Happy New Year, 2023 ... welcome 2024!

 

Wishing everyone a brilliant, safe, prosperous and peaceful 2024 ... may there be peace in our time, to coin a phrase; let good health visit your home, and happiness infuse life for every one of us. 

Happy New Year from South Australia, on this sunny afternoon, New Years Eve, 2023. Out with the old, in the the new!

(A Photoshop painting in honour of the occasion)

The Night After Christmas ("Whoville Chainsaw Massacre")

'Twas the night after Christmas and Whoville was rocking

With the kind of wild party that brings people flocking.

The noise and the booze, all the singing and dancing ...

The racket and rumpus, the shmoozing and prancing ...

Would drive to the point of starting a riot

Any poor fellow who just fancied quiet.

And you already know who was sane by an inch:

Poised on the brink was the poor old green Grinch.

By nine in the morning even Max was vibrating

With the jackhammer jollity; it’s not overstating

That not even Max could endure so much ‘cheer,’

No matter how snockered one became on Who beer.

And by two in the P.M., oh, Maxie was worried,

For the Grinch looked so manic; the beast who’d been buried

Beneath fudge and tinsel, and the charm of a child

Had clawed back to the surface ... and my, he was wild!

All the popping and bopping, the preening and prancing,

The swinging and zinging, and -- oh, the break-dancing!

Were more than the Grinch could guess how to endure ...

And then, all at once, he envisioned a cure,

For there by the Christmas tree, flat on the floor,

Was one lonely present. A forgotten chainsaw.

And the Grinch had no sooner set eyes on that tool

Then he said to himself, “Grinchie, you’ll been such a fool,

To think you could bear all this ruckus and humbug,

This rumpus and dumpus, this scampus and scumbug,

This noise, noise, noise, noise, that these Whofolk call ‘fun,’

While the stores are all closed and you can’t buy a gun --

There isn’t a fowling piece (nor even a pheasant),

But one of these idiots forgot his best present!”

For under the Christmas tree, left on the floor,

Wrapped up in red ribbons lay a brand new chainsaw:

All shiny and sharpy, all toothy and jagged --

Just begging for gasoline! So, out the Grinch swaggered

With a light, empty gascan and a bag full of quarters,

To the gas station downtown, with a brain full of slaughters ...

There wouldn’t be any Who left to make noise!

They’d be peacefully absent, the Who girls and boys.

The Who-guys and ladies would be quiet as the snow --

And Cindy-Lou Who’d be the first one to go.

For the Grinch could envisage the headlines tomorrow,

When no Who in Whoville survived to feel sorrow --

Here was a task to which the Grinch felt quite equal

(And MGM’s already contracted the sequel):

GRINCH II: WHOVILLE CHAINSAW MASSACRE.

I wrote this a long, long time ago, and now and then pull it out and repost it, just for fun. It's getting a repost this year as an "Ode to Boxing Day," because the neighbours' grandkids have been kicking up such a ruckus in the backyard, the house is vibrating ... and they've been been doing it for hours. So --

Happy Boxing Day!

Merry Christmas to all, on Christmas Eve, 2023

 

Merry Christmas

to all,

Christmas Eve 2003

From, our house to yours ...

Hoping for a wonderful 2024, and --

Peace on Earth

"...and then I dropped my cup of tea, because something magical happened that hasn’t since I was a child, no older than Tommy is now. The living room faded away. Every light shone brighter, and snow began to fall gently, silently, around the tree. I’d promised him, if he was very quiet and still, and watched, and watched, it could happen — a ruse, to get Tommy to take a nap on Christmas Eve, while mom snatched an hour of rest where she could. He’d fallen asleep — always the plan … and I hadn’t believed in magic in so many years." 

Random images fall together to make a pretty good story. This is cool!

A courier arrives on a fast horse -- he's ridden for days in a time of direst emergency, and arrives in the Kingdom of Altheon to seek the aid of a great warrior, the one one who could undertake a quest of incredible danger...

 

Jirrel is no longer young. He's gown old on the war trails, and had returned to his homeland with the intention of remaining there for the rest of his life in quiet -- and in peace, where he might seek the salvation of a soul that's worn and bruised after seeing and suffering far too much. But the emergency is too dire, and ...

...knowing he can't face this one alone, he first journeys into the wild highlands of Calhanna, where is recruits his old friend, old comrade, to ride the trail with him. Bremmer is younger by several summers and hasn't seen so many battles; he's actually keen to undertake the quest, which Jirrel thinks is quite mad. But...

For this one, they'll need horses which have strange and magickal powers. Ordinary horses won't get them there, so Jirrel and Bremmer first head into the forests of Alkwood to ask the assistances of great creatures who have befriended them, and fought with them before. The great stallion, North Wind, agrees to help, for the sake of a friend.

And then it's into the marshes that lie to the west of Altheon and Calhanna and Alkwood. These swamps are not long or wide, but they're infested with the waterfolk, wyrfolk, who prey on travelers and will take the unwary for their food and valuables, their horses -- and their lives...

