Fantasy hero, Terragen type landscape -- and the cat!

 

The cat is a Maine Coon called Tyson ... he was out for his walkies with his mom, on a long lead and riding in a stroller until he felt like hopping out and investigating a shrub or the water's edge, at Laratinga a few weeks ago. I asked the lady if I could take a few photos, and as soon as she said yes, naturally Tyson wouldn't look up, or look at me. I grabbed the best I could get! Here, he's painted from the photo, down to the edge of his white ruff, or mane ... below that, I haven't much clue what he looked like, because he was in the stroller -- so I just blur out to impressionist strokes at that point. Am quite pleased with this one -- probably the best from-scratch painting I've managed yet. Most of it was done in Photoshop, because for some reason Krita didn't want to play nice at all...

The fantasy warrior began life as another disastrous Lexica picture which had to be rescued and re-re-repainted. I asked for a fantasy warrior; I specified "no helmet, no armour, no weapons, no shirt." Well, it managed the no helmet part, but it loaded him up with ironmongery ... and apparently, if you specify "no shirt" in Lexica, it's a cardinal offence which will get your account suspended. So, heaven help you if you're trying to render Conan the Barbarian, or a prize fighter or professional wrestler in the ring. Okay: message received and understood, and -- fair enough. I guess they've levelled the playing field, because if you could specify "no shirt," they'd have to do some extra work and specify that they didn't want topless females. Because you know what they'd get. Insert eyeroll emoji. To compensate for getting the helmet part right, Lexica saw fit to give this guy eighteen fingers. Eight fingers and a thumb on each hand,. His hand looks like a packet of sausages in the supermarket cold cabinet. Insert a second eyeroll emoji. So -- it's good thing I like painting, and can paint, or this is another one which would have gone right into the bin. Argh. Thank gawdz I haven't paid money for this ai. If I had, I'd be pretty disappointed -- because it's not cheap. I looked.

Anyway, this is where I am at the moment: painting happily, messing about with images and trying to stay off social media as much as possible. It dawned on me the other day how much of my time facebook is eating up, and for no useful purpose. In fact, it's too easy to blunder into mindless debate with strangers on facebook; and when they lose the debate, they slingshot right into abuse. It happened. It was somewhere between the pits and a laughable scene best forgotten. Having said that, there's better ways to spend your days; life's too short, and all that. So -- less time on facebook, for me, and more time enjoying life.