By day I'm a video game consultant, and I also volunteer at the German Shepherd Dog Welfare Fund - the charity that rescued the dog I adopted last year. I've also recently started compiling a website covering the history of the village I live, although I'm hoping to draw in some help for that project! Here is scratchpad when I need it, and a place for my personal projects. It's also an archive from back when this was was my writing blog.
Friday 30 September 2022
Illustrated Drabbles - A Marriage Made in...
Sunday 25 September 2022
Birth Pains of a Shared Consciousness
Content Warning: Hippy Overthinking Incoming...
Just some almost random musings really, but don't say I didn't warn you as I frantically try and type this before the 'too little sleep crust' clears from my eyes...
I recall as a youth reading about shamanistic rituals and their ability to project elsewhere onto the Astral Plane. A shared space that could be accessed by the power of the mind and with knowledge, talent and mastery could communicate with anyone as they slumbered. Those that knew the secret could access the library whether white, black or indeed of none, or all colours at once. Legend teased that all human knowledge - past, present or future could be found within its abstract walls.
There would have to be sacrificesthough. And much time spent learning, before embarking on a spiritual quest to access these mystical tools. A price more than coin always had to be paid. Even then the reality would be shrouded in myth and obscured by symbols so that the truth of it didn't consume the seeker.
Simple primitive and restrictive nonsense that the clever monkeys trapped between their Heaven and Hell in a miraculous, yet crushingly mundane world could not bear. Some attribute the jump start in genetics to a lucky hand dealt, others to an omnipotent design, and still others to the code itself adapting and surviving to develop a crude tool. A cruel and brutal analogue of nature from which it spawned. A tool of technology outstripping that of patient adaptation and understanding. No balance, just progress.
And so that what was once considered a path reserved for the gifted ones, those lost to insanity, the outcasts and the visionaries are laid open. Exposed to all in its virginal vulnerability, available to (almost) everyone without consideration of merit or accountabilityPrimate fists smash their keyboards, hooting and howling their dreams and fears. Then automatically translated by machine slaves into digital shrieking of political, spiritual and emotional dissonance reverberating through the shared blend of the world and virtuality. Technology is the great leveller, the gun defeats the sword, the enabler of the lowest common denominator. The barely understood impulse, lurking in the shadows of the mind snatched into reality with no effort, and so little time for consideration. No pause for knowing that just because they could...
Or is it all just an interesting story for a Midjourney prompt 😎
Outro...
Ooo a music video seems like a fun idea :-)
Saturday 17 September 2022
A Midjourney Through the Seasons
You have American horror author Heather Miller and my youngest sister in part as the inspiration for my latest Midjourney exploration. Heather because of she posted some seasonal quotes, and Christine for a similar post regarding the seasons. My favourite quote for the seasons is a rather poetical one from a song called Mythistory by a band called Sabbat.
Corn is the gold that will shine in the summertimeLeaves are the emeralds you find in the springAt autumn they turn and as copper they burn,then they fall like the diamonds that bleak winter brings.
I posted many seasons ago about this song and you can read more here
https://thecultofme.blogspot.com/2013/02/my-favourite-song-lyrics-mythistory.html
I need little excuse to to share this quote, but is also seemed a nice idea to run the quotes through Midjourney. Naturally it didn't go as simply as that although I did try to keep to the original lines as closely as the possible to the original lines as much as possible for the individual images. This worked fine, except for winter as it didn't seem to recognise that it was a winter scene. Overall though I used iteration through regeneration rather than crafting the prompts and I'm pleased with the final result.
Apart from adding the text I resisted any modifications to the images. It was tempting to playe with some form of transition between the images though :-)
Sunday 11 September 2022
Paradise Lost - AI Illustrated Edition
Exciting times! My Paradise Lost - AI Illustrated Edition has officially commenced with the Front Matter scans and transcriptions from the 1794 edition on which the text will be based on.
And it has a cover!
https://paradiselostaiedition.blogspot.com/2022/09/paradise-lost-ai-illustrated-edition_11.html
Saturday 10 September 2022
Ancient Rome Under Assault
Today's Midjourney prompt inspiration is courtesy of Modiphius and their successfully advertised me something that I didn't realise I wanted - Call of Cthulhu in Ancient Rome (well technically it's Achtung Cthulhu in Ancient Rome, but you get the idea) - find out more here - https://www.modiphius.net/pages/cohors-cthulhu
I'm going to have to revisit this idea in the future. I managed a few nice mood pieces, but some up-close scenes eluded me this time.
Tuesday 6 September 2022
A (Mid)Journey to a Self Portrait
A self portrait challenge seems to be doing the rounds and I decided that would be a good learning. As well as refining my skill at writing prompts, I thought it would be fun to follow the flow of generated images. But before we look at the Midjourney creations here's a few photos of the target (me).
50 year old man with a medium cropped beard and long hair:: Blue eyes:: A noise broken many times. |
50 year old man with a medium cropped dark blond beard and long slightly curly hair:: Tired blue eyes:: A nose broken many times. |
Inspiration struck me - if I added the term 'realistic' on the end, then that would surely fix the oddities. It didn't.
Back to tweaking the prompt, again with little success.
a heavy metal fan with dirty blong long hair and trimmed beard, a broken nose, heavily built:: Mugshot --ar 3:2 --uplight --s 1200 |
a heavy metal fan with wavy dirty blonde long hair and trimmed beard, a broken nose the bends to the left, stocky built, slight smile:: Mugshot --ar 3:2 --uplight --s 1200 |
a heavily built heavy metal fan with long dirty blonde hair and a scruffy beard |
a heavily built heavy metal fan with long dirty blonde hair and a scruffy beard - Upscaled by @TechnoHippy |
https://s.mj.run/A00BJovqZQc a heavily built heavy metal fan with long dirty blonde hair and a scruffy beard --test --creative --upbeta - Upscaled (Beta) |
Nephew Kian's Endurance Charity Challenge
Sister Christine Brookes and my nephew Kian are generously fundraising For GSD welfare Fund, and to help pay for Brodie's surgery that has worked wonders to improve his quality of life. Young Kian has his work cut out for him with his endurance challenge so good luck ti him, and I hope everyone will be generous with their donations to show how we appreciate his support!
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/kiansendurancechallenge
Saturday 3 September 2022
As part of our fundraising to keep the German Shepherd Dog Welfare Fund rescuing, rehabilitating and rehoming vulnerable German Shepherds we are hosting a Halloween Horror Auction throughout the month of October, and of course including All Hallows Eve.
We're asking for items that we can auction - we've received an amazing response so far with original art, signed books, novelties and signed prints.There's an eclectic range from the spookily lighthearted all the way to stomach wrenching terror.
To let us know if you're donating something for the auction, please complete the short form via the link below, and thank you all for your amazing generosity!
https://gsdwelfare.blogspot.com/2022/09/calling-all-creators-of-horror.html