Category: art

Maya’s Request

As you know, requests for my  Hundred Hundred-and-Fifty Dollar Drawings are limited to two words or less.

But on March 11 I found this in my Twitter DMs:

Could you draw this as a picture for me

“it is a prime opportunity to get inside the tent with a goal-line defence, unless a clear upstream threat, accompanied by actionable intelligence, pops its head up”

Normally I’d say no, as that is batshit and impossible. However the request came from Maya Forstater, who explained:

It is a present for Helen Joyce – she has been training military types on how to write as a side-gig and this is the kind of thing they say.

Given the commissioner and the recipient, it was a challenge I couldn’t refuse, although I charged more for the extra words plus hazard pay (risk of head explosion). But first I gave it to AI art generator Dall-E:

Clearly this was a job for a human being. I felt so needed.

Although it was impossible to convey everything in the request, I did my best:

“it is a prime opportunity to get inside the tent with a goal-line defence, unless a clear upstream threat, accompanied by actionable intelligence, pops its head up”

Looks like I won’t be replaced by AI anytime soon.

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GENDER WARS playing cards in progress

When a friend recently suggested a deck of playing cards featuring major players in the “gender wars,” I knew I wanted a set. I tried to find other ways to make it happen – photographs? Filters? AI art generator? – but decided the most expedient option was to just do it myself. Which isn’t particularly expedient, as a deck requires 54 designs (if you include 2 Jokers).

I generally suck at caricatures, but decided my limited skills would have to be adequate. I Can Do Hard Things, just not perfectly.

This is probably my most successful caricature so far. Do not expect this level of resemblance throughout the deck.

Working furiously, this week I made the first suit, Hearts. Red suits (hearts and diamonds) will be more-or-less gender critical, and black suits (clubs and spades) will be more-or-less transactivist. If this sounds like inside baseball, it is; that’s why my friend suggested a deck in the first place. I’ve turned into a gender nerd, and “civilians” have no idea whom I’m referring to when I gossip. Edutainment!

I want to crowdfund for this project, but as I don’t trust any major crowdfunding platforms, I just set up some PayPal pre-order buttons. Yes I know PayPal sucks too, all online payment platforms suck, and cryptocurrency is still too volatile.

Pre order here!

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