Color Cards

I was able to scare up the color version of the Sets deck and enhanced a few select cards. I'll probably animate them later.

C's and a Kwee

About 2 o'clock Grok finally was allowing me animations; I am only sorry that this batch of C's are such a mild clollection. It includes two variations of two different pictures: a castle in different modes, and two tries at what I called Crowded Room. The trouble with Crowded Room is that it originally had a sign that said 'Drink Coca Cola'; this had been 'corrected' into simply 'Drunk'. The picture labeled Cutout is the remnantof a little phase I was going through: I would save cutouts of single figure drawings or traces of characters, then put them in drawn settings in which were cut slits to accomodate and integrate them. Basically a system of paper dolls, but I would never have referred to them as such. I stll have them in a little folder labeled Cast of Characters. I also made an animation of Kwee that I think much better. It rounds out of batch that doesn't include any human figures.

Introducing Kwee

Lately I've introduced a new character into The Wizard, the Prince, the Warrior, and His Son, a young Ogre that the healer Ketta by necessity adopts from the moment of his hatching. By necessity, but she is also a very generous and loving person, so it fits right into her character. So I'm exploring the concept (as I did in my essay 'Good, Evil, and Free Will on Ortha,' published here on NOT) of whether a member of a 'mook' fantasy race can be habilitated into a good person. His full given name (rarely spoken) is Gurrankwee (not an Ogrish name), but his baby name is Kwee-kwee, often shortened to Kwee by those not inclined to be so twee. What his 'education' would mean to those who know Ogres only as ruthless murdering marauders, or what it would mean to Ogres who despise friendliness and to whom violence is a social way of life, makes for some interesting speculation. My brother John made a very good picture of Kwee, perhaps the best picture of an Ogre we've made so far. Out of interest I developed it, speculating that if he was three feet tall and the equivalent of  five years old, how would he look at thirty years old and six feet tall? I was only able to make these two animations, as Grok is running slow. Not exactly satisfied with the animation of the young version, but couldn't develop it any more. I set it at six feet, as Kwee is a Lesser Ogre; if he had developed into a Great Ogre, he'd be at least ten feet.

Bonus Animations

Sailing Through the C's

First we visit the Church Oak. Then we see Cinders from the Vera Back book happily on an errand in town. Circle City is definitely not Mina Tirith; it has a water feature. A wizard protects against a witch's fiery attack with a Circle of Power. The Elf-king and his counsellor ask you to Come Away. The young prophet has a Confrontation in the dungeon with the king and his druid. A man's Conjuration summons up a demon at a crossroads. A hag Conjures Up a spirit, much to her son's delight. A weary old king is Considering his life choices that have brought him to a tent on a battlefield.

ChatGPT Enhancements

I was sitting around gloomily contemplating the fact that I had filled my limits on Grok for the day, when it suddenly occurred to me that I had a subscription to ChatGPT that I hadn't been using to its full potential, and a plethora of unused pictures. So I gathered up a few and enhanced them. Eventually I will animate them, but I think they turned out quite well as they are. Ar-Pharazon and Annatar conspire again; there is a Blue Wizard (probably not one from Middle-earth); a Dragon Attacks from above; Gandalf vs. The Balrog; Merlin and Arthur; Odin One-Eye; an alien is Puzzled by an encounter with a human; and an elf sings of the Region of the Summer Stars (which poem see elsewhere in this blog).

Draw Three More

If I remember rightly, with the 'Man of Ice' this completes the 'Man Of' set. There were five Dwarves, including the Yellow Dwarf and the Green Dwarf, and Five Dragons of colors corresponding to the Dwarves' colors. Many other sets, including the Four Winds, etc. The cards were the size of an ordinary playing card, which explains why many were simplified in drawing.