This is a Raven's Art Shack exclusive peek at Blink.
The simplest form of animation involves the blinking of eyes. You need only two frames, one for closed eyes and one for open eyes. An animated .gif needs a minimum of two layers. I drew the original with red ball point on loose leaf paper. I captured her image with my digital camera and closed her eyes with the smudge tool from GIMP software (open source and free to download). I added the original image as a layer. I select save image as Blink with extension .gif. The window pops up and asks if I want to flatten or save as animation. If I flatten the image it will be a still picture. I select save as animation. I pump up the delay to 368 milliseconds and 410 milliseconds for the second animation. I select to completely replace the frame. Voila I have created my first animated .gif! Yeah!
Making an animated .gif picture is simple with Windows movie maker. Upload the picture to the software. Click and drag the image to the timeline. Each image takes about 5 seconds of timeline. I composed 25 seconds of music using LMMS software (open source and free to download) using about 12 bars of music at 140 bpm.
Why create an animated gif? This kinetic art form is simple and fun to create. In the future I plan to make my own book trailer after I finish writing my first novel.
P.S. Welcom blog hoppers!
