News and Events

Winnie’s Weekly Wonders: Vampires in the House

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As the month of May comes to an end, it’s odd to think we are almost half way through the year. Feels like I accomplished a lot, but there’s so much more to do. That endless task list seems to grow, including wanting to do more horror collages.

The collage on the right is the only one I was able to accomplish this month. Then again, maybe I should be happy I can accomplish at least 1 a month. This one was fun, filling the room with a vampire scene. I used photos and AI for this one. Quite shocked that the chandelier turned out as well as it did using AI.

Lots of other AI usage via ChatGPT this month. I’m amazed by how well it works for the written word considering the issues I’ve had with image generators. The only issue I’ve encountered so far is a misunderstanding of relationships, with it insisting two characters were mother and daughter. It still hasn’t learned the relationship dynamics.

I hope you’re enjoying the Evil in Pop Culture series I’m doing with AI. It’s been fun to generate all of the evil stepmother content with more coming. I’m having a hard time trying to figure out all the content needed for each evil character, but AI will help with that.

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!

Bride of Chucky

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Look who joins the Ladies of Horror. Tiffany, Bride of Chucky, is done. Probably the most fun to do, especially around the eyes. Great horror comedy movie, and Jennifer Tilly is so good as Tiffany.

I actually finished this one over a month ago, but forgot to post her here. And I just finished Frank-N-Furter, but you’ll have to wait a few weeks to see Tim Curry here. The drawing is on my @meanwinniejean Deviant Art account if you want to see it now.

Sadly, Frank-N-Furter is the last Ladies of Horror I’m doing for awhile. I’m moving on to Grim Reapers or Zombies. I’m also refining the illustrations for a children’s book I wrote for a school project. It’s time that I publish the book. It will be a similar format to the Frog and Toad books.

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

Note that this series is a mix of well known Ladies of Horror done in a Patrick Nagel style from the 80s. I started these to better learn the Pen tool in Adobe Illustrator, and they’ve become an obsession. If there’s a lady of horror you’d like to see, leave her in a comment. I will start them back up at around Halloween.

Kinetic Typography & My First Video Art

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Quick and fast post this week to show off my first assignment for my Adobe After Effects class. It’s a quote from Crazy Eyes in Orange is the New Black in Kinetic Typography. I’ve wanted to do another one of these for quite awhile. This was so much fun to do. What is that, you ask?

Kinetic typography is “the technical name for “moving text”—is an animation technique mixing motion and text to express ideas using video animation. This text is presented over time in a manner intended to convey or evoke a particular idea or emotion.”

Wikipedia