What’s This? Mark II

Hipponetta
SDG here with a personalized follow-up to JIMMY’S "WHAT’S THIS?" POST, which highlighted the Photoshop "cloning" technique on display HERE. (Tip of the Yankee cap to the reader who also pointed out THIS SIMILAR SITE.)

Being somewhat proficient (though hardly an expert) at this kind of Photoshopping, I was inspired to take a shot at creating a similar hybrid myself.

Incidentally, since I’m not aware of anyone having undertaken to name this particular breed of hybrid before now, I hereby dub my creature a "hipponetta." (No, it’s not part hippopotamus; "hippo" is Greek for "horse" — "hippopotamus" means "river horse" — and "netta" is Greek for "duck." The same use of "hippo" is found in "hippogriff," a mythical cross between a horse and the similarly mythical griffin.)

Anyway, while I’m pleased with the results, I’m aware that my image is far from a perfect illusion. The main problem is that the "found" images I started with — taken from MorgueFile.com, an excellent website for royalty-free images — weren’t perfect matches to begin with, and couldn’t entirely be reconciled. My hybrid image is really an impossible mishmash of two different perspectives as well as different animal parts, and it only works to the extent that you don’t notice or don’t pay attention.

What I’m most pleased with is the way I was able to apply the texture of the duck’s chest and neck feathers to the shape, features and highlighting of the horse’s chest and neck. I’d never tried anything like that before, and I think it came out pretty well.

All in all, it was a lot of fun, and in a way even the imperfections make it more so, at least to me.

GET A BETTER LOOK AT THE HIPPONETTA.

REVISIT THOSE OTHER TWO SITES.

33 thoughts on “What’s This? Mark II”

  2. Tip of the Yankee cap to the reader who also pointed out THIS SIMILAR SITE.
    Go Tigers! (Detroit baseball fan since ’82)

  7. Jimmy,

    How long did it take, from start to finish, to make the Hipponetta??

    If Jimmy has any idea how long it took, it’s only because I told him over the weekend. 🙂 (Just to clarify, The Wife in the above post would be Mrs. Decent Films… Jimmy hasn’t gotten secretly married!
    Anyway, I’m not sure exactly how much time I spent, but I’d guesstimate about five or six hours.*
    Hey, thanks, Lys (and SteveL)! (Edward, when you’re the one assigning credit, you can tip whatever cap you like.)
    *Not including the half hour or so I spent looking at images at morguefile.com trying to decide what to do, or the hour or so I put in on the low-res versions of the images before deciding I might as well try to do it right, and starting over with the hi-res images.

  11. So sand art and photoshop, you got anymore tricks up your sleeve?

    Heh. Well, later this week I’ve got another post coming up with pumpkin art… 🙂

  12. Edward,
    The Tigers lost to the Royals? Again? come on, that’s awful!! nah, nah, nah, nah, nah!!! Booo!!!! Hissssss!!!!!!
    😉

  13. SDG,
    I have it on good authority that the Yankees will have the Royals to thank when they make it into the ALCS (but no further) this year.
    Or so I’ve been told. :-P)

  15. They should make more impoderable animals.
    Imagine an eagle with the colors of a parrot.
    Surely in the future, in a Catholic society, science can produce such a wonderful species.

  16. The Yankee cap “tipee” weighs in. I left the comment for that “similar site” because I blogged it a while back. I’ve always been partial to the AL, particularly the East (including the Indians, Brewers, and Tigers, who used to be in the East). But I’ve never really been that much of a Yankees fan.
    I’d used to be a big baseball fan when I was a kid in the 60s. I’d watch more of it if they got rid of the juice and the DH rule.

  19. “New here — but who’s SDG?”
    Head over to decentfilms.com, anon.
    SDG, that’s really, really cool! I like to get artsy myself but, usually, it’s with picture frames & furniture & stuff. I’ve tried to *repair* some old family photos with the Photoshop Elements that came with my scanner but I’m not very good at it. I’m amazed at what some folks can do with that program! I wish I had that patience. I’ll stick with my little poems!
    “Well, later this week I’ve got another post coming up with pumpkin art.”
    But now you’re talkin’ my language! I loves to carves me some pumpkins! I wish I had a digital camera so I could share them. I did one the other year that had leaves all over it. I carved out the leaf outlines (based on real leaves), left the pumpkin orange for the veins & tooled away the leafy part to the pith (if that’s what it’s called). Looked very cool when illuminated! That stuff, I have the patience for!
    Can’t wait to see yours, SDG. Maybe I can get some ideas.

  20. But I’ve never really been that much of a Yankees fan.

    Well, it ain’t your hat, and you weren’t the one tipping it. 🙂
    What kind of hat anyone wears, and when they tip it or to whom, is up to the tipper, not the tippee, or anyone else. The courtesy of the gesture has nothing to do with what anyone else thinks of the hat, or of what it stands for.
    Same thing with Jimmy giving out CHTs. Doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks of cowboys, or their hats. The CH is Jimmy’s fashion/culture statement, no one else’s.
    I can’t speak for Jimmy, but I expect if he gave out a CHT and the tippee responded that he wasn’t much of a cowboy fan, he might find that response a mite irksome.
    Now, given that I invoked the Yankees specifically, I can allow as all sorts of folks of various affections may have all kinds of irrational responses that they can’t help spontaneously venting, whether it was called for or not. 😀
    For that matter, even in a non-baseball context the word “Yankee” can provoke a similar range of responses from “non-Yankees” (and, depending on context, even an American Southerner can be a “Yank,” if the speaker is non-American).
    Meanwhile, those so identified tend to be fairly oblivious to how they are regarded from outside, and, if it happens to come to their attention, tend to shrug it off. But that’s another subject…

  21. I wouldn’t want to be that rider when the hipponetta flicks away all those water from its feathers and mane.

  25. Thanks for the suggestion, James. Unfortunately, no matter where I put them, there could always be someone who would find them nauseating, so shucks, they might as well be here as anywhere else.
    If I do think of another place, though, I’ll be sure to let you know. 🙂

  26. SDG,
    Since you put it that way, I tip my Tigers cap to your Photoshop effort.
    And you’re still my favorite film critic, regardless of baseball team allegiances. 🙂

  28. I’ve seen similar designs in Renaissance and wannabe statuary…dunno if it has an existing name (I’d guess at “winged hippocampus” myself, since mythical horse/fish hybrids in art are called hippocampi, same as the real-world seahorses).
    Nice work, SDG.

  29. And you’re still my favorite film critic, regardless of baseball team allegiances.

    Heh, thanks. Actually I’m not really a sports guy, and only root for the Yankees (or anyone else) in a casual way. Hardcore Yankees fans root against the Mets on principle, but I can’t see rooting against any New York team. Having lived also in Philadelphia (and Charlotte), I have residual loyalty to the local franchises there as well.
    After this combox, though, me and my Yankee cap are going to be inseparable, just you watch. 😀

  31. Thanks, M. As for the pants — hey, tinkering with God’s creation is one thing, but far be it from me to impose my views on someone else’s fashion preferences. 😀

  33. “After this combox, though, me and my Yankee cap are going to be inseparable, just you watch.”
    Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!
    Down with Jeter, Damon, and Giambi!

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