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studiomcah
Community for science fiction and fantasy author/artist M.C.A. Hogarth.
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mcahogarth@mcahogarth
July 16, 2025
THE RESURRECTION OF THE STARDANCER GALLERY
What if I told you that, after years of requests for the return of my Stardancer.org gallery, I was in the process of recreating it?
Because I am…! RIGHT NOW. flail
CHALLENGES
First, let me tell you why I haven’t had an online art gallery since stardancer went down:
I did not want to put thousands of images on free gallery sites (like DA) because it would be a ton of work, and I wouldn’t have any control over the site (“what if they go down one day”, “what if they start charging per-upload fees”, “what if they have copyright policy changes I don’t like”, “what if they start using their corpus to train AI”, etc, etc, etc). Can you imagine dumping hundreds of hours into uploading stuff only to lose it because the site owners made questionable decisions? Ugh.
I wasn’t capable of coding my own gallery and I didn’t like the gallery plugins for various content management systems. I could have installed a package on my hosting service, but none of the ones I saw were customizable enough, or did everything I needed, or felt robust enough. Also a lot of them are just ugly.
I was exhausted at the prospect of the art workload: scanning, trimming, watermarking, resizing-for-the-web, and labeling thousands of scans. Because it’s not enough that there are 200+ sketchbooks in need of scanning (which takes, on average, about 2 hours per book if I stand over the scanner and turn pages until I’m done)… if I’m scanning them at archival quality, then those are way too big for the web. They need to be prepped.
Combined, these issues were enough to put me off the project indefinitely.
…until AI.
MAGIC
Yesterday, I woke up at 7 am and thought, ‘but what if I didn’t have to modify any of the files I scanned? What if I could just upload them and the gallery would do all the resizing and trimming and watermarking and tagging? Is that a thing?’
Turns out, it’s totally a thing, because in less than 15 hours I went from ‘this is an idea in my head’ to a working prototype, where I just dump my scanned art into a directory and the gallery app automatically converts, watermarks, and labels it based on the filename… then puts up all the thumbnails on a (paginated!) gallery page so you can look through them; click on them and see the full sized image; and even filter them by sketchbook, date, or tag.
I can’t tell you how crazy it is that this is a thing that was do-able in such a short amount of time.
BUT WAIT!
…you say! The files are there, but almost no meta-data! Are you going to go back to the old stardancer model of a sketch title, a description, and tags for books and characters and etc, etc? What about user comments? We used to be able to leave comments!
Lemme tell you my plans:
VOLUME FIRST. Right now all metadata is provided by the filename (because I’ve always embedded the sketchbook number, page, date, and a short description of the contents in the file names). But I’m planning two tagging methods: a wiki-based method, where if the image is linked from one of my wikis, the gallery will tag it with the wiki categories; and a user-volunteered method, where you all can add tags if you want! I’m going with these methods because I’m planning an unprecedented volume of art uploads. Before I would curate all the sketches and only bother to upload maybe 10% of a sketchbook’s total pages. Now, I’m going to dump the entire book up there (minus any missing pages). At once.
Please imagine hundreds of pages becoming available at a time. Picture receiving an email from Patreon: “Hey, everyone, I just finished scanning Sketchbook 88 this afternoon and it’s up! Go enjoy!”
USER-LED. In addition to letting people tag the images (I’m going to be one of them!), I’m also going to let you favorite images and save searches and filters. So say you only ever want peltedverse stuff, or B&W art, or if you’re reading the Jokka trilogy and want to see only images from those books, then you can set the gallery to show you things you want. Eventually I’m going to use that favorite data to pick out pictures that everyone likes, so I can finish them! Or I’ll use that data to make sure people’s favorites go into the forthcoming art books (“Everyone likes this Tam-illee girl from Sketchbook 5… definitely going into the book!”). Eventually I’d like to make it so you can get prints or merch made by selecting a piece from the gallery and handing it off to Printful—I’ve got a cropping function partially built so if you want to adjust the picture before you send it off somewhere, you can do that.
I’m not anticipating reinstating user comments, mostly because it didn’t get much use back in Stardancer’s heyday—it was mostly the same 15 people or so leaving comments—so I’m replacing it with the much faster/easier favorite system so you can locate your favorites and share them easily. Also this means I don’t have to police comments, and before you say ‘But Jaguar, most of your fans aren’t trolls!’, I’ll say, ‘Yes, but think about people accidentally leaving spoilers on images.’ I’d much rather build a share function so you can show friends your favorite pieces of art (“Have you gotten to the part in Mindtouch where XYZ? Look, there’s an illustration, squee!”). I can revisit other forms of interaction later!
