TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

I  hope the American people, who voted for President Trump, get the full experience of what they thought they voted for along with what they're actually getting.  Now may be a good time for them to learn to speak Russian because if World War Three does break out, it's not beyond possibility that it'll be the USA and Russia against the rest of the world, as Trump appears to be emboldening Russia to dig in on their attack on the Ukraine. China, may opt to stay neutral, or even join forces with the rest of the world because they've been quietly winning an economic war with so many countries, they may not care so much about the USA. Especially since President Trump wants to bring manufacturing back to America and impose tariffs on every country exporting anything to the USA. After that fiasco meeting President Zelenskyy had in the Oval Office with President Trump I've pretty much had enough. I'm not writing about what new dumb ass thing Trump's doing this week. ...

B ack in October of 2023 I used Prome AI's Sketch Rendering feature to color a 23 year old rough pen sketch I did of a princess watching butterflies, sitting next to a waterfall in the forest. You can read more about that in my previous article,  The Princess' Butterflies - Using an AI Art Generator to Color and Enhance a 23 Year Old Rough Pen Sketch The three images I used to create my final image (bottom right). Notice how closely the AI has followed my line art sketch (top left) but in the first image (top right) has misinterpreted the waterfall as some kind of large tree stump. Prome's render of the artwork was pretty good but I did end up creating a composite image myself from two of the best renders, to get my final image. Since then AI Image to Video has come a long way, particularly when it comes to creating animation from artwork and maintaining the art style for the whole generation. AI still does much better with turning photographic images to video but I found ...

Q uite often, leaders on all sides of politics, once they've retired from office, become the kind of person, with a political view that I would've supported, if they had been that person with that viewpoint, when they were leaders. Case in point, two former right wing, Australian Prime Ministers were individually interviewed about President Trump's negative impact on Australia and global politics in general. Both said things that even a left leaning 'woke' voter like myself could get behind and nod in agreement with. Keep in mind both these former PM's are right wing politicians that should be aligned with the US Republican party, and President Trump's views on many issues. Malcolm Turnbull Mr Turnbull, like President Trump is a businessman turned politician. He's a person I was all set to vote for until he aligned himself with the Australian Liberal Party. Which was a little unexpected for me because up to that point his politics sounded more left than ...

This was my second heelflip attempt of the day. I was pleased I at least got the full rotation even if I didn't land it. I  am determined to keep skating for as long as possible, though, since my last post in May 2024, about reigniting my kickflip battle at age 54 , I've probably been skateboarding less than I had hoped. Still haven't landed that elusive kickflip either. Strangely I've been wanting to film myself skateboarding again but have been reluctant to do so because it can be a bit of a hassle trying to create interesting content, not to mention a lot of editing, if you want to capture the full journey of learning a trick. I really hate editing. Looking at my camera equipment the other day I was thinking what is the most minimal setup that I can put together that would make it easy to film skate videos anywhere? I landed on using my Samsung A13, Android phone, mounted on a GoPro selfie stick that has a tripod base in the handle, and a wireless mic I bought some t...

That's um... What's his name? T o be honest, I stopped following politics in Australia years ago. The only time I check in is usually around election time just to see which set of woke lefty independents, I'm going to vote for, ahead of my fallbacks of the Greens, and then Labor. Despite my sister trying to categorise me as more of a 'left brained' person I definitely lean 'right brained' more at home with my cry baby, woke, alphabet, lefty people. (For the record, if this is the first musing of mine you've ever read, I'm a straight white male who identifies as an artist... Male artist - just in case you were thinking artist is some new kind of gender you hadn't heard of). This year is an election year for our Federal Government, potentially the world's most boring government, for no other reason than during its entire term, if you asked me who was our Prime Minister I'd actually have to stop and think for a moment. Maybe our 31st PM shou...

