More Plumping

Mostly A's and B's. Professor Odd is the odd man out here (yuk-yuk). The version with eye-stalks is the more original-drawing accurate, but the lizard version is not without its charms, which is why I include it.

Plump It Out A Bit

I have a file entitled Whole Darn Show, where I put all my animations and the pictures that inspire them. When I settle down to go to sleep, I turn on my music playlist, start a slideshow, and watch interesting synchronicities unroll. I noticed a certain paucity of animations at the start, so I made these 'to plump it out a bit.' I include that variation of A Little Jaunt because I think it superior, but I can't get it horizontal. The boy in Adventure is walking through a magic portal, not just stepping outside. I also made a variation of Ancient Oak to spice it up a bit; how do you make trees more exciting? I was pleased and surprised to find that Grok supplied Angelic with actual Bible-accurate angel dialogue.

Thomas Lovell Beddoes

I was casting my eyes over on the books I have on the shelf on my desk and I saw Death's Jest-Book, by Thomas Lovell Beddoes (see elsewhere on this blog). I came to me that I'd only only seen one old black-and-white crayon picture of him. Then I thought, it's hard to get any idea about him from just that. And then I thought, "Let's bring him back - with science!" And here he is. I wonder how much like him it really is, but this is probably as close as we can get at this late date. Hi, Tom!

Take a P

Padre Porko to Pocketwatch.  Patrick is from an incomplete short story I published here, When He Woke Up. Pecos Bill should rightly be riding a catfish, but whatever. Right now the universe is p'ing, as my nephew would say. I'm glad to have done this much.

Ooo!

Sometimes when I look at my own drawings I think of this line from The Golden Voyage of Sinbad: "These pictures tell the story of a legend yet unrealized." For some reason Grok is being very generous today (10 second animation instead of 6 seconds) and, umm, creative in their changes of points of view. All 'O' subjects today, from On Guard to Ozma. Our Noble Lady is of course You-Know-Who.

Some "Oak Tree Tea" Errata, Corrected

Pages 17 and 21, 17 for the picture (the old page had them obviously in a garden, not a treetop), and 21 for the text. It corrected the misspelling of 'vanished' easily enough, but I practically had to tie myself in knots to get it to remove an extra period. I would like to have kept the bats in 17, but the editing had me so frazzled that I was glad to get what I got and left it there for now.

Oak Tree Tea, Revised and Illustrated

I hadn't used ChatGPT for a few days, and when I decided to make an illustrated edition of Oak Tree Tea, I discovered I did not have to keep inventing the wheel as I built each page. I loosened up a bit about my original vision, and that, in turn, allowed me to make a few variations on the verse itself, variations that subtly improve it, I think. The 'chubby chum' originally was dressed in a robe; the 'withered witch' looked more aged and less charming than she appears here. The background made some mutations that I did not realize at first; I may especially point to Page 17, where the venue changes from a treetop gathering to a garden party. Also that the expressions of the characters were a little monotonous for several pages. By the time I noticed, I had closed the project and 'returning were as tedious as go o'er.' I probably will correct it sometime. Here is the character sheet I accepted for the project before I began, from my original prompts: