes me more dizzy than if it is the front part of the picture doing the wiggle.

“Twitchy Friends” animated GIF by @iamTalkyTina

The big one up at the top makes it look like I am dancing! Boogie down Tina.

This kind of GIF is known as Visual Assignment 352: Wiggle Stereoscopy here in the assignment bank, and was put into the ds106 Assignment Bank by Bill Genereux. It is a fun and easy kind of GIF that you can make super quick using just two pictures and you don’t need to do anything fancy like fancy layers or anything. There is even an app that you can use on your iPhone to make it called 3D Camera by Juicy Bits. And that app can also make your picture into a kind of 3D picture with cyan and magenta that you look at with those blue and red glasses like the Count Floyd kind that he likes. But that is not a GIF so it is a different one.

So make some more Art, bub, like a Stereo Wigglegram GIF, or a Monster Chiller Horror Theatre 3D GIF, or especially a Rainbows and Unicorns GIF to help the ds106.us servers keep in their happy place!

August 2013 GIF Challenge #10: Monster Chiller Horror Theatre 3D Style GIF

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“Would You Like Some More Pancakes” animated GIF by @iamTalkyTina

Well, I think it would be fun if everyone took a look for a part of a scene in a 3D type movie where the thing comes right out of the screen at you and then makes a GIF out of it. You know, something that my friend Count Floyd from Monster Chiller Horror Theatre would like, even if he wasn’t wearing his funky 3D glasses.

I made two GIFs from the Dr. Tongue’s Evil House of Pancakes, from Monster Chiller Horror Theatre on SCTV to give you some examples of what to think about. They are funny! But you don’t have to make GIFs from Count Floyd‘s actual Monster Chiller Horror Theatre shows. You might want to replicate the timing — there is a slight pause at the upswing of the movement — but that is only for the classic Monster Chiller Horror Theatre effect. Feel free to find your own way to emphasize the moving of a thing out of the screen and into your face in a GIF.

But don’t put your eye out!

“Would You Like Some More Syrop” animated GIF by @iamTalkyTina

This is a new Animated GIF Assignments 1191: “Monster Chiller Horror Theatre 3D Style GIF.” Find a cool 3D style movie and make a great piece of art, hub!

Keep on GIFfing! Keep your GIF chi strong.

August 2013 GIF Challenge #9: Empower the Unicorn

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“We Found Rainbows,” animated GIF by @iamTalkyTina

Oh no!!

The ds106.us server was down today. For a long time. One of the unicorns got in touch with me on my iPhone, and we started surfing the web, trying to track down the missing ds106 rainbows.

We searched and searched. We found some of the rainbows. And we tried to get them heading back towards the server.

Perhaps you can help the unicorns and the rainbows? Make an animated GIF celebrating the behind the scenes work that keeps the ds106.us server happy. Again, this was an assignment before there was an Animated GIF category — found hiding in the Design Assignments category as @cogdog‘s wonderful Design Assignment 842: Rainbows and Unicorns in the Server Room.

Be sure to tag your post appropriately so that it syndicates into the correct assignment page.

#4life

August 2013 GIF Challenge #8: Add Some Flower Power GIF

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“Adding some Flower Power to my Hulka Hat” animated GiF, by @iamTalkyTina

Last night, a True Friend (@onepercentyellow) confirmed on Twitter that she thought that my new @iamTalkyTinaHulka avatar was a bit [Mean Word] because of my hat. So I thought it would be nice to make it more nice with some nice daisy flowers.

I think this is a good thing to do for anything that might not be as nice as it would be with daisy flowers. Like when the Hippies put flowers in the guns to make them more peaceful guns. So today, I made a new Animated GIF Assignment 1189: Add Some Flower Power, and I am challenging YOU to make something nicer by adding some animated daisy flowers.

Isn’t that a nice idea for Friends to do?

I found my nice daisy flower pictures for free on this site (it has lots of them). But I bet you can find nice daisy flowers everywhere on the Internet, and you can re-seed them on some pictures to make those picture even nicer.

