Ishmael

Whatever brushes you're using capture the impressionistic feel well. Reminds me a little of 1970s fantasy paperback covers, especially for Tolkien. Her forelegs are posed well, too. You can really feel the anatomy with just lines and shading, and she has a lot more energy than her Flash version.

I like the watercolor-mixed media aesthetic.

I didn't graduate high school, and didn't think I'd want anything to do with it after leaving. Like most posters in the thread, I didn't have a great time, and one traumatic experience pushed me to college early. But the amount of unfinished business I had made me curious after a decade or so, and with social media in the mid-to-late-aughts, I was surprised to reconnect with people who I barely remembered but who had positive memories of me. What spurred me to my 20th high school reunion was a friend a grade ahead of me. Attending his 20 year, he had a long and transformative experience with a classmate who'd been his mortal enemy. The mortal enemy was one of those kings of high school--football captain, student council president, highly sought by the opposite sex, lionized by the school, incapable of doing wrong. In actuality, this person was a racist bully who got away with everything. My friend reported that twenty years on, this racist bully was utterly transformed, working as a community organizer in the worst parts of Baltimore. They talked at length of what had caused the transformation. The biggest thing was "getting away from my John Birch Society dad," former bully said. This was so striking I decided to go to my 20 year a year later. A couple bullies apologized for how they treated me, which was so weird I didn't process what happened until a friend explained it afterwards. The other striking thing was three attractive women who approached me with stars in their eyes professing how much they admired me, but then disappeared into the crowd, never to be seen again. I thought I'd made some connections with a few people, but they all faded away over the next year. I've learned to not bother chasing people who won't respond to friendly overtures, so didn't think too hard about it. I live two time zones away, in a very different ambit, and don't have any ties to my high school town, so I suppose it's natural for that to have happened. My oldest friend went to the 30 year, but reported he just avoided losers and weirdos too eager to talk to him. The exception was a woman who had been widely considered the most beautiful in our class, cheerleader, prom queen, on and on. She had a long conversation with him. Life after high school hadn't been kind to her, but she was holding her own. At the time, I described going not as fun or enjoyable, but revelatory and satisfying. It proved people can grow and change, though many don't, or can't.

I'll ask around and let you know. I'd suggest community colleges, too. Inexpensive and to the point training, and you'll rub shoulders with experienced people who know what they're doing. Oh...I'm sure that Reddit forum you found will have great suggestions on books or training.

Glad it helps. I'm sure there are tons of video tutorials like this. Lynda.com was a great site of tutorials, but it's now "LinkedIn Learning" and looks irrelevant to your needs. Adobe has great books and courses, though they split them across several titles so you have to buy more. I'm sure you can find the books used for a lot less than new. I prefer books to follow along, especially for software as complex as Adobe products, but it's been ages since I did this kind of work, so can't suggest any. I might know people who could suggest some, if you're interested.

Youtube suggested this, but I think it's really meant for you. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/MAtL7ax9xOQ How to make pony walk cycles in a Flash

Thanks, @Dreambiscuit. Your thoughts really resonated with me during a difficult week, so I'm grateful you posted. Our hopes, dreams and plans not fully being in our control is a helpful touchstone.

@Dreambiscuit I really appreciate your thoughtful and articulate reply. I have a note on my microwave of The Four Agreements, from the book by Ruiz: Be impeccable with your word Don't take anything personally Don't make any assumptions Always do your best Like fixating on always being mindful, living to the fullest, and the like, these can all be helpful talismans or humorless taskmasters. Is "always do your best" realistic? It's exhausting! Always living a peak experience just burns out. Everything is always changing, always in flow, becoming something else at the same time we become something else. It's important to be mindful--to actually be living your life instead of watching it from the sidelines--but obsessing about wringing every moment is as neurotic as you say. "Nothing too much" is the best distillation I've found. Not that I'm the best in practicing, but at least I remind myself when I'm circling the drain. :) Your point about our plans not entirely being up to us is an important one. Control is more illusory than we realize, and dependent on so many things going right, many of which we'll never even know. Like the self-made man, control is often an unhelpful myth. The trick is figuring out what you have real control over, and letting go of the rest.

My oldest friend gave me a great gift. We were revisiting the perennial topic of what we'd hoped to do post-school, what we'd actually accomplished, and how we felt about where we'd fallen short. He tossed this out, almost as an afterthought: "Yaknow, in a million years, none of this will matter." I knew that intellectually, but the context and his delivery had it really land. It's true. Absolutely all evidence humans existed, even radioactive waste, will be gone by then. All our art and architecture will have disappeared. I found a geology paper that argued the only human artifacts to survive a million years will be road cuts through mountains. A few hundred satellites and spacecraft will last longer than a million years. When geosynchronous satellites reach the end of their useful lives, they're raised to a parking orbit that's claimed to be stable for a billion years. The Voyager, Pioneer and now New Horizons spacecraft will outlast the Sun, and orbit the galaxy forever. It's humbling to think about. Possibly terrifying, but also freeing. Whatever your biggest mistakes were, they just...release. For now, we can be as kind and thoughtful as we can, practice empathy, notice what's in front of us. I'm grateful to have this little space to talk about it.

