Some virtual spectral photography to spookify your Halloween. True fact: none of these AI-generated images had ghosts in them when I prompted them. WoooOOOOoooo! 👻
I believe I originally made these as a Saturday Monster Challenge but I can't recall when. I'll update if I run across the original info.
The LinkedIn Saturday Monster Challenge for July 5, 2025 was '"Too Hot To Handle" Monsters'.
After consideration, I decided not to post this gallery on LinkedIn.
The idea of a "monster"-themes art challenge on a professional site has always been a funny one, and while most people (including myself) usually create work-safe images, the fact is, as a kid raised on horror movies—I was babysat by channel 11's "Chiller Theatre" from the age of 6—occasionally I wind up, just by following my muse, doing something a little more unflinching.
Sometimes some of the images are... well, they're never terribly offensive, but sometimes I feel like they're just a little strong or perhaps a hair darker than I want to post in front of unsuspecting professional networkers or prospective employers.
That happened in this case.
They're not that objectionable, but some of the images were…
This week's LinkedIn Saturday Monster Challenge generative art theme was "Deleted Scene Monsters": show the monsters that ended up on the cutting room floor.
And so, I am pleased to present these rare stills from the original cut of "Casablanca" (1942)—starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman as star-crossed former lovers in a classic tale of wartime romance set against a background of mind-bending supernatural horrors, when a mysterious event causes the gates of Hell to yawn wide and the inhabitants to amble forth across the living earth. (Original tagline: "From Hell... to Casablanca... to YOUR Town!")
Unfortunately, test audiences didn't respond well, and studio executives said the macabre elements were "distracting" and ordered it recut to emphasize more of the drama and romance, and less of the shrieking souls of the long dead.
The bowdlerized re-cut became the familiar excellent but sadly not-at-all-terrifying non-monster film…
The Saturday Monster Challenge on LinkedIn for June 21 2025 was "Eternal Rise Monsters". I took the theme and decided to do Phoenixes (Phoenices? Phoenixen?), as in "rising from the ashes."
The #SaturdayMonsterChallenge theme for March 1, 2025 was "Element Monsters". I went with radioactive elements: uranium, radium, plutonium, caesium, thorium, einsteinium, radon, and americium.
On Saturday, Feb 15, 2025, the theme of LinkedIn's "Saturday Monster Challenge" was "Love Monsters".
I apologize to anybody with delicate sensibilities offended by the inclusion of a few monster menage-a-troises. I live in San Francisco, these things happen. Also for the sadness of the final picture, a forlorn monster left waiting alone in the moonlight for a monster love who isn't coming. Unfortunately, in the real world, monster love doesn't always work out.
Saturday Monster Challenge for Jan. 18, 2024.
Comes a time when the monsters have eaten their fill of villagers and there’s no danger anymore, so now everybody can come out and enjoy a sunny day, romping and frolicking under clear blue skies and rainbows.
The time for divisiveness and fear is over. It's time to let go of the past, join together as a community, humans and monsters together, full of hope and looking forward to a bright future of fun, friendship, and happy times together.
At least until the monsters start to feel hungry again.
#SaturdayMonsterChallenge on LinkedIn for 11 Jan 2024 theme was "Fog Monsters".
.
This week's #SaturdayMonsterChallenge on LinkedIn is Lucky Charm Monsters.
I always say, you can tell the lucky charm monsters, because they're the ones hanging out with the people winning at the casino tables, as opposed to the ones slipping roofies into people's drinks at the bar, snarfing up the king crab legs at the all-you-can eat buffet, or hanging out in the bathrooms scaring the bejesus out of you.
Submission for the Mood Board and Fashion categories of the Wrapped In Pink AI generative art competition, Dec 2024.
They've been doing this "#WrappedInPink Challenge" generative art meme on LinkedIn. Here's just a preview of studies of some things I've been working on for it. Not entirely sure what direction I'm going to go in yey.
A cousin of mine was helping work on a volume of poetry and asked if I had more images specifically of San Francisco or New York City in the style of “Wild California” Studies — AI Generative Art gallery that they could consider for inclusion. I didn't, but I whipped some up.
I'm pretty fond of how a lot of them turned out, but, as with so many of these projects, I wound up making many that are visually striking but don't really have much artistic value beyond that, and the work remains to be done to winnow down all the striking images to the ones that really are special.
Until then, I'm so fond of them, though, that I thought I'd give a preview. Here's the complete output of those experiments, awaiting the best of it being culled down into the final presentation.
Right now…
Someone on social media asked for AI interpretations of Santa Claus. I couldn't resist such low-hanging fruit.
Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024’s #SaturdayMonsterChallenge theme on LinkedIn is "Winter Monster". Here's what I did.
My friend Hellena Banner (from whom I cribbed the title of this gallery, with apologies) was doing a project where she was trying to put Goths in the least Goth-like situation possible. I took up the challenge.
Saturday, Nov. 30, 2024's #SaturdayMonsterChallenge theme on LinkedIn is "Time Travelling Monsters".
Here's my interpretation: "A Connecticut Sasquatch In King Arthur's Court".
One of the fun non-work-related things that happens on LinkedIn is the "Saturday Monster Challenge", a fun AI art meme where every Saturday this one guy picks a monster-related theme and people make generative art monster images about it. Today, as I write this, the theme was "Mustache Monsters", for "Movember", a global campaign where men grow mustaches to raise awareness of men's health issues.
It seemed like fun. I of course, couldn't stop with just one.
For confused first-time visitors and other people still acclimating, here is a description of these little tabs to the left, as well as some other features of the site.
Open "Expert Mode" CLI Navigation - this give you the option to switch your browser's display to an old-fashioned terminal mode where you may browse this site, view pages and images by typing text commands. Just like how we used to browse the web back in 1978!
Open Visual Settings - This gives you controls to customize the visual display of this website to your liking: turn up or down the brightness, contrast, color temperature, hue, saturation, dark mode, and earthquake. Settings are saved per browser tab, so they will be remembered for your whole visit.
Open My Eyes - Have you ever been engrossed in your work, when you suddenly realize someone is staring at your screen, watching everything you do over your shoulder? If not, this simulates the experience.
Open Help - This help popup, silly! You just clicked it! Do you not remember?
New - Draggable elements! Several elements on this website, including these tabs, this popup message, and the "Hire Mike" badge in the lower right, can be dragged around with your mouse, to avoid them blocking content. Positions are remembered per tab, so as you navigate around the site, they will stay in the same place for your whole visit.
Enjoy!
Are you sure you want to switch to viewing this website in the "expert mode" command-line interface?
This will switch to a terminal emulator, load this page, and allow you to browse this website and view its contents by typing text commands.
Plus there might be, y'know, some fun stuff hidden in there. Just for geeks.