Drained

Kids make the best wishes, it's only fair we get to enjoy them.

Shell Cocked

A Sunday Kaity original.

Pix Chat

Here's the most recent of my attempts to make Dee laugh.  Honestly, anytime I see a beautiful girl being silly, I want to just hug her...  and then write a funny caption!  Pretty and Silly in the same picture is with no doubt my favorite combination.  Of course, they say a girl can only be two of the following three: Smart, Pretty & Funny.  If that's true, I'll take the last two any day of the week, and then argue that it takes courage and intelligence to be funny.

Stole her Prom

Let this be a lesson to girls who think they're so much better than everyone else.  A recent caption for Commentator (Dawn) on the Haven. 

Role Out!

I take no claim to creating the Role Exchanger universe.  I do, however, feel that in 2010, I made the universe much more well known in the community of caption trading.  I ran a promotion on the Haven to create these for folks who wanted to trade for them, and ended up creating near 30 in that time.  This was the first I created for that promotion, and one of the true cases of a Role Exchange.

Hope to resume regular updates next week!

5 Years - A Kaity Special

In this post, you're going to see 5 different captions.  One from each year I've been creating.  Enjoy them for what they are.  I'm posting these mostly because I like looking at how I've changed with my story-telling, caption templates and style overall.

A very early creation for Courtney on the Haven.  If memory serves, I had only been trading for a couple of months.  I went very generic with the photo and text in white space.  I do remember saying to myself very early on that a caption should not exceed one photo--the story should be self-contained, unless it is a multi-caption story.

In 2010, I began sometimes incorporating multiple photos in the same caption.  More importantly, I began putting my name to my work.  I had started branching out a bit from my comfort zones, and would play around with some more options in style.

2011...  The year of the border.  I was quite fond of the colored border around my captions.  I had even grown to a point where different colors represented different universes, but eventually I phased that idea out.  I felt this border helped signify my captions.  Also, this was the year my faerie marker was introduced (Thanks to AshleyM).

2012...  Well, I still blame Rachel (Yes, the Rachel of the Haven), but themes and photos over what I considered as an 'R' rating began leaking in to my work.  2012 was when it became rather prominent.  I suggest it represents that I had fully grown into things.  I also began a new technique I had seen in some other captions, allowing me to use larger pictures and/or two pictures with one faded enough to read text on top.  I feel like I perfected this and carried it into this year.

Feb 2013 - At this point, I've been blending the old with the new, allowing a photo to pop from the background, which is itself a faded image.  I've just began using this technique, and still have some issues to work on, but overall it looks very crisp and new without sacrificing any elements.



So that's it.  Five years of captioning.  I'll probably post something similar in the future.  Maybe captions made for someone over the years, or perhaps captions from a universe.  Hopefully, even if you just read the captions, this was an enjoyable post for you.

Another Great Shift Caption

Well, for today's "From the Vault" caption, I quite literally picked one at random, and low and behold, it was a Great Shift caption, which isn't really all that surprising.  The Great Shift universe was one of my favorites when I first began exploring the world of captions.  That and Medallion of Zulo.  So it stands to reason that inspiration for my captions often came from those universes.  As luck would have it, this caption was created for Blackvioxxx, who loves the Great Shift quite a bit herself.

Dee-lighted

Today's from the vault features an earlier caption I created for Dee which shows her in a bit of a lighter situation.  If I recall, I made this when Dee added to her preferences that she didn't 'always' have to be in goth or emo clothes & make-up.  I was also having a lot of fun with opposites that day I suppose.  So, I present Dementia as only me, bright-eyed Kaity, could.

B for Brendetta

Well, let's be honest, with all the lack of attention to detail, giving Brendetta a B is pretty generous.  Here's a capback I made for user taralyn2011.  She's a big fan of getting transformed by accident and not wanting or desiring the change, which speaks to me because that's where I started on this journey.  I always liked being the innocent bystander when a transformation happened--you had done nothing to deserve it nor did you want it, but it was there anyway for you to deal with.