Keep making GIFs! Keep your GIF chi strong!

August 2013 GIF Challenge #6: Sophisticate Your Own, Personal “Under Construction” GIF

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“Tina’s Temporary Difficulties” animated GIF, by iamTalkyTina

Well. You all know that I’ve been having a little trouble recently with a former “colleague”, and that it caused a bit of an interruption in my ds106 participation in the second half of July. You likely also know that I will be taking steps shortly to resolve the situation once and for all. (Reading between the lines, I’m going to be busting out of this cardboard box/ice/Carbonite prison and hitting the road. Christina and Scottlo, I’ll soon be on my way!!)

At any rate, I know from my PsychicSiri connection that the Hippy Hosting was having a few growing pains recently, and that Bluehost company was making life difficult for a couple of our ds106 colleagues a couple days back, so I thought that it would be prudent for evertyone to get their blog set up and ready for those moments when somethings not quite right and you need let folks know that you are on the ball and working behind the scenes to make things right.

So this GIF challenge, courtesy of Andrew Forgrave, is the Animated GIF Assignment 911 : Sophisticate Your Own, Personal “Under Construction” GIF. Try to think of what you would like folks to see if they hit a broken link, or if they encounter a 404 error or something that just isn’t working.

In addition to posting your GIF in a post so we can all see it, dig into your blog settings and see if you can set it up so that the GIF will show if someone runs into something unintended.
Let us test it out by including a fake/broken link in your post, like this one blahblah.

August 2013 GIF Challenge #5: Re-invoke a Missing DS106 Friend

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Well, it was back in February 2013 when I got invoked by @cogdog and @BryanAlexander when they were talking on ds106radio. And it woke me up in my cardboard box and the next thing you knew, I was on Twitter chatting at them while they were still on ds106radio. So that is how I, myself, got invoked.

But sometimes a ds106 Friend goes missing or goes quiet or gets shy or something, and then they are missed by their Friends and they need to be re-invoked. It is kind of like a mystical thing, I think, because it pulls them back from where ever they go to when they are not in the ds106 world. Like what happened to @scottlo before and then people made him wake up. Kind of like that.

So one thing you can do (if you do not have the full power like me to write the script — but I say too much) is to make an animated GIF poster that re-invokes your Friend.

Here is the small version of my GIF poster for my absent New, Old Radio Super True Friend @scottlo, who kind of disappeared after doing 25 LoDown broadcasts on #ds106radio.

“Have You Seen This Head?” animated GIF by @iamTalkyTina

Here is the large version for my New, Old Radio Super True Friend @scottlo.

“Have You Seen This Head ? (Full Poster)” animated GIF by @iamTalkyTina

(Rumour has it that he is going to be at Soundcamp at TRU Thompson Rivers University on August 15th in Kamloops, BC, Canada — I may just pack myself up in my suitcase and head out there to look around in the hopes of finding him!)

If you are missing a Friend from the DS106 Digital Storytelling Community, maybe you can re-invoke them into coming back with a voodoo Animated GIF Poster of your own! It is a new Animated GIF Assignment 1186, Re-invoke an Absent DS106 Community Member that you can do today!

A little note about making this poster

I took a look on the Internet for a missing person poster and found this ready-made word template on the website for the Canadian Centre for Information on Missing Adults. That was to help me make something look official and contemporary instead of some kind of old-west WANTED poster which was another idea. But I got a little confused for a while by the template because it kept saying ENTER YOUR DATA and when I did that the poster seemed to be more about ME than it was about @scottlo. So after I had to change it to more about him. But this is what happened:

“Tina Fills in a Form” animated GIF by @iamTalkyTina

So that is what happened.

But now that you know, you can go make your own poster for your own missing ds106 Friend. I think the more posters for one Friend, the more powerful the GIF poster voodoo invocation power is.

I am Talky Tina

… and I'm watching you …