@SharpWit It's poignant but satisfying to have the kind of closure for these big symbols and milestones. You were able to say goodbye to these objects that are more than mere things, but touchstones to previous selves. You see the flaws and decrepitude for what they are, but that doesn't dim the feelings you have for them. I guess those feelings are a proxy for ourselves, or mirrors of former selves and times. I'm glad you'll have the Reptile Zoo, and I hope you were or are able to get those photos back.

You're doing great work. You posed her leg! Proficiency takes a while, and you'll get there.

Sure! Happy to encourage however I can.

Glad you got there. It's difficult getting started, but it'll get easier quickly. A good book helps. The Oreilly ones really helped me with Photoshop.

@randomstuf Were you able to solve your problem?

This is such a great thread. My old therapist once blew up at me for my neurotic approach to life. So many things I wanted to be and do, and somehow I was in my early 40s, none of those things accomplished, divorced, all my energy going to a job. How did I make all these stupid mistakes? What were they for? What am I doing? "What's anything for? Why do anything?" She wasn't quite yelling, which she knew that's what I needed to hear her. "People like you, creative artist types, are always thinking, seeing farther, penetrating deeper. But if you make the quest for meaning neurotic, it's exhausting and empty. I saw a beautiful rose on my walk today, leaning out over the sidewalk, yellow and perfect. What's it for? It was there for me to see it, smell it, appreciate it, just be with it. Maybe it'll be there tomorrow, but my being with it tomorrow won't be the same. We'll have this conversation again, but it won't be the same as the one we're having right now. Every moment is unique and never to be repeated. All we can do is follow Ram Dass and be here now." I remember leaving her session: a dark fall night, the air crisp, the city alive. I'd heard and read her message many times before, but that evening the world was both still and more open, like a wild animal that decided I could touch it. I walked the busy blocks just looking around, floating a few inches above the ground in the way you do, after revelation. That old headshrinker knew what she was doing. It's so easy to go through life on automatic, even when deliberately trying to be conscious and intentional. I raked leaves yesterday, but didn't truly sit with it and savor the shapes, colors, sounds as I promised myself I would when I rushed the same way last year. When I first moved to this part of the country, everything entranced me. Brilliant fall leaves, the rain, the blue skies after, everything green. I still marvel at it, but it's easy to take it for granted. Look at it without seeing. Technicolor leaves are everywhere now, but they'll be gone soon, knocked down by the rain that'll come to stay until late spring, probably. I send daily photos of the changing leaves to my Boston friend now living in LA. He really sees them, which helps me do the same. My subconscious decides I need to think about two dead friends at random intervals. Both had moderate-to-serious mental illness that prompted self-defensive distance on my part, but we maintained a patchy stream of letters and then emails, going back to high school. I'm coming close to accomplishing a big important thing (to me, anyway), and I realize I won't be able to share it with them. This doesn't make me sad, exactly. I'm not sure how to describe it aside from the Buddhist noble pause: a still moment when you can decide what to feel and think--to respond instead of react. Maybe it's a noble bafflement, or something like when you're in your teens looking up at the stars and have your first adult thoughts about time and vastness, and the implications. No fear, just feeling how big it all is. My friends were alive, and now they're not, but memory confuses and conflates these states. I know the phone will never ring from them, but that inner child that doesn't understand time still waits for their call. It's easy to rush, feel the eye of the clock, the weight of the world. It's so easy to be stuck, numb, regretful, feeling like a failure. We all have to give unto Caesar, and his worldview and priorities slowly consume our own. And he wants more all the time. But I go out and look at the stars when it's clear, and I'm much better at being here now and looking at them, instead of thinking back to other times, other places, but the stars the same. They're changing, just as we are, but we're only conscious of what's happening on our end, and inside us. Thanks everyone for sharing, and sorry for my rambling.

I remember adults telling young child me how quickly time would pass, and that I'd be them before I knew it. Intellectually I always understood, but the true understanding--the visceral feeling of your mortality--only really landed after 50. It can be challenging to stay positive and forward-looking. My old therapist used the image of sailing your life's little boat. Sailing requires sitting up front, looking ahead, anticipating what's coming next. Much better than rowing, where you only see what's behind you. Thanks for the thoughtful post.

I might have some advice for you. Stepping through your video framewise, it looks like you have one keyframe set at 1 (the start), but no other keyframes. If you copy that keyframe to frame 5, does that hold the pose? You might just need a duration, unless Flash works differently from video editing and effects software.