Monthly Archives: July 2024

July 13, 2024 · 12:06 am

Saturday Is Art Day… Again

I draw things as illustrations to stories. Take, for example, the protagonist and hero of Catch a Falling Star.

Dorin Dobbs is boy from Iowa. That tells you some terrible things about him right there.

He was ten in 1990.

He hated girls.

He met some pretty green-skinned girls from outer space, amphibianoid frog-girls with fins on their heads. He danced with them to Mickey Mouse Club music while he was their prisoner on a sectet base on the planet Mars. They were dancing naked in the nutrient bath that all Telleron tadpoles use daily.

Brekka and Menolly are two of the Telleron frog girls with fins on their heads. They love Earth music in the 1990’s. They are background characters in Catch a Falling Star. They are main characters in the book Stardusters and Space Lizards, where they help Davalon and Tanith to conquer the dying planet of Galtorr Prime after the Telleron invasion of Earth failed in the previous book.

Tanith and Davalon (the Telleron boy in front)
Sizzahl of Galtorr Prime, Ecologist and Lizard Girl

…..

…..

…..

…..

…..

…..

…..

…..

”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””

Galtorr Prime is undergoing drastic climate change and environmental collapse and ends up being saved by superior Telleron technology and the lizard-girl heroine, Sizzahl, who has a plan for fixing the atmosphere and saving fundamental eco-systems. Of course, this is all science fiction-y stuff based entirely on fantasy and imagination and has nothing to do with the real world we now live in.

Millis, transformed from pet rabbit to near-human

Of course, not all characters I illustrate are people or aliens.

Millis, Tommy Bircher’s pet rabbit, is an ordinary albino bunny who eats a piece of alien technology that evolves him into a talking, walking-on-two-legs, near-human form.

He becomes the chef (who cooks only vegetable dishes) for Norwall, Iowa’s own mad scientist, Orben Wallace, in the book The Bicycle-Wheel Genius.

Orben Wallace, and his favorite bicycle, The Happiness Machine

I think I have now given out far more spoilers for stories than I have any right to do. But the thing about character illustrations is that your get to know the characters at a glance. And to know them is to love them.

2 Comments

Filed under aliens, artwork, characters, illustrations, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney

Tagged as , ,

July 12, 2024 · 1:11 am

How to Talk to Real People

While visiting in Iowa, I ran into an old high school friend at a local eatery. I remember how in high school and junior high, I played basketball on the same team with him, I listened to his exaggerations about a probably non-existent sex life, and helped him on one or two occasions to get answers on Math homework (even then the teacher in me wouldn’t let me just give him the answers, I always made him work out the answers step by step).

Now he is a judgmental and basically crabby old coot. He is a Trump supporter, hater of immigrants who take American jobs, and an unpleasant arguer of politics. And the sorest point about his intractable coot-i-ness is the fact that, as a classmate, he is the same age as me and I am, therefore, just as intractably coot-y as he is.

So, how exactly do you talk to a mean old coot?

Well, you have to begin by realizing that it is not like the dialogue in a novel or TV show. This is a real person I was talking to. So, I had to proceed by accepting that he thinks I am an idiot and anything I say and think is wrong. Not merely wrong, but “That’s un-American and will lead to a communist takeover of our beloved country!” sort of wrong. I can then laugh off numerous Neo-Nazi assertions by him, make snarky comments about his praises for the criminal president, and generally get along with him like old friends almost always do. I play my part just as furiously as he plays his, and we both enjoy the heck out of it.

We are both of us crazy old coots, likely to say just about anything to get the other one’s goat. Getting goats is apparently vital to the conversations of real people. But we have more in common than we have as differences. We don’t keep score in our world-shaking debates, nor do we count how many goats we get. And that is how you talk to real people.

Leave a comment

Filed under characters, humor, insight, oldies, Paffooney

July 11, 2024 · 12:23 am

Barbie’s Little Sister is Inspired by Webb

Barbie’s little sister, Stacy, is an incredible nerd (for a plastic doll from Mickey’s doll collection.) She is constantly using one of the laptops to keep up with the latest news in Science. Lately, she has been thrilled to see pictures start rolling in from the James Webb Space Telescope, the superior imaging system to its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope.

