Seasons of Change

So there's a bit of a story to this so let's relive it together, shall we...?

When thinking of ideas for the new UF contest [link] I had set idea of what I wanted to create. It was going to be a single leaf with little water droplets either on top or hanging underneath. Simple idea but the hard part was actually finding a leaf shape.

I played around in Doodads II for a while and really didn't come up with anything. I revisited an old fractal and played around with it and and while I was getting pretty shapes I really wasn't finding what I wanted. I was about to get up until I took the time to look at something I already had and saw that if I tweaked it a little I could make it work. I played with THAT for a few layers and saw that while it did have a leaf shape it wasn't quite the one that I was looking for. Luckily, within th same layer there was another shape that looked better so I used that.

Now, originally, this was just supposed to be a single fractal. I had started with the single green leaf in the middle but then I started to think that that really didn't have anything to do with fall so then I thought it would look better if I showed a progression through the seasons. So I had decided to do a diptych and have a "summer" leaf and a "fall" leaf.

THEN I thought, I should add another element that would further manifest the change in seasons. A cocoon and a butterfly were my first thoughts. Two simple shapes that shouldn't be too hard to come up with. But I thought it might be kinda odd to just have a cocoon and a butterfly and not have the caterpillar. So this went from being a diptych to a triptych with the addition of the caterpillar.

So then came the part of starting the construction of this thing. I already had the one leaf but I had to make it so I could fit all three in one image because I wanted to create this thing entirely in UF. It really wasn't hard once I got the hang of it. I put the frames in kinda early so I could have an idea of where everything is supposed to go and make sure that everything is in place.

Then came the placement of the other "elements" The cocoon was easy to find, masking out everything else was the hard part. I did it the hard way until I found the easier way. I went for the caterpillar next. It took me a while but I found something that I liked. Not exactly what I wanted but it'll do. The butterfly I thought would be easier to find but it actually proved to be a bit of a problem. Now that I look at it actually looks like a moth but oh well...The pattern on the wings didn't come out straight but it's close enough

Didn't know what I wanted for the background so I had left that blank for a while, while I worked on everything else. Then I had the idea, "why don't I add some trees to further show the changes in the seasons?" So....that's what I did. Not really all that happy with the "leaves" on the tree but it'll do.

Lastly, I changed the colors of each frame. They were the same color but in the end I thought it would better if they went with the colors in each frame.

I know that this represents an inaccurate time line for a butterfly's life cycle but....

This is just a glimpse of how I made this. I'm sure I've left something out. If there are any questions just ask.

I don't even want to know how much time I spent on this. It would only be a measurement of how much of a life I don't have.

Done completely in UF, post work only for resizing.

Enjoy...

Btw...this is also my entry for Fractal Contest [link] If you haven't seen it check it out...