Artwork

Why Image Generators Need Much Work

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I’m not feeling threatened by AI image generators this week because I totally stumped Adobe Firefly with this strange ask below:

demon; eating tacos; in taco bell in a booth; horns on head; evil look; masculine; wearing a red t shirt

I also added ‘bulls head’ to the ask because I couldn’t get a demon look without adding an animal to the mix. Every search resulted in a human look including women with the masculine ask. Before I added ‘wearing a red t-shirt’ they were all wearing suits.

The image to the right is pretty similar to most of the results with different art styles as I changed the query. So AI thinks humans are demons, which of course is correct.

If you wanna see more of the results, check out my @meanwinniejean Instagram account.

I watched The Pope’s Exorcist this week. Was kinda in a mood for demons after trying to get the image generator to create demons eating tacos. The movie starts with this, which I loved. Fun going in knowing that the story is based on a real priest, but the movie was way beyond reality.

“When we jeer at the Devil and tell ourselves that he does not exist, that is when he is happiest.”

Father Gabriele Amorth
Chief Exorcist of the Vatican 1986-2016

Obviously a high-budget horror flick, so I appreciated the dark, dreary settings and quality acting. While a priest who performs exorcists is thrown out of his position, a family moves into an old, broken down abbey. Nice set up! But the Pope has to pull Russel Crowe back into the mix when a demon possesses a kid in the family. I loved the plot or demon’s intention in the storyline, which I won’t spoil.

Russel Crowe and the possessed kid were good, with all the other characters way too minor in the story. I appreciated that they jumped into the action right away. I wasn’t bored at any point while I watched, so no checking my email while watching. But the cringe and squirm in your seat wasn’t there for this horror freak. The movie is worth watching, especially if you prefer light horror.

That sums up my week. Did you watch any new horror films, good or bad?

New Collage and AI Image Generated Grim Reapers

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It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted. Mostly busy.

Here’s a steampunk collage I created this week. It started with the hat and grew 20 more images from there. Maybe a bit busy, but there’s something to look at in every nook and cranny.

More art worth a look is my AI image generated Grim Reapers. Two sets are available on Instagram. My focus is stumping the image generators with bizarre asks, so I asked for Grim Reaper sitting on toilet in gas station; with rats. Then I asked for grim reaper; holding balloons; kids birthday party; cake; presents; with children. If you have any weird mixes in mind, add a comment below.

And I’ve got a movie suggestion for ya. Little Bone Lodge with Joely Richardson, who I love. She can play some really creepy characters. “Set during a vicious storm, two criminal brothers on the run seek refuge in a desolate farmhouse. Taking the resident family captive, they find the house holds dark secrets of its own.” This movie is really twisted. More psychological thriller than gory blood and guts. The movie was well done and the acting was good. You can watch it on Tubi, but look for the movie title The Last Exit there.

That’s all from me. Have a great week!

Margery the Demon According to AI Image Generation

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This AI’s version of Margery the Demon. Pretty damn good likeness except for the hair, which is my fault. I didn’t include troll doll hair in the description. I’ll have to try for her demon form next. Did this in Adobe Firefly last week. I had been given beta access and through I might have more fun with it than I have. I’m still finding it easier to search for stock images.

Speaking of Angels Dark and Dumb, the eBooks are on sale for $1.99, except for Fall for Freedom, which is $0.99, until December 1st. Go to angelsdarkanddumb.com for links to purchase books on Amazon.

Have you seen Wolf Like Me? I just finished the first season and loved it. Can’t wait to start the next season. Such a great ending to the first. It’s reminding me how much I’ve loved werewolves over the years, but I’ve been neglecting them for a number of years. I used to read books with werewolves, but the genre got too saturated with urban fantasy romance books. Just for the heck of it, I paused from writing this post and searched Amazon for “werewolf comedy,” and it took pages to find what I thought I might read.

