Doodles - - Cats have egos to

Ron · #1 04-02-2002, 10:45 PM

To keep in the spirit of this challenge I had to ask “Tom the Terrible” for help. Thankfully it wasn't too difficult. Tom supplied the inspiration and a few photos he scratched together. In the end “Terrible Tom” was quite pleased with the results.

To restore Tom's photos and to mount them as a haunting tribute only took a few hours with Photoshop 6. The photos themselves were extracted from low-resolution images using Photoshop's Extraction tool. Edges were fine tuned with a soft Eraser tool.

A simulated wood fill was created in Photoshop by adding Noise (60%)to a medium brown layer. Filter\Blur\Motion Blur (Angle=0, Distance 999) was used to streak this layer. A light dusting of Noise (6%) was added and Filter\Distort\Wave at the settings (5, sine; 10 & 198; 5 & 6; 100 & 100; Repeat Edge Pixel) was used to introduce a wavy pattern.
The frames were made from this simulated wooden layer by creating two sets of oval selections and moving them to new layers. New (smaller) oval selections were created inside the first ovals and then deleted. This left two simulated wooden oval rings. These wooden oval rings were contoured using an interior bevel layers style. (The smaller oval plaque was copied to three more layers).

After resizing and positioning the plaques, the images were tidied up and enhanced with a custom Boost filter and moved into place. Finally the labelling was added with a Black drop shadow and the image was saved as required.

To me this is quite a gruesome tribute, but it fits a cat's sensibilities purrrr-fectly.

Doug Nelson · #2 04-02-2002, 10:57 PM

Very funny! I especially like the little dog

DJ Dubovsky · #3 04-03-2002, 08:26 AM

You have had a lot of time on your hands, haven't you?

That is soooo funny.
DJ

Ed_L · #4 04-03-2002, 12:36 PM

Very cool!

Ed

CJ Swartz · #5 04-03-2002, 01:59 PM

Ron -- a perspicacious understanding of the ultimate predator.

now I know what happened to my neighbor's Chihuahua...

P.S. Very well done, and very funny.

Ron · #6 04-03-2002, 02:30 PM

Thanks everyone, I glad you liked it.

It took me a good couple of hours to find those little heads on the Internet. I must have visited 20 sites before I could find the frontal headshots I needed. The birds were the hardest, I guess they know when their picture is being taken and turn their head away.

T Paul · #7 06-07-2002, 03:10 PM

Way too funny! What a clever idea! The white mouse doesn’t look like it made it to the wall yet…does this mean he got away?

-T

Ron · #8 06-07-2002, 06:33 PM

Thanks T;

No the mouse didn't get away. For this catch Tom thought a side mounting -- like a trophy fish (only white and furry), would look better... He probably had his fill of mice that day LOL

Ron

Sanda · #9 06-07-2002, 09:48 PM

That's so cute and funny. Great job. I'm glad Tom didn't seem my goldfish or he might have ended up as a trophy too.

Ron · #10 06-09-2002, 01:21 PM

Thanks Sandra;

As you can tell I had a lot of fun with this challenge. Finding images that would fit within my overall theme was the hard part. They all were snatched from low resolution images which made them more difficult to work with.

I just noticed your Sydney address. My wife and I were fortunate to spend a month in Sydney a few years ago. We had a fantastic time and fell in love with the city. Our stay coincided with my birthday in October (before the hot "summer" weather). It was a depressing shock when we returned to Canada and landed in Vancouver in the middle of an early November snow storm.

Ron