1. stop expecting to make smooth seamless transition entirely.
2. Focus on elements or lines that are running off the edge.
3. Focus on tones/colors that bleed off the edge.

The point of them isn't to be perfect, but to use what you see in the slice as a trigger for creating. It's more of a subconscious or automatic thing than a thing that needs to be worried over.

maybe this helps?

Breton's notion that images derived from disassociation were the important aspect of such exercises. He [Breton] defined surrealism as the spontaneous exploitation of 'pure psychic automatism', allowing the production of an abundance of unexpected images.

I'm having trouble too - don't feel badly, omiewise. I emailed me3dia yesterday to clarify what I thought I suspected that I knew that I had a hunch about - the emcee way of corpsing and the me3dia's way (which is the exquisite corpse way) are two different ways. Since I've never done any other corpsing but the emcee corpses, I'm oriented to take the 15 pixel wide slice and alter it to transition, but with me3dia's way, you don't touch the slice at all, you use it for clues only. I can't wrap my brain around this method at all. I feel like a dumbass.

I think I started off pretty sucky, then started to get a little better (maybe. but, then, maybe not - I won't know 'til I see 'em). I guess it takes some practice to figure out different techniques and approaches, but I'm amazed by some of the examples on me3dia's site. I'm pretty positive I don't have that going on.

me3dia runs with the hard core corpsers. The corpses are forcing me to ramp up my Corel skills. I stepped out of the anexquisitecorpse system after three corpses because I felt that I was out of my league. The emcees were a bit more casual, and being able to edit the slice as part of your corpse made it quite a bit easier to play around.

I toyed around with my first slice from my Corpse Tennis panel last night but decided to set it aside for a day until I have more time fool around with it. It takes a lot more skill when you're not touching the original slice.

But I disagree that you shouldn't focus on the smooth transitions. For me that's a major part of the basic concept. I get a little bummed when I see corpses with erratic transitions (including my own). I think ideally you shouldn't even be able to see exactly where the panels meet, but I know my skill level (and time) aren't great enough to be 100% seamless. But I think getting as close to 100% as possible is part of it.

Oh, and guess what I did. I started off the round between me3dia and me, and made my piece 215 x 400, instead of 450.

So now all our panels are the wrong size, and I feel like a dumbass.

Iconomy writing on the emcee way:

I'm oriented to take the 15 pixel wide slice and alter it to transition,...

We can alter that 15 pixels? I've been treating it as sacrosanct and doing my transitions after that 15 pixels. I guess that's the me3dia way as well.

What I do to help the transitions, and maybe this helps or not (maybe you already do some of this), it's basically the principles (2 and 3) that amberglow outlines, but I take that 15 pixels and copy it to a new layer that always sits on top of the other layers so to ensure it doesn't get altered and then I'll go back to the other layer (the OG 15) and use the stamp tool to copy out and extend some of the more interesting bits I want to transition. I also use the magic lasso (aka marching ants that cling to things) for this same thing, In other words I try to use the elements from the original 15 pixels as building blocks in the image. (At certain points later in the process I will use the pencil or brush to define certain elements, but I find that more time consuming than using copied elements.)

Also, I do another layer of background colors alone in the whole panel space based on what I see from the OG 15 (using the eye dropper tool to maintain consistency).

I do those two things first before I even start to really consider what I'm going to do for the entire panel space -- though admittedly things start to take shape and enable or limit certain choices.

Hope some of that helps (though I think my transitions are only OK).

Sorry! (I'm at home on dial-up today. Keeping it real.) So that'd be connection poo, and not server poo. No disrespect.

do you think you have the time or inclination to play one round, safety fork? i may be able to mock one up later for you if you want to demonstrate for the peeps at hand.

i, to add to the list of shame, had my setting set at emcee, so i changed it to 400x250, instead of 450x200

mock me heartily

safetyfork, there's an page explaining how to do an emcee corpse around here somewhere, darned if I can find it right now. What I was doing (and what most of us were doing maybe ?? I'm so confused right now) was taking the strip, and making it the first 15 pixels of the new panel we were starting. Then we would slightly alter (by blurring or smudging or building from) the pixels on the right side of that strip, making it become part of our panel. But the first few lines (on the left) of vertical pixels were left alone, because altering them would actually make the panel of the person before us less seamless. Not sure if this makes sense...hah. I'm not as good at either explaining or corpsing as I thought I was, apparently...

Here it is! I really need to put that somewhere easier to find.

Thanks for the pointers everyone.

Omie, if it helps (as your partner), I haven't been doing any of the things people described above.

I just sort of find stuff and put it in there. Then maybe make it a bit transparent, just for kicks. See? No skill! Obfuscation is the key.

If our corpse has to ride the short bus, we will both share the responsibility. No worries.

It's possible that, or sounds like, iconomy and I are doing the same thing but in different ways. (yay)