Out of Scope

by Todd Bailey   Jordan asked me whether I could get AI to make the Oz logo spin.  Ugh...I used up about nine hours and half of our tokens, and got a whole bunch of spazzy results: First attempt:     Ummm...not exactly right, AI.  Here's like my twentieth attempt:   Like eightieth attempt:       Then finally, I did the spinning by hand inside DaVinci Resolve.  Like everyone in AI says, "Great!  I used AI to do in nine hours what I can do in 20 minutes."  Still.  Looks really cool, yah?

by Jordan Hoofe   We're testing out various covers for Baum's Animal Fairy Tales.  Which of these do you think we should go with?

by Evan Morseau   Everyone's testing out the animation.  Thought I'd run my own art through it.  I was all set not to be impressed.  But it's not like me to give compliments, especially to a bot.  So I won't.    

by Zhestok Lupov   Don't know how many of you know Bulgarian animation.  Very strong in my country.  Very big history.  But never animated myself before.  Look at these, though.  

  by Mary Ocean   Over the weekend my aura was glowing a really vibrant lavender, so I did a reading, and it told me to experiment with some of Zhestok's artwork for Baum's Animal Tales.  Took my breath away:    

I've decided to concentrate on "The Glass Dog" as a first entry in Baum's "American Fairy Tales."  It's a lot of fun, and kinda snarky even.  It has a little bit of magic, and some social commentary.   I was tempted to start with one or two of the other stories in the collection.  I think my favorite is "The Wonderful Pump", which is about a young couple that gets their wish of more money than they know what to do with...but then ‑‑ spoiler alert ‑‑  they get greedy, and head for a moral takedown.  I also like some of the imagery...(more)

by Mary Ocean   Some more animation tests this morning:   Here's a hit:       Here's a miss:    

We've been playing around with some of the new animation tools appearing on some AI platforms.  We wondered what it would do with Neill's linework.  Some hit or miss -- but, oh my, when it hits!   Here's a miss:      

Got distracted again today.  I know, what else is new, right?  I had way too much fun today creating rando characters "in the style of John R Neill".   My thinking is to build a library o' characters to have on hand for the "American Fairy Tales" which feature regular Americans, rather than wizards and witches and pieces of furniture.  There's not a ton of Neill drawings of ordinary people.  Most of them look like Gibson girls, or models in a catalog.  Like this one:   This isn't the right look, of course, "American Fairy Tales."  I know we're going...(more)

I got distracted today.  I liked the goblins which Midjourney was creating yesterday.  What if John R Neill had a series of stories about goblins?  I mean, he doesn't, but...what if he did?  What would they look like?       Jordan will be mad at me for not getting more done on "The Glass Dog" -- but, hey...this was fun.  And you gotta keep the staff happy, right?  Otherwise.  Otherwise...they're unhappy.

Baum's "American Fairy Tales" is an editor's nightmare.  They hardly seem aimed at the same readers.  Some are clearly kiddie stories, and some are clearly not.  More head-scratchingly, three of the "American" stories don't even take place in America.  Seriously -- there's a fairy tale about a hippopotamus, without a single mention of America.  And two others also set in magical kingdoms.  My guess (and I'm only guessing here) is that Baum had three stories laying around and he just stuck 'em in here because of a deadline, or something.   So when Jordan asked me to cook up some...(more)

We're starting to look at art for Baum's "Animal Fairy Tales."  You ever read these?  If you haven't, hold off.  Wait'll you see what Z is doing with them.   Who knew there was a Tiger Fairy, and a Porcupine Fairy...and a Gopher Fairy.  Not every story has a fairy in it, but some do, and we're trying to figure out what the heck they look like.   I told Z I thought they should all be like made of light.  Like an aura around each animal, or maybe an aura over a meadow which a whole herd shares.  ...(more)

The title character of Baum's story, "The Glass Dog," is oddly enough a dog made of glass. So how on earth do you draw with ink a character you can see through? Here's a couple of ways Neill did it. The glass cat appears in a bunch of Oz books (famously proud of her pink brains -- "you can see them work!"). To me, that doesn't really look transparent. In Neill's color illustrations of the glass cat look a transparent, but a little FLAT, almost like a drawing on the wall: (And...where's the pink in her brains?)  So, on our...(more)

Evan says my initial wizard sketches look too much like Gandalf: I can't say I disagree...but, cheeze, don't all wizards in fantasy stories look like Gandalf? Y'know, Merlin, all the British actors named Ian, and so on. But anyway, I look another approach, and am looking at this kind of sketch for the wizard. Too much like Geoffrey Rush?