I'm calling this, 'Stand Up Comedian'. Image by Leonardo.ai and TET. I  consider myself to be a successful working artist. I use the term 'working' quite loosely but basically what I mean is I work for myself, I earn money from my art or knowledge, and most of my time I can create art that interests me. I've never been motivated to be a 'career' artist. By that I mean, an artist whose work is displayed in all the top galleries, and that the super rich buy as more of an investment for wealth, than a love of art. Which is not to say these investors don't love art but when you're buying a single artwork for thousands, or even millions, of dollars, you're generally looking for a return on that investment too. That said, I'm not opposed to artists who want that kind of recognition. Certainly, if you're prepared to do the work, in countries like Australia, you can earn a nice passive income off the secondary market. Which means each time yo...

I f you saw the trailer for  Skeleton Crew  and decided the show looked too much like Star Wars for little kids, and didn't watch, you missed out on a real treat. While I will say this show was definitely targeted at bringing in younger fans to the Star Wars universe, it is very much more like family viewing than kids only TV. Not to mention, characters are literally gunned down or murdered on this show, but without the really graphic violence you might see on a more adult orientated show. It's actually no more kid only orientated than the first series of Stranger Things  (2016), or even the original  Star Wars  (1977) movie. In fact the whole show is a not so subtle homage to original Star Wars (1977), Treasure Island  (1950), and eighties movies like The Goonies  (1985), ET  (1982), Explorers  (1985) and others. The plot is very straight forward. A group of children, living in the Star Wars equivalent of the suburbs, find an aband...

O fficially, Creature Commandos is the first show of James Gunn's kind of reboot of the DCU. Technically though, it starts with James Gunn's, The Suicide Squad , and includes his series, Peacemaker , as the events of both are either referenced or felt within the show. Potentially that means Margot Robbie is Harley Quinn in the DCU, but I'd be surprised if she would even want another crack at it, let alone that James didn't recast the role. However that's a whole other rabbit hole for a character that may not appear again for at least a few more years. Creature Commandos is Suicide Squad but with monsters, and no real threat of Suicide - well, having your head blown off if you stray from the mission at least. Though I don't recall that being a thing in Gunn's Suicide Squad movie since the team was renamed 'Task Force X'? Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) somehow still has a job, but is no longer allowed to use humans on her team, so she assembles a team of...

W hile I'm personally hoping to see President-elect, Donald Trump attempt to be a dictator for his first day in office, as he vowed he would like to be, his latest assertations to bring Canada, Greenland, and Panama under the control of the United States have me somewhat scratching my head? Why Trump is targeting Panama, Greenland, Canada  - thehill.com Panama is perhaps not such a head scratcher given China's controlling interest in the Panama Canal. Trump believes the US is being overcharged for passage through such an important gateway. I don't know if that's true, but Trump thinks so, so yeah, getting control of that kind of makes sense, I guess? Greenland is apparently a strategic national security acquisition, overlooking China and Russia. Well at least the Artic does, so Greenland is ideally placed. Apparently, with the ice up there melting, new commercial shipping routes are opening up (global warming isn't all bad news then?) and Greenland would be a great...

Resident Dragon Cast: TET, Red the Dragon Cool Froyd the Cat, and Grrr Dog. Buy Prints of finished toons . L ast year (2024), for my birthday in May, my sister bought me a quality, metal bodied, ball point pen (black ink).  As someone who likes to sketch with ball point pens, and with a big concern that these last few years I really wasn't drawing as much as someone who considers themselves to be an artist should, I decided to put the pen to good use. In June of the same year I bought two A5 sketchbooks and spent as much time as I needed to fill a page with ball point pen 'doodles', each morning after breakfast.  I'm predominantly a cartoonist who's always drawn from imagination, so filling a page in a sketch book is not a challenge. I just draw a line, or a circle, or whatever and see what emerges. Filling Sketch Books Just to Draw More Filling an A5 sketchbook page would take me about 20-25 minutes. I drew all kinds of random things, occasionally using the time to...