You may have noticed that Stacy surfs the internet in the nude. She is not a porn-obsessed pervert or anything. She simply found research online that indicated that nudists are happier in many ways than people who are addicted to always wearing clothes. She joined the AANR (American Association for Nude Recreation,) found a local landed nudist club to join and discovered how lovely it is to play in the sunshiny air totally bare.

If you knew Stacy the way I know Stacy, you would realize she now has a real dilemma. She is very intelligent… but her head is made of plastic, and so it stubbornly resists compromises once an idea has found its way inside.

This is called internal conflict. But never fear. Stacy is highly intelligent, smarter than Skipper, and even smarter than her oldest sister Barbie. This is why she is the only sister so dedicated to nudism.

So, Barbie pointed out to Stacy that, being made of plastic, exposure to outer space will simply freeze her solid. And as long as she avoids getting dropped by a doofus while she’s frozen and brittle, and she gets thawed out slowly enough at the end of the journey, she should be fine. Now, all she has to do is convince Mickey to sell her to an astronaut who is not a doofus but is just goofy enough to take a doll into outer space. So, now Stacy is researching non-doofus goofy astronauts online, further preventing Mickey from writing something dumb.

Leave a comment

Filed under Barbie and Ken, doll collecting, humor, imagination, photo paffoonies, satire, science fiction

Tagged as , , , ,

July 10, 2024 · 2:24 am

Plastic Self Portrait of Mickey

Paul challenged me to do this in the comments. AI Mirror allowed me to take a photo of myself, already modified by Picsart for a background, and redraw it as a plastic doll. Yes I am not in a league with Barbie and Ken. But that’s okay. Grandpa Mickey is an acceptable plastic old coot.

1 Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

July 9, 2024 · 2:30 am

Cissy Moonskipper Meets the Nebulons

Into the Belly of the Whale

Cissy was mesmerized by the slow, undulating dance of the oncoming space whales. It was hard to imagine that an entire world, ecosystem, or possibly Nebulon city existed inside each vast space-born creature. They were truly magnificent animals. And there were hundreds of them.

“Tash corridac! Compurac sah, mokkis nah Faldo Mecchanosic!” came a forceful voice over the ship-to-ship communications array.

The grin that had inhabited Suki’s blue face began to fade.

“What are they saying?” demanded Cissy, noticing the hint of distress from Suki.

They are ordering us to state our reason for visiting Mighty Clan Vorranac. But they call us an Imperial ship, and not in a very nice way.”

“Tell them who we are, Suki. And try to be nice about it,” said Cissy.

Suki launched into a long ak-ak-ak-awh session of incomprehensible Nebulonin words. Cissy continued to marvel at the gigantic whale thing coming towards them. It had two huge eyes, each the size of a large domed stadium, and hundreds of surrounding eyes of various sizes.

“They are ordering us to fly inside of the Prince’s space whale,” Suki said, deflated.

“Make it so,” ordered Cissy.

Suki piloted the Happy Luck toward the largest space whale’s slowly opening mouth. It was a gaping mouth more than twenty-five kilometers in width.

“We izzn’t going inna dere, iz we?” Friday whined.

“Yes, we are, Friday.”

As they slowly slid through the mouth they began to see how brightly lit everything was.

“What are the bright lights all around us?” Cissy asked.

Crocodile Guy quickly whurred through data. “The bright yellow ones are called sunsources. They contain actual cold fusion of complex particles to produce heat and sunlight. Crikey!”

“And the bright blue lights?”

“Even more impressive, Cissy. Those are brain cells that communicate with other brain cells via microwave energy streams. They are the brains and computer capability of the entire pod of space whales.”

“Wow.”

The scanner readouts began showing breathable atmosphere and exotic radiation in the environment that now surrounded them. Suki daintily landed the ship on a platform structure that could easily be the space whale’s tongue.

Blue-skinned warriors surrounded the ship. A parade of uniformed officials streamed toward Cissy’s space ship.

“What do we do now?” Cissy asked.

