50th Birthday Gift Caricature

50th birthday present gift caricature allan cavanagh

This personalised caricature was a gift for a 50th birthday last year. The subject is a Disney fan and loves travel, hence the Minnie Mouse ears and Eiffel Tower and the cruise ship in the background. She’s partial to a cocktail and also meticulous about cleaning, so the mop and apron was an in-joke from her family! Other references are Facebook with a signpost for Limerick and Dublin in the background. And of course a few balloons to mark the big day for good measure!

Read more

Live Caricatures from Facebook Dublin!

caricature artist facebook dublin 18

Facebook Dublin: I was on hand to help create a party atmosphere in the new Facebook HQ offices in Ballsbridge during the summer. It was fairly hopping with live music as Facebook staff arrived to work to check out their new digs! There were so many lovely people from all over the world. I had … Read more

Facebook 3D images without iPhone

700sun depth

This is very cool. You can now create 3D images on Facebook via browser.

Previously Facebook 3D images could be done with iPhone cameras that had portrait mode but now you can upload them yourself using your browser facebook application.

You just need to create a depth map of the image you want to 3D-ify. I tried it out using my clocks going forward cartoon.
clocks go forward ireland
You simply build up areas of your image in shades of grey, the darker the area, the “further back” it will be in the final image. The writing in white will appear in the “foreground”.
700sun depth
I just built this up in layers and flattened it at the end. You save both as png or jpeg (I used png here) and save both with the same file name, except you amend “_depth” to the name of your depth image. For example
sun.png
sun_depth.png
The underscore is important here.
Then you upload both as a status on Facebook in your browser, and Facebook automatically combines them!

Very cool! (The embed might not work on every browser but if you’re reading on a desktop computer you should see the effect.)

I’d seen these pop on Facebook and I thought there was third party software involved where you define planes using polygons and layers and the program extrapolates data from each layer to fill in the detail “behind” the foreground subject but it’s actually a much simpler process! Was fun figuring out how grey something should be for its “distance”. If you look at the treees in the midground you can see I even gave the ones in the background slightly more depth than the trees in the foreground. I’m not sure of the applications for this other than a cool thing to try but sometimes that’s enough!

via Antti Karppinen Photography, Alias Creative Turn your composite images into Facebook 3D images without iPhone | Antti Karppinen Photography, Alias Creative

If Facebook is Your Primary Platform , You’re Making a Huge Mistake

dont rely on social media

I’ve seen so many social media posts across various platforms recently about deleted content (usually to do with nudity or exposed nipples. Pathetic). It’s not a new problem but for many it’s their first time encountering it: if you don’t own the platform you’re showcasing on, the decision of what happens your content there is … Read more