...and it's not much better once the friends have cut a path through the swamps. From the southwest of the region known as Dirtwater, they follow Desolation Creek, which has always been the fastest way through to their goal. But Desolation is plagued by bandits and cutthroats with wyrd powers, and getting through isn't easy.

Still, perseverance pays off -- and Jirrel and Bremmer at last find themselves on the lakeshore surrounding the city of Longlear. Many people, further east, refuse to believe Longlear even exists, but Jirrel has been there before, and he knows -- or knew -- its old king, from the days of his youth. 

Times have changed, and not for the better. The Kings of Longlear have, for centuries, been great sorcerers, and old King Narhagen was once the greatest of them all. But, like all kings, he has enemies, and one of them has become strong enough to turn his own magic against him, plunge him into a wasting sickness from which he cannot recover on his own --

Yet old Narhagen knows exactly who is behind this. It's his cousin, Rhothgand, who made a bid for the crown of Longlear when they were both young and not even fully trained. Thwarted, Rhothgand vanished north, to pursue his studies elsewhere. Now he's back, infinitely more powerful than he ever was, as dark as a barrel of pitch and, some say, driven insane by his lifelong study of arts too dark for sanity to bear. Jirrel and Bremmer must challenge him, defeat him ... it is the only way back to the light for Longlear. So ... it's into the drear Forest of Marnecht, along uncharted ways fraught with evil as well as danger. But at last -- 

 

They come upon Rhothgand in a place where the forest thins, and the black magician has made his stronghold, surrounded by birds and animals he has turned into fiends. The battle is intense, shocking, vile ... Jirrel and Bremmer are armed with the best charms and magicks the sorcerers of Longlear can provide, but it's barely enough. They do defeat Rhothgand, but...

...save for the intervention of Liliath, neither would have survived. Both are badly wounded when the Lady of Windcrest comes to their aid. She is a witch ... ancient, solitary, powerful, but even she could not have defeated Rhothgand before the warriors weakened him. She finishes off the evil and insane black magician, but it's all she can do to convey the warriors back to Windcrest, to heal.

Windcrest is a place of light, a wooded mountain facing the north and east, where the dawn sun angles through the great crystal arches, and Liliath drinks in the power for her own magicks. It is the force that keeps he ageless while the centuries turn and turn. This mountain is her place; no other foot has trodden there in a generation...

She lives with the forest folk, foxes, badgers, martens, squirrels, all of whom are spirits with whom she is in accord...

...and with rare birds who have the ability to talk, and possess the passed-down memories of the eons of their ancestors, of which human beings know nothing ... 

...and of other creatures of the light and air, which come to Liliath's call to sip the power that flows off the ancient witch like the morning dew.

Windcrest is a place of healing and rest, where the warriors of eons gone by would come to be healed of the wounds of both body and soul...

But even the power of Windcrest is not limitless. It has its sunset, just as it has its dawn ... its power fades with the encroaching night ... and before the dawn, when the night is darkest, Bremmer succumbs to wounds that Liliath could not mend. 

It seems the very woodland mourns as Liliath and Jirrel set his funeral pyre. Bremmer had still been young enough to be impulsive -- quick to strike where Jirrel was older, wiser, more cautious. And now, it is the old warrior, sad and tired, who will take his friend's ashes back to the wild highlands of Calhanna, there to be scattered on the morning wind.

Duty done, Jirrel sits on a crag, remembering, and listening to Bremmer's voice in the wind which whips forever over the heaths and mountains of his homeland.

Digital painting for the Christmas season, and other goodies

Reepicheep, the Errol Flynn of the mouse world

A 2023 repaint of the 2017 sketch of magnolias, to fix
a number of resolution issues that couldn't be
addressed with the old hardware 

I've been interested, as we run in toward Christmas, to try my hand at designing Christmas cards. Interesting! And along the way, a number of new digital painting techniques have come my way, and I wanted to try them out. The perfect image to go in and play around was Reepicheep ... my take on swashbuckling mouse from the land of Narnia. That was fun -- and the new techniques worked out well. It doesn't matter how long you've been painting, or how many paintings you've done, there's always sooo much more to learn! 

The idea of using AI to create picture elements for compositing and painting, rather than shelling out pots of money for 3D props, is working out, and I have to credit Bing as being the AI to run with at this moment, if your pockets are not deep. Mine aren't, not anymore. My cash flew away and it's proving very difficult indeed to get it back. I can no longer afford the tons of new models and resources to support CG art, so ... here we are.  

There's not much more to report ... but I will say this: my creative juices are starting to flow again, and I have a yen to get back to the story of Trouble, the rescue dragon who needs to go home, across the mountains, when he grows large enough to start making wrecking of the Consulting Mage's house. Enter the delectable Tomas, and Brianna, the mage's human descendants, and a gypsy wagon, the two magickal cats, Shadow and Ginger, and a quest into the west, and a passage through to an enchanted realm where the big dragons live ... all the elements are in place for a lovely story. All I need is the energy to get on and do it!

