Category Archives: artwork

November 3, 2019 · 7:00 pm

Project Conclusions

I did it again. What did I do, you may ask? I executed a plan and finished a project that I have been working on for some time.

Princess Persimmons’s Castle is the remains of a plastic children’s play-set, the brand and name of which I do not know. It was purchased for a quarter at a Goodwill store. I repainted the purple, pink, and blue plastic castle, and added snow.

The Princess herself is an unpainted D&D figure purchased in a game store at the Music City Mall in Lewisville while waiting for the start of a movie, Black Panther, I think. I painted her with enamel.

The three minstrels below are bard figures for D&D, purchased from the same place on two different occasions. They are painted with the same paints.

The background is an old Christmas card, altered with my computer’s paint program to fit the picture-project I had in mind.

And I will be able to place the castle and all the figures in other pictures in the future, as well as use them all for future games of D&D.

There is something very satisfying about completing a project. The picture you had in your head when you started all comes together. And it doesn’t match the original idea. But, still, you have accomplished an act of making art. Of course, when I say, “You”, I really mean, “Me”. But, I’m betting you probably know exactly what I am talking about

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Filed under artwork, Dungeons and Dragons, homely art, photo paffoonies

November 2, 2019 · 5:56 pm

The Big Picture

Some of the pictures I draw, especially in colored pencil, take hours of time to complete. But they are generally only done because the ideas being pictured are totally worth the effort.

As I get older and older, the deeper meaning of this picture becomes clear.

Magic, mystery, and family are a part of my way forward as a warrior for the light.

Of course, as a retired teacher, I have to believe that class pictures will still be a thing with schools even in the distant future.

And sometimes it’s a jumble of thoughts and feelings.

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Filed under artwork, humor, Paffooney

October 28, 2019 · 8:00 pm

Badday Art Therapy

Today was a bad day. Someone used my Visa-card number at a gas station. My money card is now being replaced. I did not write today (Except for this). Instead, I worked on this possible cover art.

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October 24, 2019 · 2:24 pm

Ta-Da-Ra!

On the mantel

Of our home hearth

Sit the objects

That give life worth

A candle lighting

The dark of earth

A cup once painted

With paint and mirth

A Snoopy plaque

Announcing birth

And ceramic doll

Smiling o’er the hearth.

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Filed under artwork, Paffooney, poem, poetry

October 23, 2019 · 2:49 pm

Sci-Fi Plans

This is a possible cover for ***AeroQuest 3***.

I have now re-written about sixty percent of the old novel AeroQuest. I published AeroQuest 1 : Stars and Stones in September. AeroQuest 2 : Planet of the White Spider was published yesterday in October. AeroQuest 3 : Juggling Planets will probably take longer than either of the other two. The story has to be elongated. The growing rebellion of the pirates and smugglers trying to establish the New Star League need time to grow their rebellion. In the previous edition of this book the flower blossoms almost before the shoots are out of the ground. I need to develop the rebellion with more planets and systems with reasons why they want to leave the icky old emperor and establish a space-born democracy. And this novel series isn’t merely a parody of Star Wars or an imitation of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It is also its own version of a space opera with unique characters and plot-lines that are entirely Mickian in their non-sensibility.

Ged Aero, the main character and most important protagonist, is revealed in AeroQuest 2 to be the new White Spider, a prophet-like teacher fulfilling a century-old prophecy by leading twelve young disciples into the state of near-perfection of their psionic mind powers. Adventures where these twelve student-disciples learn stuff they need to know need to be added to the original story.

Each of the first two re-written books is about 35,000 words. The original novel is about 120,000 words. I will need to add a lot more than just the re-write of 50,000 more words. And I want to keep the books approximately equal, so I will be aiming to increase the total to at least 140,000 words by writing two more 35,000-word stories. And it may be enough more than that to fill five total books.

If my run-away cancerous imagination is not reigned in, I have at least three more book-length story-tumors to add in beyond that.

So, I have enough to do. My Tuesday blog plan will still be going for a while.

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Filed under artwork, illustrations, novel plans, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney, science fiction

Tagged as Aeroquest

October 21, 2019 · 4:16 pm

More Illustrating AeroQuest

I am nearing the completion of the rewrite of part two of AeroQuest. Part of that is getting all the illustrations I want to include done. So, here are a few more that I have been working on.

