Nip / Pluck: An Adventure in Explaining My Process

A recent challenge was made to have several captioners take a single source image and put an individual spin on it.  The idea is that by explainining the thought process behind the scenes that new captioners might benefit.  Since the request has come up recently on the blog as well, I'll open this post up to do my best to answer any questions on my captioning process.

Here was the source image everyone was given to work with:

 

The first thing I noticed with the image is that it's a lower resolution tumblr pic.  That doesn't leave much real estate for adding text without modifying the image to add some.  I chose to remove the blur of red in the top right corner and stretch the shadow on the right to make more space.

The image itself gave me the feel of Snow White and the witch's hand for some reason, so I ended up on a bit of a fariytale slant.  Somehow, I settled on a reverse Pinnochio theme...real boy becomes puppet girl.  I added a frame to the image to give the feel of the classic storybook illustration brought into real life.

That left the writing.  It's the most important part of the whole caption to me.  The words should mesh with the image just enough to tie them together while letting the image speak for itself.  The controlling shadow hand in this image is ideal for themes of control and loss of it.

Since D/s themes can sometimes become heavy, so I chose a lively and fun font to keep things light.  It may not be the most readable font, but it expresses the undertones of softness and femininty I want the hidden dominant to have.

I like to add a teaser title to captions when I can to give a quick taste of the full caption.  I will usually put that in some 'dead space' in the image where it won't interfere with the core focus of the caption.

Last, and hopefully least, I add a transparent watermark to the caption to help deter other people on the Internet from claiming credit for my words and artistic adds as their own.  If this hadn't been a problem in the past (see here), I wouldn't bother.  Sadly, there are schmucks out there who scrape and repost captions while claiming they did the work.

And here is the final result:

Have questions on something I didn't cover in my explaination?  Ask them in the comments, and I'll try my best to answer.

Post Exam Jitters

It's been a long time since I've had either the time or motivation to create a new caption.  Inspiration struck me earlier today from an image that I found a few days ago.  Simone has been wonderful at making captions for me to hit various fantasies of mine, and I wanted to give her something in return.

I may not have hit her buttons dead on, but I wasn't really trying to put extra pressure on myself to hit one out of the park.  That will come in time as I try to shake off the rust and get back into the swing of things.

Without further ado, here's something new.

Update:  I realized after I posted that the text in the caption looked a bit rough.  I went back and checked a few things, and I had forgotten to smooth it like I normally do.  I'll leave the old version up to show what a difference a bit of text tidying can make.

Fixed version:

Old version with pixelated text:

Turn the Page

This photo practically screamed at me to create a caption for it.  I decided to go with a different direction than the obvious one.  Hopefully some of you can appreciate where I took this one.

Why Has My Captioning Slowed to a Crawl?

For those of you who have been following my blog for a while, you may remember the 'good old days' where I would churn out batches of captions one after another.  Those were fun days for sure, but there have been several factors that have contributed to the slowdown:

1. Work -- Work is the bane of captioners everywhere.  It's the thing that eats away at your free time, either in the actual time taken or the toll it takes on creativity.  I've been dealing with a shrinking development team and increasing workload for well over a year now.  It doesn't appear to be letting up anytime soon.
2. Family -- I have a family at home.  No.  I do not live at home.  I work.  I'm married.  I have kids.  All of them take time to do right, and I won't sacrifice family for my own bit of fun.  I get to caption when everyone else doesn't need me.
3. Play -- As I have mentioned a few times here on my blog, that I have a very strong interest in hypnosis.  Very strong.  As such, I've been pursuing other interests, such as helping friends experience the thrill of the feminine experience.  I've been helping quite a few live out waking fantasies of having the body that so many TG caption readers dream of.  I've been helping people too...using what I know to make a difference for those I can help.

Since it might be a bit until I get time to caption, I figure that I can open the floor to any and all questions you might have on the topic of hypnosis.  If there's something you've been itching to know if it can really work, just ask.  If there's a question you really want to have answered, this is your chance.

I'll start with a few obvious ones:
 

Can you be my hypno-Mistress?

See items 1-3 above.  I'm very busy and my dance card is pretty full right now.

I'm too strong for you to put me under.  I dare you.

Buck up, Sally.  You're as susceptible as anyone else to suggestion.  I could put you under, but your attitude would make you a horrible pet.

Can you really make me see my body differently?

Yes.  I've done it for quite a few people.  Unless I have a following of delusional yes men with lots of time to kill by pretending to experience stuff, I have made several people feel the joy of having their own set of breasts.

 

Join me

I've wanted to make a caption for Simone (http://misstresssimone.blogspot.com) for a very long time.  Every time I tried before, I always ended up scrapping a partially finished caption.  I finally found an ideal image and a story to go along with it formed.  Everything came together to make something I wasn't embarrassed to give to her.

Without further ado, here it is...

Mistress Knows Best

Has it really been over a month since my last caption?  Ugh.  Life had obviously been getting in the way of my creative time.

I had some quiet time last night so I made a caption for a dear friend, who I met through my blog here.  It just seemed fitting that my first caption in a while be made for someone who I met through the blog.  I'll try not to let another month pass without anything new, but I don't seem to be in control of the tempo of my life at the moment.

Enjoy it while you can...