iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Red Dread Mike @reddreadmike.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I've actually been enjoying the past couple afternoons & today learning Blender - it immensely helps to have a concrete project goal to work towards, than just dithering about without a plan. Yes, it's a high-res scan of a crow skull, and yes, I'm manually making my edge loops for a low-poly version

A work-in-progress screenshot of a Blender project, in which a semi-transparent high-resolution scan of a crow skull is being manually topologized to a low-poly version suitable for game animation. Only the top portion of the cranium and upper half of the orbit is traced out, as well as the beginnings of the nasal cavities in the crow's beak.

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Red Dread Mike @reddreadmike.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I'm reading the very good "The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows" from John Koenig (recommended for anyone that enjoys the words like "sonder" or "énouement") And I am also recovering from an abrupt breakup in early August. So the following hit me like a brick:

Screenshot of light text on a dark background, which reads: "Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could." - Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

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Red Dread Mike @reddreadmike.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

It's been far far too long since I shared a "Yay, new books!" kind of post on any platform, and I've been quietly giddy getting my latest reads from a local bookstore (Albany Books Games Toys in Tsawwassen - they don't have a BSky) (Ran out of words for this post so thread?)

Book cover art for "Brigands & Breadknives" by Travis Baldree, showing a scene of a camp in a deep mountainous forest, with fantasy characters like a ratkin bookseller Fern, with a large drafthorse Bucket, looking on as a goblin Zyll with a sharktooth grin, while being guarded by the elf warrior of legend Astryx

Book cover art, with a black background plate, engraved in gold of a deep starry night and dark forest and tiny river scene at the bottom. "The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows" by John Koenig

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Red Dread Mike @reddreadmike.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Today's outage of Bluesky is a reminder that *this guy* is why. If I was this incompetent at my job, I'd have been dismissed ages ago. But in Techbro-generative-BS land, it's encouraged.

Screenshot of one of the main engineers of Bluesky bragging about how he lets generative AI do 99% of his work.

Screenshot of the same engineer demonstrating the wind-tunnel between their ears, as they wrecked their phone by "cooling it off" by dunking it into a swimming pool.

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Red Dread Mike @reddreadmike.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

A request from my World of Darkness Storyteller (DM for those more familiar with D&D) to do a sketch of the boss of the current story arc. I'm still learning Clip Studio Paint, so the veterans are going to spot the default brushes and textures - but needless to say, I had a BLAST.

A huge serpent-shaped monster is coiling through the air of a spectral dining hall. The head is a mummified elk with sweeping antlers, its eyes glowing bright. The flesh is mummified and decayed, with the skull shoing through, and the body barely draped in dried skin. The legs have mutated into insect limbs with elongated claws, all scrabbling through the air. The coils of the serpent body dissolve into black tattered smoke in the back. The hall is lit with an eerie glow.

Development sketches of the serpent beast spirit, some in plan, and the initial sketch for the final image is at the top.

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Red Dread Mike @reddreadmike.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

Been doing more sketches over the past couple weeks. Focusing on just enjoying pencil & pen on paper, not worrying about "is it good?" Been inspired by artists I follow, all doing their part to resist the Slop and chasing the Algorithm. I really want to enjoy making art again.

Black pencil sketch on white paper of the head & shoulders of a semi-realistic human skeleton, with lots of cross-hatch shading lines

pencil sketches of a wolf skull in three different angles (side view, front view with big perspective distortion, top view) plus a note about the model used for the sketches: "Oregon State Univ. Wolf Skull - FW2415 @ Sketchfab"

black ink & grey marker sketch on white paper, of a distorted ghostly figure (head and shoulders) with the skull elongated vertically, jaw open in a cackling smile, white orbs glowing in the eye sockets. The remains of a diving bell helmet sit on the shoulders, but heavily melted, with the slag floating in streams upwards

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Red Dread Mike @reddreadmike.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

First sketching of 2026 - just a page full of skulls upon skulls. Been slowly getting back on the art habit during 2025, and I *will* continue to push myself. Doodled with an ancient mechanical pencil with an impulsive inking of a couple skulls - don't ask why, the Flow demanded it.

A cropped photo of a square white sketchbook page, covered in dozens of doodled skulls of different angles and levels of detail, from very tiny to very large, overlapping and filling in the gaps. Drawn with a graphite pencil, with a random couple skulls picked out in black ink.

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Red Dread Mike @reddreadmike.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Been collecting many new artists to add to my list on #PortfolioDay - while I don't have an art portfolio, I will contribute some of my (old) art that I still like and have remaining pride for. One day I hope to get past my mental difficulties and resume my joy for making art again.

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