Platypus of Truth

  I just finished a back-to-back of Tolkien's Battle of Maldon and Beowulf. After realizing I could plot the entirety of Sellic Spell as a D&D one shot and buy all the props in five minutes on Amazon, Etsy, or Ebay, I thought of Frank Frazetta. Frazzeta has a few pictures, especially Night Stalker, that are particularly Beowulf-ish. Frazzeta's Italian relish for voluptuous bodies of both genders is mostly at odds with Beowulf's Northern sensibility, but the two illustrations I've attempted to reproduce here (and bowdlerized a bit) do the trick.

 

 We've been reading The Quest for the Holy Grail and I can't help thinking this would make a great Game. Pictures below. 

 There's more than a lot of debate swirling around AI art. To show you what AI can do, I put one of my own abysmal drawings into the Free StarryAI program and ran it through 1 permutation at 150 rounds with an advanced anime filter. Look at the difference. 

Erin go Bragh! Ireland till Doomsday! Let Irish on both sides of the Pond remember our Revolutionary Brothers fighting off Russian Colonialism in Ukraine 🇺🇦! 

  AI upgrades of original doodles made to look like trendy Fantasy book covers. 

  Here are the final Jirel of Joiry drawings from my ouvre. I'm moving on to Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress Volume I. Drawings are moving on to that Dark Lady series I can never get traction on writing. We'll see if Bradley and company can help jump start my creativity. 

  I used one of my own drawings as a template for an AI bonanza. Starryai has gotten much more sophisticated over the past 6 months. We'll see what happens if I up the use of my template from a mere 50 percent to something higher, however. Then it was actually be an artistic tool.

 A little Mignola influence on these. Jirel is here based on French actress Marine Vetch. Guillaume is Dev Patel. The wizard is cribbed from Frazzeta. 

 

 

  I'm reading a history of Sword and Sorcery, and it's only increased my respect for C.L. Moore and her stunning creation: Jirel of Joiry. 

 

  Brotherhood Valkyrie in a light mech. I assume she keeps a robe in the cockpit or with her pit crew, but the wimple has to stay to mark her vocation even in the thick of battle.