It's All About Context....

Ever have some really irrational fears?

Like, what if you’re researching a psychology paper about the criminally insane? In context no one would think you’re weird, but out of context, if someone browses your search history they might think you’re a little unbalanced.

It’s not a gigantic mental leap to see ‘psychology research’ and think ‘murder manual’.

I found myself in a similar situation today.

I was hunched over my desk, drawing my comic, when I just couldn’t get a panel right. Basically the main character is on the phone and gets some really good news. I couldn’t get the hand right, the facial expression or anything.

So I do what I usually do. I turn on my webcam in photoshop, make the facial expression or assume the pose I need and snap a picture. Then I have some basic reference so I can say “Ah! So that’s what a hand looks like when it’s holding a phone!”

Well, I’d always assumed that capturing an image from my webcam in photoshop is just like scanning a picture in photoshop. If you don’t save the image before closing the window, it just goes away…it turns out I was wrong.

I discovered a freaking library of pictures of myself pulling some of the most stupid faces ever in some pretty weird poses.

Take today’s picture for example. Like I said, I wanted to see what a hand looked like holding a phone from a particular angle…nothing strange about that, right?

But out of context, if you just found this picture on my computer, here’s what you’d see:

A picture of me, shirtless, with a gigantic goofy grin on my face, holding a pack of cigarettes to my ear while wearing big over-the-ear headphones.

You wouldn’t think “Well, here’s a guy who’s listening to a podcast while he draws, shirtless because his air-conditioner just froze up, holding an object to his ear as a stand in for the phone that he’s drawing.”

No, what you would think is: “Who is this insane naked man, and what is that packet of cigarettes telling him that’s so damn amusing?”

I’ll be deleting them from now on.