Hunting Haunting

Breakthrough.  I asked Evan if he had any ideas how to crack Midjourney to create a style for "Animal Fairy Tales" which was evocative, whimsical, but also capable of menace.  Evan said he knew a guy in Bulgaria who was doing interesting things combining his oil paintings and AI art.

Evan showed me some of his stuff, and I knew we were onto something:

This guy, Zhestok Lupov, lives in Sophia, Bulgaria.  He works for an ad agency illustrating like extreme sports or something.  Maybe hunting gear; I think it's hunting stuff.  I reached out to him and told him about Squeaky Books.  I asked him whether he was open to creating a sample for us, and he was.  I asked him to illustrate that same scene of Baloo confronting Shere Khan from The Jungle Book.  I hoped we wouldn't get Rambo-Winnie-the-Pooh.  But he sent us this:

Any doubt in your mind we found our artist?