Another Round of Formspring Fun

I have to say I'm loving how many questions I've been getting through formspring lately. It's always lot of fun having a direct conversation with you nice people. So let's see what you've got in store for me today.

Why haven't you done LUST yet, Rauk?

Why would I do the most obvious/ most fun sin first? It's all about building suspense, dear readers. I want you on the edge of your seat, anxious to see what's coming up next. Or at least willing to keep coming back when you've got nothing else better to do...

So don't worry, she's coming. But she's going to make you wait.

Rauk, what is the name of the model you used for Sloth? I find her very sexy, and would love to date her!

That would be the gorgeous, Sabrina Perri. You can find the gallery I pulled the image from here. You'll also notice that I did not use the full image for "Sloth," as I had to crop it significantly to work within the layout I used.

How long does it take you to make a caption, like you do with The Seven Deadly Sins?

and

How long does it take to make a caption like, let us say, Sloth, Rauk? Also, given most sites have guys pretending to be women, are such a person, or are you a real guy?

I'll start with the last part. I am a real guy, and for the most part that's the persona I use on this blog as well. Now there are times when I play around with that notion a little, such as in my last caption. But I'm a straight dude in real life, and a straight dude in the tg world...for the most part. There was this weird thing with this chick a while ago...I think her name was Kylie.

But now on to the main question of: How long does it take me to make a caption?

It really depends. I'd say on average the entire process takes between an hour and 90 minutes, but that's if everything goes smoothly.

Seven is a bit different as I put considerable more effort into those captions than anything else I've done recently. The most notable time sink was in finding the right images. When I usually look for pics to use, I don't have anything too specific in mind. I have a couple of sites that I regularly browse to see if anything catches my eye. In a normal session, I'll browse for an hour or so and come out with two or three pics that I absolutely want to caption, and maybe a couple others that have potential that I may or may not get around to actually capping.

Seven presented the problem that for the most part I already had a pretty clear picture in my head of what I wanted the girls to look like and the kind of poses I wanted them in. Ask any capper and they can tell you how much of a bitch it is to find an actual picture that matches what you've got in your head. Some of them I got lucky with and found almost instantly, "Wrath" and "Envy" practically feel into my lap. Others took FOREVER. "Sloth" was the worst. I probably spent over 12 hours looking for that image alone before finding something that worked.

Once I have the image the rest of the process flows pretty naturally. I use the same layout for 95% of my captions, so it takes me less than a minute to set that up. Depending on my mood I'll either create a background or just do a quick google search for various color abstract wallpapers to use (you can tell the difference pretty easily as the ones I make look awful in comparison). That process usually takes another 10 minutes or so. 

Then comes the story. This can take anywhere from 15 minutes to a couple of hours. Anytime I use a "mistress voice" where someone is talking directly to you or another person in the caption, that is stream of consciousness writing. I just think of a place to start and go straight through, doing almost no editing once I'm done. Those are the fastest and usually the most fun captions to write as they come so easily. But for more complex pieces like Seven it takes me considerable longer. Some go pretty fast, "Envy" took me 30 minutes or so, whereas pieces like "Gluttony" and "Sloth" took me over an hour to get right, and that's not including the time I spent thinking about the direction I wanted to take each caption in.

So there you have it, my creative process, anywhere from less than an hour to what works out to a couple of days as my free time is limited. 

You'll be happy to know that I now have all of the images I plan on using in Seven, so the most time consuming part of the process should be behind me. I'm currently working on the next installment which will be out a a little later today.

So for now, keep sending in formspring questions, or feel free to shoot me an email. I know I've been doing a lot of these segments lately, but I really do enjoy hearing from you and I want to keep responding to your questions pretty much as I get them instead of making you wait too long for a response. Until next time.