SOFTWARE & TOOLS: Scratch – Finding a Trigger
Anyone else likely would’ve learned, created a project and gotten bored with this program in two days tops. But if I find my interest waning, yet want to get something out of the learning process, it’s hard for me to push myself to finish–especially when there’s no one to answer to but myself and no deadlines to meet. And when I ain’t havin’ fun, I ain’t mentally invested. But sometimes there’s a way around this procrastination.
Though as I mentioned, there’s a character-creator capability that’s similar to Paint, it’s hokey at best, but at least it does mean that I have an original image to work with rather than those available–and there’s plenty of them–within the program. It also means that I am willing to spend some time in the drawing area of the project.
I’ve created a new character and made four "costumes" of it–that is, I’ve changed the image to assume some differences in stance that may come out looking like a primitive motion effect when used in sequence. In fact, going back to real cartooning techniques. But see, I was having fun doing that, despite the low level accuracy and my own ineptness with the drawing tools. It did keep me on the project and now more enthused about seeing how my figures work out.
So a couple hours spent on drawing when I should’ve been playing with motion and effects are not completely wasted if it keeps me involved enough to learn.