On to some more complaining. I watched Nutcracker Massacre on Tubi (where there’s a good selection of holiday horror) for my 1st new holiday horror viewing pleasure, and there was nothing but pain. Slow, boring torment to be exact. If you’ve read my movie reviews in the past, you know that I watch movies willy-nilly. This is because I tend to love really bad horror movies. This one was an exception though. I don’t look up reviews until after watching, so I was surprised that Nutcracker Massacre didn’t get a score lower than it’s 3.1. There was a really good idea or plot behind it, but it’s like no one bothered to develop either. My biggest complaint was the speed of the movie. Since I started watching a bunch of newer indie horror movies, I’ve noticed a trend. A really bad trend toward slow torturous kills, which this movie delivered from start to finish. While this sounds like a good thing in the horror genre, it’s more eye rolling with a deep sigh. The characters are stiff and dumb and boring. And at the one point I was hoping to laugh out loud with the nutcracker cracking real nuts, I just shook my head at how poorly the irony was presented. Yeah, don’t waste your time with this one, unless you have a lot of email to check.

That’s all this time. Have a great week.

A Few Weeks Later

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I’ve had an incredibly busy few weeks, reason #1 why I skipped out on blog posts the last few weeks.

I did have time to put together this collage. A zombie walk of sorts. I’ve been doing a lot of work in Photoshop lately. Also finished up some illustrations for a book by another author and am trying to format the book with the best illustration sizes and such. Trying to figure out images in eBooks has been my latest challenge. Sure it sounds easy, but getting them a small and readable size is not the easiest, especially considering how illustrations or photos are so different depending on how they are created.

Now that I’ve bored you, let me bore you some more. I added a new blog post to the ArmLin House blog. Note that my editor and artist (non-horror related.) name is Wendy Spurlin. How to Standardize the Punctuation in a Manuscript Before Submitting or Formatting Your Book is all about what it says. It’s a pet peeve of mine to read a book and find all different types of punctuation like straight quotation marks vs slanted, the later being the correct format for a published book.

I watched Five Nights at Freddy’s, and it’s a fun horror movie for kids as well as adults. I added kids because I found it very light horror, and one of the main characters is a child. I’ve decided to continue watching horror movies I haven’t seen because the holiday season has begun and there will be plenty of themed horror movies to watch. Finding new ones will be challenging though!

Sorry, nothing new on Angels Dark and Dumb other than chapter 2 was handed over for critique. It needs a lot of work. I thought about doing NaNoWriMo this year, but I’m in the middle of too much with ArmLin House, so it didn’t happen.

All I got for ya this time. Have a great week!

Crazy Weird Horror Collage, Horror movies/shows & Dumping X (Twitter)

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Sharing a horror collage I created recently. I love the way this one turned out and could stare at it for hours. Despite my moving to Photoshop, I did this one quickly in Canva. Like I say, it’s funny how something you throw together can work so well.

Wanna quickly mention that I’ve quit using X (Twitter), and the link has been removed below. At the same time, I added my GoodReads profile page, so you can go there and follow me. I try really had to keep that page updated.

Now on to the movies and programs I watched this week. First there’s the shorts. The Infernal Cauldron is a 1903 colorized short set in a dungeon, and women were dumped in the scalding cauldron. It was funny more than anything, and the special effects for the time were impressive. The other was Culpa, about guilt, but I didn’t really see the theme playing out as I had expected. It’s not rated the greatest, so I’ll leave it up to you whether you watch it.

The Hole in the Ground was okay. Very dark as it should be. It was really slow, so I checked email while it was on. In case you don’t know me, I partially gauge my reviews of horror movies by the number of times I do work while watching. The Pyramid was bad, which is probably why it has a 4.6 on IMDB. I did appreciate that the story was about a found pyramid that delved into Egyptian myth. The last movie I watched was The Black Phone. It was release last year, and it was my favorite of all of them. I remember seeing a trailer for this movie in the theater and wanted to see it there. Loved the story line, with a kidnapped kid getting clues from the boys who had previously been kidnapped and killed. You should definitely see this one.

There were a few reality TV shows I watched. Devil’s Road: The True Story of Lorraine & Ed Warren is good if you love the paranormal and want to know about the leaders of ghost hunting. As a trained psychic, I never get enough of shows like Dead Files and Ghost Adventures. And I started watching The Ghost Town Terror, and it’s pretty cool so far.

Reminder that Fall for Freedom is free through Halloween. Below is the first section of the book to entice you to download it. Otherwise, have a great week and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!