“We go out and meet Prince Porodor, son of a former Vorannac Warlord.” Suki gave a half-hearted smile.

“Is he one of the good ones?” Cissy asked.

“Well, no… As far as I know…” Suki said, “He’s one of the very worst ones we could meet.”

Pod Prince Porodor of Clan Vorranac

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

July 9, 2024 · 1:19 am

Dragons

16750_102844496407849_100000468961606_71389_2659019_n

Dragons in the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing games are the central monsters of the story.  In our Eberron campaign they not only rule an entire mysterious continent, but they are credited with the very creation of the world and everything.  Not only monsters, but also gods, is a pretty big order for a   character to fill.

Skye, the Blue Dragon to the left above is a dragon who believes that human people are the most important part of fulfilling the Dragon Prophecy.  Therefore the characters can rely on him as an ally, and sometimes even a patron.  He is a blue chromatic dragon with lightning breath, and the Blue Dragon Aureon, his great great grandfather,  is an important leader of the god-dragons worshiped as the Sovereign Host.

20160424_181130

Phaeros, the great crested red dragon, is a servant of chaos who actively opposes all that is good.  He works with orcish dictators and priests of the Dark Six to accomplish vast swaths of damage, destruction, and war.

He is a big bad villain that has to come at the end of a campaign, because dragons are not only powerful fire-breathers with monstrous monster-damage capability, they also know far more magic than even the wisest of wizards.  My players have not crossed him yet, but if they start finding the missing dragon eggs, that will happen soon.

You may notice that my dragon pictures are mostly coloring-book pictures repeated with different colors, but in many ways dragons are like that.  They all have the cookie-cutter qualities of a dragon, but with different-colored personalities and powers and ideas of good and evil.

Penny Dragon

Pennie is a copper dragon with divided loyalties and the soul of a clown.  She never takes the adventure at hand too seriously.  But if she decides to help the player characters find the missing dragon eggs, no ally will prove stronger and more helpful than her.  And she knows things that the players need to learn from her to find the missing eggs.

So dragons come in many forms and personalities.

In fact, the search for the missing dragon eggs will be critically affected by the fact that the eggs have all five hatched and dragons instinctively protect themselves when young by using their polymorph self magic to become some other creature.  And someone has implanted the idea of using human form as the default even though the wormlings have never actually seen a human being in real life.

C360_2017-07-29-10-13-38-827

This is a double portrait of Calcryx, both as a white dragon wormling and a young girl.

So, playing games with dragons is fun and archetypal story-telling, and I will continue to do it, even if it means getting burned now and again.

Leave a comment

Filed under Dungeons and Dragons, humor, Paffooney

Tagged as , , , , ,

July 8, 2024 · 1:32 am

Goofy Experiments

I have been playing with what it is possible to create with the AI tools I paid for. I am using the various features of both AI Mirror and Picsart AI Photo Editor. It is a blast. I have been doing way more artwork of the cheap and easy AI kind than is even close to reasonable.

It is possible to take a photo of a Barbie Doll (or let’s call it a Skipper doll) and use an AI Mirror to turn the picture into a realistic anime girl on a Picsart background.

And then I can turn that picture back into a plastic doll again, though much more realistic than the stiff-jointed plastic doll I started with.

I can take a goofy-looking picture of a girl’s face and turn that into a plastic doll.

And then do a number of goofy-looking variations of that doll face.

Or edit together a picture of me as a nudist on a Florida beach.

Or goofy-looking variations of that face.

And you should thank your lucky stars that I am not showing you all of the variations I did. It does indeed get worse… much… much worse.

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , ,

July 8, 2024 · 12:59 am

Holding Patterns

Sometimes you have to fly in big circles waiting for terrible things to pass.  If you don’t wait… if you rush in unprepared… then you go down in flames.

20160606_092042

The problem is that the pirates from Bank of America finally came through with their offer to settle my debt.  (This is a repost from 2017) Sixty percent of $T13,000 in four payments over the next four months.  I have an appointment tomorrow to talk with my lawyer about bankruptcy.  It is expensive in this country to become poor.  And if you are poor, you have no other option.  At least, if I can manage three more bankruptcies by the time I’m 70, I will be qualified to run for president.

moosethrow

Life is definitely a lot like Moose Bowling.  It is a simple game.  In order to win, you only have to knock down all ten pins in one throw.  The hard part is that you have to throw a moose to knock the pins down.  Did you know that the average weight of an adult moose is 1800 pounds, or 820 kilograms?  That’s a lot of moose meat to fling with my arthritic 60-year-old moose-throwing muscles.  My flabber is totally gasted by that.

Eden

So, as I swiftly rise from prosperity to poverty, the ultimate fate of most old school teachers, it is probably a good thing that I have decided to become a nudist.  At least I will save money on buying clothes.

Leave a comment

Filed under angry rant, autobiography, commentary, feeling sorry for myself, humor, Paffooney

July 7, 2024 · 2:21 am

Picsart

This self-portrait of me is made from several of my old selfies fed through the Picsart AI Photo Editor app.

It is my way of getting to Florida in spite of my health problem and ill fortune. Picsart synthesized a picture of me in front of an AI-Generated background. Picsart is not really intelligent. The app creates an image based on what you put into it. It can generate images in the same way that other infamous AI art apps do it, scraping images from the internet, mixing it all up,, and rawlfing out a picture based on a sentence or phrase. But it also works as a very good Photoshop program, allowing you to remove backgrounds, isolate images, paste them in new surroundings, and adjust colors… far better than the cheap-o little Photoshop clone I was using before.

I can take a colored pencil drawing (which is increasingly hard for me to do) and put it on computer to use digital tools.

I can draw and color more easily on a touch screen with a stylus, once I learn all the computer controls.

I can finish the drawing by hand and put in a background that matches the style of my drawing using Picsart Smart Backgrounds. But you can see the creeping crudity of my hand-drawn work. So, I can also go back and put it together again with even more AI help.

I can use AI Mirror to put the original drawing through a realistic anime style format that redraws my drawing, including all the flubs that AI is heir to. Crooked fingers, changing the gender of the subject, shrinking the nose, crossing the eyes, and a total misunderstanding of clown paint.

Using Picsart again to put in the Martin Bar and Grill background.

And then I make final corrections with the digital pen and paintbrush to turn Francois back into a boy wearing clown paint while he sings sad songs.

And so, as I get more and more familiar with the things I can do with Picsart, I let it turn me into a Jimmy Buffett clone again, sending me back to Florida where my heart is this weekend.

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , ,

July 6, 2024 · 1:19 am

Trouble at the Troll House

You can control who lives in a doll house pretty easily. The behavior of Trolls and Wishniks and My Pretty Ponies is rather placid and easy to manage. They are all mere lumps of cold plastic given shape by Mattel, Hasbro, Marx, or some other toy factory corporation.

Jade, the family dog, originally supposed to write this post for me, has passed away. Of course, she would’ve pressed the keys with her tongue, so the laptop is grateful that I am doing this post tonight. The dog left me alone in the house on a weekend when I should’ve been able to go with the rest of the family to Florida to see my son’s graduation ceremony from his Air Force special training course. I can’t tell you what he trained in because he is not allowed to tell his family. Probably secrets about aliens and spies from outer space and some junk.

It is possible that Rarity Pony murdered that fallen Troll as baby Cookie Monster and Claypants Troll looked on. Well, it could happen… if somebody had been playing with them.

The fact remains, however, that I had to stay home alone like some kind of over-aged Macaulay Culkin to be near the hospital I want to be admitted to if the no-peeing problem I had earlier this week in the middle of the night suddenly gets worse. It is painful to have a full bladder you can’t empty for some unknown reason. And it is potentially life-threatening. Something similar killed Jim Henson. And Florida hospitals are not the place to be when we have a perfectly good ER that we’ve used before when I feared I might be dying only a few blocks up the street.

So, the only badness I had to deal with turned out to be a bit of loneliness… the blues. The no-peeing problem did not haunt me again on either of the last two nights. I usually like being alone, but not when I am missing out on an important family moment.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized