Playing With Your Friends

Are you continually plagued by the need to photoshop your friends? Does the need to transform their clothes and whereabouts get your fingers twitching?Then look no further, this is the blog post for you.

Starting with the basics, you can always use the old trusty Paint.

Its easy, its on every windows computer, it doesn't complain about format, you can do a multitude of things on it. Here is a sample of what one of the taleneted people from Deviant art have done on it.

Or a lovely grandpa
www.vimeo.com/70748579


If you have a mac or are in just one of those situations, then there is paint online
www.getpaint.net/.


It doesnt matter if you dont know how to draw, Allie, from hyperbole and a Half, seems not to know very much about drawing but just look at this post. I challenge you to tell me this is not funny.

Free, (no registration needed, online editing photo tools)


If online editing is your game, and you cant use apps like Bitstrips because your phone is too old or you just don't fancy peering onto a tiny screen, then there is all these sites.

FotoFlexer
They say they are the most advanced online photo editotr, its quite a claim and propbably untrue as I think the greatest tools in the world are layers and liquify and it doesn't really have a way for the user to control either  with any degree of accuracy, but they are a nice stable, not too many pop up ads tool

Ipiccy
This is a good one, it seems to have greatly improved since the sad demise of Picnik( will no other online editor ever tell me its installing the sunshine) Its got great stickers to decorate your pictures with.

Luna pic
Is also a is great little tool, my tool of choice since Aviary(http://www.aviary.com/) went away, its got the liquefy tool, cleverly relabelled at the liquid resize tool and is great for hiding that prutuding pully or shrinking down jawlines so you can make your friends look like anime characters.

Fotor
Fotor is also a good tool. Really terrible collages though, has some really funny ideas about resizing and is very inflexible with letting you edit the shape of the individual pictures. Likes to crash, for no reason too, so if you think you'll just take time to get to know it, realise you could lose your 2-3 hours of work at any time, irrecoverably.

Collages

You can make just random collages, when one picture isnt enough and you need to blend a few pics to show an event or so

Photovisi
Turn each precious photo into a randowm shape where you cant see any of the actual pictures properly because of the filter they have used

Collage
I've not used this site, but if you have, feel free to give me some feedback on it.

Frames

Sometimes you just want a random pretty frame. This often means bouncing back inbetween sites edit the pic in one sie, add the frame in another site then go to yet another site because it had the right stickers. It's a tough old world.
Framemypic.com
loonapix.com/framer
adornpic.com/frames/

If you dont like it you can always learn how to use a package like GIMP, Inkscape or any other vector graphics editor. You may even have to dig deep and get photoshop and just download image libaraies or make your own stickers. See you in six moths then!

Gifs

If you have quite a few phots you wish to link together, like a wink or your frined jumping or dancing, you may wanna consider making your own gif.

Heres a good place.
makeagif.com/
Very easy to use and does exactly what it says on the tin.

Something deserves honourable mention and its Blingee. Do you miss the shockingly bad graphics of myspace and the early 1990s internet? Does the mere mention of the word gif fill you with thougts of glaring multicolours and uncesssary flashing?  Do you wonder how one person could hope to blend colour and  black and white photos with rainbows, bling and an obscene amount of cats expect it to be still tasteful? Wonder no more. Here is dedication to Paul Walker Go to the site, its much, much worse.

In their tagline, thry call it "A Creative Community for Fans, Photos and Fun" I think it's a product of people not being allowed to spend enough time outside to experience the mindnumbingly boring reasuance of the wind blowing the leaves of a tree, or the stars at night. Granted it is hard to understand the night sky. It is massive, it takes a whole year of watching just to see all of it and if you change hemispheres you have to do it all over again. Far easier to sit in front of your pc looking at an overdecorated gig, the loop comes round much quicker and its warmer indoors too.

Videos

A final thing you can do for your unwitting friends, is make them dance in videos you can sick their head on a moving template and voila your friend is now a disco dancer.
Here area few sites

mushygushy.com
blabberize.com
pictogames.com
muglets.com
gizmoz.com

Or just for Christmas, you can
www.elfyourself.com/

If you wish, you could even, go one step further and edit the video frame by frame

Jashaka
It is free and allows you to edit each frame to your heart's delight: effects, painting, etcetera. Because it is aimed at professional video editing, its learning curve is somewhat steep, compared to basic products. But after some practice, it rocks. (especially when you take into consideration that it's a free product!!!) The interface is quite intuitive and fast, once you get used to it.
 