ARTIST GETS GROCERIES. Because I’m anticipating this gallery getting enormous in size very quickly, the majority of it will be available only to subscribers of some flavor or another. Guests will be able to browse a ‘best of’ page that will have a random image/image of the day, top five user favorites, five newest uploads, etc, and probably have a budget (‘browse 20 images a month’) but I’m going to code it so that browsing the entire archive will be a subscriber-only perq. This gives my patreon/locals people an enormous value-add for their money, and incidentally pays for the ongoing effort of scanning and the hosting costs because I need to check and see what my file limits are for my host….
Also why I’m not terribly concerned about piracy and AI theft (inevitable risks are inevitable), I’d like to introduce enough friction to the process that it becomes less of a thing.
If you are already a patron of some kind (here or via other forms of patronage, like shopping at my store), rest assured I’m making notes on how to link up all your various jaguar accounts (including the wiki ones) so that I’m at least aware of you everywhere. I’m not sure I’ll be able to swing single-login, but I’m definitely committed to making access as transparent/easy as possible so that if you are buying me coffee monthly, you will have your Full Gallery Access with no further work on your part.
GREAT SO WHEN DO WE GET IT
Maybe a month? I’m going to be building it and testing it extensively (and if you really want constant progress reports, I post those on discord as I work on things). Discord is also where I’ll go to get beta testers. Otherwise… it’s going pretty quickly. I have a big checklist but I’m making good time. As you can see from the screenshots, the core functionality’s already there… it’s just a matter of all the added features (and the final part, which is making it look like the rest of my site… my placeholder CSS is hideous, lol).
So yes. I am aiming for the end of summer for launch, and we’ll see if I make it.
The tldr;: the gallery is finally coming back!
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Cursive Practice Video, to Relax
Or at least, I intend it to be relaxing. Hopefully it delivers.
4:22 minutes
Materials:
- Pen: Moonman Starry Glass dip pen, Mars: https://www.jetpens.com/Moonman-Starry-Sky-Glass-Dip-Pen-Mars/pd/31536
- Paper: Strathmore Writing Series 500, lined: https://www.jetpens.com/Strathmore-500-Series-Writing-Pad-8.5-x-11-Lined-50-Sheets/pd/15322
- Ink: Robert Oster, Rose Gilt Tynte: https://www.jetpens.com/Robert-Oster-Rose-Gilt-Tynte-Fountain-Pen-Ink-Shake-N-Shimmy-50-ml-Bottle/pd/25170
00:04:27
Overview of the First Oil Paint Experiment
In which I talk about the paper, the paint, and the experience of oils versus gouache. Fun stuff, will do more.
Thank you Locals supporters! Your contribution to my art war chest here is what's powering these experiments and videos. For now I'm keeping them public but I may start doing some subscriber-only videos if you all are interested.💖
00:03:35
Alysha Misc
Thanks for your comments yesterday on the business post... all very provocative, in a good way. I'll try to respond to all of them today.
Some Alysha misc now, since I'm gearing up for the results of the Kickstarter!
Petrov is giving away coupon codes for every book in the Alysha series (and has some leftover coupons for Marda and the business book). You can pick those up here (and please do! The books are bought already, someone should use them!) https://twitter.com/PetrovNeutrino/status/1457344535843987461
Our own @JudasComplex sent along a sample of the Faith in the Service audiobook, which I've attached for your delight! I... haven't had a chance to listen to it. Don't ask me about my past week and a half or so. Putting it here will guarantee I get to it.
After hearing the amused comments during the livestream, I went ahead and added all the ship type illustrations I have inked from the 90s to the wiki. Glory in the rampant adorableness of their anthropomorphic stylings! See those ...
The Jaguar's Heart 7: We Are Not a Monolith
A little comedy today, at least in the link. Transcript follows.
Hi, all. Welcome to this episode of The Jaguar’s Heart.
A while back I was introduced to a comedy sketch about Cuban coffee by a Mexican comedian, Gabriel Iglesias. ( The sketch begins with him greeting all his fellow Latinos and then backing up to say ‘but we’re all different, aren’t we’ which is a segue into a demonstration of how different Hispanics speak Spanish.