I'm working on the new project this morning: American Fairy Stories." We're starting with the second story in the collection, "The Glass Dog." It's about a wizard who lives in the city, and is so annoyed by people knocking on his door that he asks his neighbor (a glassblower) to make a dog out of glass, which the wizard then brings to life. When the wizard pays the glassblower with a love potion to use with the richest lady in town, GREED begins to seep into the story. Ultimately, its message is more for adults than for kids. I'm working...(more)

From the Desk of Jordan Hoofe FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Long-Lost L. Frank Baum Stories Resurface After 120 Years—Now Available to Readers Everywhere Previously unpublished stories by the creator of The Wizard of Oz are now available in a new, beautifully illustrated digital collection called "The Lost Stories of OZ." A forgotten chapter of American literary history has been rediscovered. The Lost Stories of Oz, a new digital collection from Squeaky Books, brings together fifteen whimsical tales written by L. Frank Baum, the famed author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. These short stories, originally published in 1904 as a newspaper...(more)

We hired a guy I met in Bulgaria to do artwork for a new project, Baum's "Animal Fairy Tales."  He's intense.  Tough as nails.  Reminds me of Mike in the Breaking Bad series.  Enforcer; not afraid to rough you up.  Y'know, perfect for a series of kids books. His name is something beginning with a Z.  I can't pronounce it.  I think it means like wounded or gory or something.  His last name is Lupov, which sounds like lupine to me, which means wolf.  Wounded Wolf.  You can see it in his art.  This is his self portrait: He's actually...(more)

just now as i was runng out the door, late for pilates, Jordan asked me to whip up some Oz buttons and icons for the site.  how come Jordan din't ask Mary Ocean to do this?  Mary's got nothing but time on her hands.   does the woman never go home?  i never see Mary go home.  anyway, i asked GPT to cook up some Oz buttons and icons.  Here what it gave me:     Ummm...no.   --Marisol

It feels like sacrilege, but our staff is thinking about not including one of Neill's illustrations -- in fact, replacing it!  We just think something went funky with his original drawing, either in the printing, or the design, or something.  Don't you think that there's something a little off in this character? So we put our pens and prompts together, took a deep breath, and asked Midjourney to design a new character based on Neill's original, but different.  Here's what it cooked up for us: We feel a little weird replacing Neill's drawing...but we took a vote and concluded that's...(more)

In the original Neill-illustrated version of "Little Dorothy and Toto", one of the major plot points is that the bad-ol' giant kidnaps animals and turns them into buttons.  Curiously, John R. Neill didn't illustrate these buttons.  They have a LOT to say in the story...so it's weird that there are no illustrations. So we created those illustrations.   This meant figuring out five (count 'em 5!) different animal heads, in the style of Neill:  a bear, wolf, cat, mouse, and a weasel We did this by creating a Neil line drawing of the animal, and then superimposing it on a button...(more)

Toto Two or Three by Todd Bailey June 23, 2025 I'm looking at the original drawings of Toto from John R. Neill, anticipating needing to include Dorothy's dog in at least a couple of pictures for "The Lost Stories of Oz."  But, yikes, which Toto should I draw?  Neill has like nineteen different versions of Toto.  And they're all kinda indistinct and badly printed. Look at these!  Which Toto do you think I should go with?  

I can't believe you guys did that. For me. Sniff-sniff.... I have to get out my sunglasses to hide my red-rimmed eyes. I See You by Todd Bailey Red-rimmed? Did someone say red-rimmed? Throne for a Loop by Evan Morseau I got your rim...right here.  