Links

Remember, even so called professionals, don't know what they are doing, I give you Photoshop Disatsers
www.psdisasters.com

If you start to get really good at this and want a community to practice in, there's always the Worth1000 contests
www.worth1000.com/contests 


If this was a very entertaining read but you are not prepared to spend hours looking for pictures, chsoing effect, rearranging and oicking stickers then, there is always Fiverr
http://fiverr.com/mrgames417/photoshop-your-face-or-your-friends-face-onto-someone-elses-body

Tall costumes

Costuming while Tall

Real Life Batman

lf you're anything like me, you'll find that trying to find costumes to fit you is a dismal time wasting joke. Not even worth the bother. Costumes that are far too short and never ever fit on your waist.


I just make my own. Now there are some people who take this costume making business very seriously. I've seen one guy who dresses as batman, goes out to do charity work for children, has his car exactly like Batman's car.


He had his costume made by a professional, paid about £5,000 for it. Sweats like he's just stepped out of a swimming pool everytime he wears it. I just can't dedicate that much to a costume, I'm afraid. Though have tons of respect for him, his dedication. Also jhe's probably very rich. I just can't spend that much on a costume while I still haven't got those driving lessons yet, or taken that holiday, or got a bigger place. That's why when it comes to costume making, there are levels. Its perfectly illustrated in this picture here from StudioDIY.

I would say I am the last 3 categories.

Headband Costumes(Fascinators)

Making these worked well, just mostly creating a head band costumes. A catsuit and some foam and lots of paper attempts made me catwoman.

 

 Or you can don a yellow dress and go as a pineapple

Once, I decided to go as kitsch as possible, Japapese street style. I had a barbie doll, cheap plastic flowers, blingy costume jewellery, went for it all. It all worked well till I got on the bus, high heels, barbie doll on my head and low roof, were not a good combination.

Avoid such mishaps by turning your headband on its side

Other people to inspire you  

AlphaMom
http://alphamom.com/family-fun/holidays/easiest-kids-diy-halloween-costume-idea-ever/

StudioDIY
http://www.studiodiy.com/2013/10/09/diy-clever-halloween-costume-toppers-part-1/

Wigs, Gloves, Belts, Socks

Additionally if you have the time/money you can add wigs, gloves, wings or knee high socks (double as boots)

I got into wigs, because I found one for for 3 quid in Primark, them again all different colours in a pound store. It was great to be able to carry off a whole dramatic look without any permanent trauma to my hair.

I became a bit obsessed and found myself at a wig store in Finsbury park looking for wigs. Looking at cosplay.com www.cosplay.com  to try to find more wigs.  Here are some reserve ideas for quick costumes.

 You can make your own wig using wool.

If you've got blonde hair or a blonde wig, here is tutorial using eyeshadow from the extremely talented LoveMaegan.

Glasses

 

Costumes that look like they have glasses are a graet help

Wearing glasses and wanting to wear a costume or mask also has its own problems.  Making your own overcomes lots of these problems. Foam, found in packs in craft and pound stores everywhere, is your friend. You can also glue stuff to your old glasses or broken glasses or to a cheap pair.
Another option is to pop out lenses from an old pair an attach them to your mask.


Here are some glasses mask make up tutorial
GreatGlassesPlayday
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkPdK996C7U

Make Up

There is always the option to add a thick layer of make up. If you already have the skills and make up its a good option. You can pick it up with some practice

Downside is closing your eyes for picsFromIceCreamKiller

Here are some tutorials, you can practice at home, on those long, long Sundays when youve got nothing else to do but alot of day still left.

Manga girl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aox_CNdokXY

Another manga girl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLvSSyTgmsM

http://bruingrrl.deviantart.com/art/Pop-Art-Makeup-383001554

Pop art/ Comic book

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNQuZ4c34P8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXHx-zuTeJM

There are alot of skull make up tutorials but I take public transport and I'm not a big fan of terrifying strangers, but I think this skull make up is ok, makes the point but is not hideous

Day of the dead skull
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za8Tk4xolxA

Engineer style

You wanna go all outto the max, really spend a whole year reseraching, sourcing, saving, practcing and trying out your costume, then give the people on cosplay a visit. There are even people there who rehearse lines so they can stay in charachter the whole time. Maybe I will do that if I find a partner in crime for this and we keep trying to outdo each other.