Morgs: Today We Wander In Forlan

This morning when I opened up the folders in the bottom of the Camp Chest of Drawers, the first folder on top was dedicated to the land of Forlan and the world of Ortha, and my destiny was set. There were so many different pictures of Morgs than I remembered, probably because I was fixated by a favorite few. And, wonder of wonders, I finally hit upon the formula to reproduce them more accurately. Though that one of Korm has curiously short legs; somehow that got replicated in Morg Ages, which was originally only heads. And Morg Beard-Lore had not been invented yet. So here we go. More posts as we go along; still haven't quite got Ogres down yet.

Lords and Ladies

One thing AI is very good at, and that's making beautiful women. Even at the height of my powers, I couldn't make a pretty lady for spit. Suggestive in the broad outlines, perhaps, but for delicacy of expression, no dice. John might recognize Jack from The Shadow Over Alben.

Some Tweaks and Some New Holiday Content

 

The tweaks were, to wit: removing the fireflies from Harpist, the hood from Contraption, and the strange little goblin from Fastiticalon, all artifacts supplied by AI. I have now finished with gleaning pics from that which I creatively call The Blue-Black Shoe Box. It includes a pile of snippets (not full page sketches) which includes a lot more Morg material than I remember. It is from these snippets I took Snowman (perhaps the best snowman I ever drew) and Pumpkin Imp. I have many more drawings waiting on improved connectivity from my camera phone. Then after a rest I'll plunge into the plethora of notebooks tucked away in the bottom drawer. The whole process has been an agony and an ecstasy for me, a sentimental journey and a compulsive obsession for me. A couple of my other projects have been kicked to the back burner. I feel that perhaps I'm slowing down a bit on the AI. "But at my back I always hear / Time's winged chariot hurrying near." 

The Bishop!

So this is what AI came up with.

This is a snapshot of the original drawing.

This is the classic cryptozoological illustration.

And this is what AI made of that.

The Sea Bishop is one of those cryptological wonders that owes its existence more to taxidermy and curiosity shops than to legend, but it did have its own tale of lore for a while, like the similarly named Monk Fish or the Jenny Hanivers.

 

Give Us This Day Our Daily Pics

The AI had a hard time reading Bishop Fish, though it handled the Kraken and the Sea Serpent okay. I might need a whole separate post explaining what went on there. The CHUD turned out pretty good; Come Away, Human Child might could use some tweaking. Fastiticalon was inspired by the Tolkien poem of the same name. The Harpist in the Leaves (the original drawing) has a strange history: it was locked up in my high school locker for over half a year as I tried to remember the combination - or find time to visit it. Pellinore is based on the T. H. White stories. Orlock was a very early drawing; I was good at robes but poor with other clothing, so a robe he got. The Green Wizard's staff was based on Mom's snakeheaded cane.

Miracles and Mayhem

King Charles the Brown Contemplates Life harks back to our old project of Snoopunzel, an adaptation of the fairy tale using embellished tracings from some old coloring books. The AI had a hard time getting a hold of By the Way, a picture inspired by a passage in Little, Big. So I include two of the four tries that I did before I gave up..