Effective immediately, CatsPaw Digital Photography is no longer operating in its former capacity as a small business.
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Two new environment cards, Rainy Season and Deep Snow, have been added in card game project #3, which still needs an official name. Likewise, the 'back' links on the individual card pages work now and a second downloadable deck should be added by the end of the day.
Project 3 is a collecible military card game intended to be freely distributed with its manual, printed off on home printers on cardstock and played by anyone who wants to. There will be a page dedicated to it eventually but right now the vast majority of the art is playtest.
Its currently in playable but playtest condition. Updates and further posts will be forthcoming. Shame about how that halloween party turned out but at least I found a use for the invitations. In any case, the card above is the only one that uses my own art as of yet; all other art is playtest art that I found on the internet so CDP can only take cred for the card designs. Here we have blanks for air units, bases, fortifications, ground land units, naval units and order/tactics. Not pictured are ground support units and environment cards.
There's no video for this expedition, since I haven't done a video since the 'simple syrup' thing months ago. But here are a couple of pictures that have been processed of the falls, my watch and a tree.
Also, CatsPaw Digital now accept's payments via PayPal. It isn't ideal, but since CatsPaw Digital Photography doesn't accept credit or debit cards, PayPal is a reasonable alternative.
The order form .pdf's will have to be updated to allow spaces to be filled out, but other than that -and the fact that paypal takes a cut out of payments- I don't see any substantial problem. The procedure- at least at this point- is this: 1) order submitted (via email) 2) order recieved, postage calculated, confirmation email sent 3) payment sent (via paypal) 4) payment recieved and compared to order 5) image is processed/printed/framed, ect. 6) product or file is mailed/emailed (in the case of photoshop work) 7) payment is transferred out of paypal Seems reasonable enough. I'm doing the limeade video tonight. I learned a lot from making the last one, since the dialogue was recorded seperately. And the background music was a little too loud I think, but it was difficult to work the volume percentages. I may not actually actually make the video, but I'll get the clips for it and write the dialogue. I think I can work a bit of humor into it crushing the ice. I don't have the seltzer water, at least I dont think I do, so I'll use sprite instead, since it's an acceptible alternative. I'm not sure how many instructional videos I'm going to do. I may get clips for making spaghetti from spaghetti squash tonight too, but this is just a side project. Unless it turns out these little videos are popular, in which case I can give it a higher priority. Also, with any luck, the green and red text proclaiming "Happy Holidays!" has finally been successfully removed. This will be the third, and hopefully last, time I've tried to get rid of it. If you don't know what I'm talking about, its becuase it worked, and its now just a memory.
This is the promised simple syrup video. Unlike the previous expedition videos, there isn't any actual photography; its all video. I'm at a loss as to whether or not I should add this to the expedition videos page in the Artistic section. Still, the video is higher quality than the previous ones. Better conversion software, I think.
I still have the material to do the lost city video, which I'll hang onto in case things get boring. I'll do the 'how to make limeade' video next. I know this isn't my usual photography, but... oh well. It's my site. Today, we will be discussing a concoction known as simple syrup. What is this mysterious substance and what does it have to do with photography, you might ask?
Simple syrup is a 2:1 mixture of sugar and water that has many uses but the most notable of these is as an ingredient in my favorite drink: limeade. Also, there will be a video that should turn up eventually. Other than that, it has not a thing to do with photography. As mentioned above, simple syrup is a liquid consisting of two parts sugar to one part water. How does the water hold twice it's volume in sugar, you ask? Magic! To make simple syrup, you need two cups of sugar, one cup water (or any 2:1 ratio of measurements) a measuring cup, stirring spoon, pan, a container to hold the mixture and, of course, a stove. First, measure two cups of sugar and mix them with the one cup water (or whatever measurements you chose) in the pan. The sugar won't dissolve immediately, but don't worry about that. It will. Then put the pan on the stove and bring it to a boil. You'll notice that as the mixture heats up, more and more of the sugar dissolves. By the time the mixture has reached a rapid boil, it should be completely clear, with no sugar granules remaining in the bottom of the pan. Congratulations, you've made just simple syrup! Carefully pour the syrup into the container. I use a glass jar, but you can use anything that will accomodate 3 cups of liquid. Now, simply allow the mixture to cool and use it immediately or store it in the refrigerator for later use. As the liquid cools, if you chose to use a glass container like I do, you will notice that it remains perfectly clear with perhaps a very slight yellow tint. Simple syrup has many applications as a sweetener in beverages and can even be thickened, flavored with maple extract and used as pancake syrup. As I said, however, my favorite application is in limeades, where its used in about a 1:8 ratio. For instance, in a 2 quart container you'd want to use about a cup of syrup and the other 7 cups are made up of crushed ice, lime peels and either sparkling water or sprite. My preference is sparkling water, since the sprite is already sweetened. You can play around with this ratio if you want to suit your taste. And that's what simple syrup is, how its made and how its used. Stay tuned for the video, comming (possibly) soon. This concludes another episode of CDP's recipe corner! Well, maybe not. Recent operations have been delayed due to hardware difficulties- specifically, the laptop I used for editing and site maintenance fried its processor. Everything has been reinstalled, copied from backups, redone, ect, and we're back up.
The last ODSS show of the season was a couple weeks ago, and the target date to have the processed pictures up and available is 02 December. Also, in celebration of Christmas this year, everyone who has previously ordered prints will get 10% off their next print order during the month of December. |