Hop Victim

I'm beginning a trend with posting a caption "From the Vault" on Fridays.  A trend I think is rather fun (and easy) for me to do.  It's good for an artist to look back at their previous work.  What they were writing like, what kind of photos they were using, etc.  I don't really do too many father daughter swaps anymore, but I've created my fair share.  This is a favorite from 2010.  Enjoy, Comment, Do as you will...

W is for...

Let's be honest, one of the ALL-TIME favorites of TG has to be weddings regardless of the transformation method.  Why?  It's a perfect excuse to squeeze someone into an insane pre-planned day where they more than likely have to wear a dress, heels, and professional make-up regardless of being the bride, maid of honor, or really just any girl at a wedding.

Wedding-themed captions have a special place for me, because, well, it was a wedding caption that got me started.  A contest on the Haven back in 2009 (Yes, that was 4 years ago) involving a wedding-themed caption and the SRU Reversal Rings, which you can see here:

So, even though this post is for the W of TG ABCs, I wanted to pose a question to all my viewers: How do my current captions compare to the ones I've created in the past?  Obviously the photo editing has improved; I'm more-so asking about the story-telling itself and the way the image works to assist in telling it.  Leave your comment below!

V is for...

Had I timed things right, I would have posted this one on the fifth of November...

Playing the Part

Time to Give Back

I always love a caption with a good twist.  This one is one of my favorite more recent creations of that nature.  The twist is so much so that--no, wait, read the caption.  You'll get it.

An Exchange of Roles

What is the role exchanger?  Well, it's a lesser known universe in the TG world than others, but I found that many people quite like it.  The role exchanger allows for small-scale changes, and can sometimes be as random as you want it to be.  Here's a caption I made for Dee back in 2010 before I began my role exchanger project on the Haven, which eventually led to the creation of roughly 20 or so more role exchanger captions by request.

Weddings...

Well folks, sorry about the brief hiatus, but I had a cousin's wedding seven hours away from my dwelling place.  So, still high from dancing last night and full of wedding happiness, I bring this caption I created a few years ago for Tar on the Haven.  I feel like this was one of the first captions I created in the Great Shift universe that didn't feel generic, and MIGHT be the way things actually carried out of this were to occur.  And yes, there was a part of me that hoped it would last night, considering how many lovely ladies I danced with...  (Kaitlyn Dances at Wedding FTW).

Enjoying Every Experience

I am going to try to keep posting one caption a day.  Often times I will have a unique thing to talk about.  But other times...  Here's a caption!  Feel free to discuss the themes or just the cap in general.

Shifting Your Perspective

I always seem to find big breaks from caption writing.  And while at times they are necessary due to real life happenings, more often it's writer's block.  Okay, well I could honestly write for a while.  I think the real issue here is boredom with telling essentially the same story outline for captions:

In an earlier post, I mentioned the use of pre-established universes in captions and their role to us as caption artists.  One of my favorite universes to caption in has been the great shift--the paranormal event that causes most of the people in the world to switch bodies with someone else.  While this universe offers a lot of things to play with, the story eventually becomes the same.  Additionally, the reality of a great shift caption would be horrific, and turns many people off from the captions.

In today's caption, I tried something different.  This is a piece I made for Dementia back at the Haven, and it began as a Great Shift caption, but I eventually morphed it into a brand new universe.  I didn't explain the new universe--in fact I'm saving it later and working on a TG fiction story for it--but it made this caption work.  This also seemed to be a favorite on the Haven of how a sentimental caption could work in lieu of being silly or saucy.

Captions should bring a smile!

Some photographs just beg to be captioned.  Often times in captioning, artists try to use photos to show the glamorous side of women.  Having to wear make-up, dealing with breasts and longer hair, and so on.  I like breaking that norm.  I also like having fun with the transformation.  The above caption is from a recent trade offer I did with Dementia from Rachel's Haven (check out her version of this picture over at her caption blog).

What do you think?  Does humor have a place in captioning, or does it ruin the mood?