Photoshop magic enchants some beloved old raytraces. Check this out!

Work continues apace on the this blog, which has needed a facelift for a very, very long time. I'm also tackling the challenge of The Lost Songs, which has been in limbo for about as long as the conclusion o the Game of Thrones book series! And if I do say so myself, I've got a raft of better reasons for letting the story slide into limbo than George R.R. Martin has! Read the backstory behind what happened to The Lost Songs, and why -- and what's coming next for this project -- right here. 

And to prove it, let me show you these:

Leon Greatsword: 2023 repaint...

Leon and Iphigenia: the 2023 re

These are the 2023/24 repaints of the old images from 2012. Wow. What a difference. This is purely Photoshop magic; nothing has been re-rendered, but everything can be repainted -- and, of course, the illustrations for the remainder of this story will come into the world looking like this. In fact, it's worth taking a look at the old and the new, side by side. The one that needed the least work was the Lux Render; the old raytraces, however, dated from a time when I could barely turn on shadows without making the computer crash! Ah, those were the days...

So ... bear with me while I get this project into shape, and then ... let's have this finished, as outlined in the post I referred you back to above!

In other news ... work continues on the photo blog, travel blog and so forth. And also on the art galley site. I'll reiterate: if there is anything on the old site you want to keep, grab it now, because when it's gone, it's gone. 

Recent goodies ... painting happily. Cyberpunk hero, fire warrior, nectromancer, misty mountains ... what more could you want?

No, I haven't died! Not yet. Not quite. But there have been times when it seemed a viable alternative: Covid. Again. Added to which -- you try having or or three huge migraines every week, and see what happens to your equilibrium! Too many problems to solve, not enough answers. Now it's a heatwave ... argh. Aus in the springtime -- fun, fun.

But yes, I've been busy. Am still working on the new website ... it's going to take a bunch more work, but I'm getting there. One of the best things was getting to lash up a bunch of faux covers for the free reads section. Reminds me of how much I used to love doing book covers!

 

...there's a bunch more, but those will give you an idea of where my imagination is at the moment. Lots of good reading, all of it free, and more to come. 

Otherwise, not much is happening on the artistic front. Covid knocks the packing out of you -- I;m still trying to recover, and am working an a fraction the pace I want to. As a friend of mine used to say, "Survive and Succeed." But the survival part comes first!

New art, new projects ... fantasy, dragons, guy-candy, websites...

I know I keep saying, "Well, I'm back, to quote Sam," and then vanishing again. Life is like that. You name it, it's happened in the last few months -- doesn't mean I haven't been painting, rendering, doing all kinds of work --

So, what have I been up to in the last couple of months? It's been busy, and a lot of art has been produced, but it's mostly been more commercial in nature ... less experimentation...

...in fact, I would dearly love to get back into CG work. DAZ, Iray, Terragen, Bryce, whatever. I can't believe it's been close to two years since I regularly did that stuff!

What slows me down (read: brings me to a complete, dead stop) is the price of new props. Those 3D toys that put the zest into the work. They've become waaaay more expensive at the same time as the cost of living has blown out to kingdom come, and my income stream(s) have dwindled away. So, for me it's digital painting, plus the fun of using AI to generate elements for re-re-re-composition. In terms of creativity, I've been "all over the shop," up to and including children's illustration...

...but one of the things I've enjoyed most is going back into older work and matting it, reworking it, turning something old into something new:

...but the major job I've completed recently is a website for the Sherlock Holmes novelist, Dr. Mike Adamson. This was a challenge, because to complete it, I had to illustrate it -- that was part of the deal, and it meant creating over 100 pieces of fresh art in just a few days. Impossible? Mmm, it would have been, in the days before you can source the elements from AI before the work/fun of painting and compositing begins. Suffice to say ... I managed it. Here's a few of my favourite plates, in their original form, prior to painting:

Well, the website was done on time, and ... wow. Not only was it a fabulous experience producing this, but the finished result made me soooo envious, I had to tackle one of my own! Mine, of course, is based more around art and photography than writing, so it's fraught with practical issues that Dr Mike's more text-driven site was not. 

Here is the first site, all done:

...and here's a sneak preview of mine, which is still under construction...

And mine is going to take some seriously hard work to complete, because it'll have something like 500 images, all of which need to be "called" from thumbnails, lest the pages be a 70MB download each. Even given today's speeds, this is impractical. Even a slightly sluggish connection would make for a horrible download experience. But -- when the site is done and uploaded, it will replace the old galley. So, if there is anything you want to grab off that ancient gallery, get it while you can, because when it's gone, it's gone. 

Now, on top of all that ... pile on a nasty case of Covid. I'm currently coughing up both lungs and seriously considering lying down at two in the afternoon. In fact, I believe I will --!