For those who might be wondering, AeroQuest 1 and AeroQuest 2 are comic science fiction, and I have chosen to rewrite them with lots of illustrations since it is a work of fiction that I might’ve done as a graphic novel if only I didn’t have arthritis in my hands.

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Filed under artwork, comic book heroes, humor, illustrations, novel, novel writing, Paffooney, satire, science fiction

Tagged as AeroQuest 2

October 19, 2019 · 3:11 pm

Pictures In My Head

I do draw some pictures from models, photos, or other illustrations… but fantastical things that you can’t find a model for are what occur most often in my stupid head.

I was back in a classroom yesterday as a sub. 6th graders. It did look an awful lot like this, but I was holding another teacher’s giant pencil.

This is the ski-jump on Valwood Parkway in Farmer’s Branch. I merely changed the railroad tracks into a stream.

I taught all three of these kids when they were thirteen, but one in ’81, one in ’92, and one in ’94. Oh, and not on Mars.

No models were used in this picture, though I did know several blue children.

Done without a model, unless you believe 3″ tall fairies are a real thing.

No werewolf girls posed topless for this picture.

This classroom photo was entirely in my stupid old head, not in a school gymnasium full of snow.

Even the mountains in the background were drawn directly from my mind’s eye.

A lot of what I draw is merely emotional flim-floogery and provides a look inside of me that makes a portrait of me drawn even more naked and vulnerable than if I drew myself nude.

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Filed under artwork, autobiography, humor, illustrations, imagination, Paffooney

Tagged as Art Day Post

October 16, 2019 · 4:03 pm

Creating Another Cover

As I continue working on my work-in-progress, I get ideas for how I am going to make a cover for it. I have kicked around ideas and even tried executing a few of them. And when I say that, it doesn’t mean I literally kicked anything or shot anything in the head. I did drawings and thought seriously about how to put them together.

Remember this one? I drew this because my current novel has two people in it that claim they are actually dragons in human disguises.

One of those people is the girl Fiona Long, who goes by Fi most of the time. She is an aggressive red-headed girl who makes the boys cringe on occasion. She tells them her real name is Firefang, and she’s a red dragon wearing a human meat-disguise. Of course, the boys in Norwall, Iowa immediately believe her, because dragons are so common in Iowa.

So, I took these two image-ideas and slapped them together.

Oh, I forgot to mention, the story happens in 1976, the Bi-Centennial year, and the story climax happens during the 4th of July celebration.

I wasn’t really happy with how this first one looked, so I tried a second shot at putting them together in a slightly different manner.

Of course, the novel is not yet done. It is maybe only half done. So, for that reason, the cover does not have to be done also. And it does bother me a little that the title is The Boy… Forever, and yet, I have a picture of a girl and a dragon on the cover. Maybe Icarus needs to be in the picture too. Icarus Jones is the boy from the title. So, I need to work on that, and maybe redo the whole cover. We shall see. And that will make a possible future blog post too.

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Filed under artwork, humor, novel plans, novel writing, Paffooney

Tagged as cover art mock-ups, novel writing, The Boy... Forever

October 14, 2019 · 4:54 pm

The Dragon Within My Writing

The Chinese Dragon that I have drawn for today is a part of the planned cover illustration for my work in progress, The Boy… Forever.

But it is also more than that. The villain of the story claims to be a dragon in human form. And even though this may be a metaphor-like lie, it is an apropos symbol of the underlying conflict that informs almost all of my work. There is always, it seems, a hidden evil that is far more dangerous and life-consuming than it portrays itself as. The blizzard in Snow Babies, the real werewolf, the murderer, in The Baby Werewolf, suicidal depression in When the Captain Came Calling and Sing Sad Songs, and the serial killer in both Sing Sad Songs and Fools and Their Toys all kill other characters in my stories. They all bear the stamp of the evil dragon, magically powerful and dangerous in ways that guns alone cannot protect you from. They are evils embedded in human nature. They are the dragon that the White Knight of the story must defeat.

So, I show you this dragon today as a way of acknowledging my own dragons that must be fought.

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Filed under artwork, commentary, humor, metaphor, monsters, novel plans, Paffooney

October 12, 2019 · 5:27 pm