The last beat of almost every one of the Lost Stories is a random factoid by the Woggle-Bug.  We're guessing that the newspaper editor wanted to be able to justify running the stories in his paper by asking Baum to include some educational content.  So Baum sticks on these bizzarro random comments by the Woggle-Bug, identifying some vegetation, or architectural landmark.  Here are some examples.  From a story in which the Scarecrow tells his origin story and the farmer who stuffed and painted him: “Yes, indeed,” answered the Woggle-Bug. “I can even tell you the exact year the first telegraph message...(more)

In some Neill drawings, the Professor doesn't look like his usual self: So my job is to create new drawings for the Woggle-Bug.  You'd think it'd be easy, and that AI could pull it off, but AI doesn't know what to do with the Professor's stripey nose, or claw-like hands, so you get these hysterical things out of AI. So much for being lazy.  I need to draw the Bug myself in a lot of instances.  Here's an example of what I'm working on today:

Mary Ocean and I got to thinking about Marisol wanting a set of dining chairs with the Oz logo in them.  Could we pay someone to make a set for her as a gift?  We called a local carpenter, and they quoted like tens of thousands of dollars.  Okay, we love Marisol, but I'm still paying of student debt from fifteen years ago.  But Ocean went to Midjourney, and....

by Todd Bailey June 19, 2025 After weeks of struggling, today I finally got AI to understand how to draw the Scarecrow. Totally nailed it.   Moving on to the Tin Woodman by Todd Bailey June 20, 2025 My hard work trying to get AI to draw the scarecrow paid off.  Look how great I'm getting it to draw the Tin Woodman!  Looks JUST like Neill would have drawn.     I actually kinda like that last one as art, but as far as using it in any of the Lost Stories of Oz...not so much. Actually, all kidding aside...with...(more)

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...(more)

I'm working on the Woggle-Bug, who has a lot of appearances in The Lost Stories of Oz. But the problem is that there are really only two decent pictures which Neill drew of the Woggle-Bug. These two: The other pictures of the Woggle-Bug in all the Oz books, he's doing something bizarre, or he's tiny, or part of some crowd scene. Like this (notice, by the way, the really cool OZ chairs everyone's sitting on. I want a dining set of Oz chairs!):  

I'm still hackin' away at trying to find a style of Baum's Animal Fairy Stories.  Some groovy stuff, but not what I'm looking for (where's the menace?):       Maybe that last one (such beautiful line work!)?  But I'm now leaning way away from black and white and Neil, and seeing if there's an option for color.

Last month, Jordan showed me L. Frank Baum's "Animal Fairy Tales."  Whoa.  They're dark.  They're like Kipling's Jungle Book.  Lots of violence, and menace...a lot of menace.  And themes about caste, and risking your life for what you believe in.  Amazing stuff, coming from the pen of the guy who wrote the Oz books.   So, how're we going to illustrate these?  Dunno!  I don't know whether John R. Neill's the right choice.  I mean, would you pick him to illustrate the Jungle Book?  What would that look like, I asked Midjourney.  I thought I'd ask it for an illustration...(more)

I'm beginning to do some preliminary work on "The Lost Stories of Oz," to see if we can make them work. It would be a LOT of line drawings, because there are something like twelve of these stories! The good news is that they all feature pretty much the same eight characters, so if we can get those to work, we might have a chance. The bad news is that AI is terrible at helping us draw the Scarecrow. (I haven't started on the Tin Woodman yet.) Look at AI's first attempt: Part of the problem is that the original...(more)

Today I nitpicked at one of the two-page pictures from "The Little Wizard Stories of Oz." The original picture takes up both the left and the right sides of a page, and looks very pretty. But it means that when we scan it, it has this big ol' ugly seam running up the middle of it. Like this: So I thought if I were lucky, I could just snip out the seam and slide the two pieces together, and no one would notice. But, you see if I do that, the gnomes look all weird and folded up, especially the...(more)

I've spent a couple days repairing one single picture in "Ozma and the Wizard," one of the "Little Wizard of Oz" stories. It's another illustration which spreads across two pages, so I had another seam to repair...but not only that, look at the pigs in this picture! I think they're not up to John R. Neill's usual standards. Do you? I had two problems to solve. First of all, how to get rid of the seam. But I thought the bigger problem was whether to keep those ugly pigs as they were, or somehow replace them. I really wanted to...(more)