I don’t just use blank canvas when creating my artwork.  Sometimes, I like to insert my characters into already existing photographs.  This is a much more challenging prospect, at least in Paint (which I used exclusively until about two months ago), for two reasons.  First off, the fill tool doesn’t work as it would on blank canvas due to the color differentiation in neighboring pixels of a photo.  Second, if you mess up past the point where you can undo your mistake (I can erase the last 10 things I did), you’re pretty much screwed and have to start all over.  It is quite tedious work, but the payoff can be huge.  I believe the only (and one of the best) examples I’ve provided on this blog so far is the picture leading off the post I did on Vandal.

There is a whole series of pics I have used to help ES torment Sprots over the years, but today I want to focus on what has been my longest running gag using my picture doctoring skills.  That would be the squirrel at the screen door series, which has been my avatar for ES on the forum since May of 2008.

Hey baby!

This is the original picture, which Sprots of all people found on the internet, and which I just has to grab for ES to replace his original avatar.  I don’t know who the picture actually originated from, but it’s all over the internet.  It didn’t take long before I used the setup of the picture to tease Sprots that ES was at her back door.  What followed were a number of different additions to the avatar used to capitalize on a topic of the moment over there.  They started off rather simple….

Then I began adding little props, like the infamous “ridiculous looking” mistletoe…

Kiss me!

Adorable bows…

Unwrap me!

And they got crazier…

Say aaaaah!

And scarier…

Boo!!!!

And some were just plain WTF…

Snort!

And my most recent is a bit, um……….

Hide the women and children...... NOW!!!

There are many more squirrel at the screen door pics, but these should give you a taste of how the series has evolved.  And when it ends with a squirrel holding lube and a box of condoms (this year’s Valentine’s Day tribute), it may have done more damage than good for the cause of squirrel awareness.  So until next time, if you hear a scritching at your back door, don’t even open the door to see who it is.  Just fetch the nuclear weaponry and ask questions later…