It is hilarious. First, because I am a Spanish speaker and a linguistics hobbyist, and his portrayal of various accents resonated with my experiences in trying to make sense of them myself… Not always easy, since from culture to culture, slang and accent are often totally different (and sometimes grammar! Spaniards use a grammatical construct that has died out in many other Spanish-speaking countries, the plural “you.”)
I also loved it because the Cuban coffee part is real. I grew up with Cubans. I know how we are....
The Jaguar's Heart 6: Hatespeech
One of the most common things I hear (and say) right now is "the asymmetry is the story." Here's one about how none of us are innocent of the sins we hate in others.
Hi, all. Welcome to this week’s episode of The Jaguar’s Heart.
It’s been weeks since the Baen’s Bar incident and I’m still thinking about it... because the longer I do, the more I feel, overwhelmingly, that it’s obvious that the problem is deeper than “this forum was saying stuff that offended us.” We have to back up to the glaring fact that people on opposite sides no longer consider each other human. Nothing I say will matter because the people disagreeing with me don’t think I’m human. They have denied my humanity; they have not bothered to listen to my beliefs, or have fake-listened to them in that way that people do when they’re so ready to prove you wrong that they’re only using your speech to provide talking points for their own ideas.
We have forgotten how to listen.
Increasingly, we have also ...
Super Cute Video Reviews!
Check these out, they're great, I just found them on youtube... if you see anymore like this, let me know! (And give these nice people a thumbs-up!) Both of them are short and delightful!
Earthrise (with hilarious clips):
Dreamhealers (with bonus flipping to the art sections):
Monday with Clearing Project Brain Fog
Okay, so… five months later, the game is launched in beta, people are playing! It’s so cool to see people’s first babies (some of which are color disasters, and some of which are gorgeous) and see how they choose to dress and train their founders. It’s interesting to see what people are prioritizing: some people want a lot of characters, some people want a lot of infrastructure, some people want to buy every stranger. XD I made a special discord channel so people can share their favorites and tell us their personal headcanon!
If you haven’t joined yet, you should try it! Even if you haven’t read the books (especially if you haven’t read the books!). The feedback I’m getting now is helping me decide where to go for maximum fun/cool. People say their favorite thing about playing right now is feeling like they have a real voice in how the game is being shaped. Which is true! Post with links is here: ...
The Jaguar Reads an AI-Written Book
Over the weekend, I read a book that I’m 95% sure was AI-written. I’ve listened to people talk about how it’s done: you brainstorm characters and a plot with AI, prompt it for an outline, adjust the outline, prompt it to create character and setting guides… attach all that to your project, then tell it to write the first chapter. You adjust the chapter, add it to the project, then tell it to write the second, etc, until you get to the end. Then you tidy the whole thing and publish. The "rapid release" people either love this (because you can release a book in a day or two and do it again immediately) or hate it (because they can't keep up with people using this strategy with unaugmented human brains). But it's clearly a thing that's happening, and few people who do it are admitting it.
Reasons I thought this book was AI:
Every chapter ends with a weird wrap-up style: “Main Character had accomplished XY and Z. Tomorrow, he’d have to tackle AB and C. But for today: job well done.” And I do mean every chapter. At first I thought ‘maybe the author’s serializing this and needs to remind readers about what just happened” but when it’s doing overviews of what happens in the chapter at the end, it’s weird.
All the places give you a “movie set” feeling of being wooden facades. Like… ‘there’s a baker. He makes bread.’ Nothing else. Only bread is mentioned. Not even the kind of bread. There’s a weird lack of specificity to everything. The baker always has a ‘basket of bread’. Or occasionally, a basket of pastries. (No word on what kind.) Likewise, there is a blacksmith. We know he can make hammers, because the apprentice made one. But that’s it. No idea what else the blacksmith does for the town.
Then there’s suddenly spates of specificity. “I have these exotic spices that sound like a list generated for game inventory.” These specific things are never mentioned again.
The technobabble sounds like stuff Claude gives me as placeholders. “Mana structure efficiency at 45%. Suboptimal but holding.”
Similarly there are some odd verbal tics that repeat throughout the text, and they are suspiciously clever ones, like analogies that rely on an abstract and a concrete noun: “It tasted of cinnamon and regret.” “The tavern smelled of old ale and worry.” Even the title uses this phrasing. Authors can have verbal tics, of course, but I associate a lot of these with AI.
The supporting characters do the exact same things, as if they’re programmed NPCs. Celebrating an achievement? ‘We go to this exact same tavern, every time.’ Checking up on the main character? “You need food and rest.” (I can’t count the number of times this character suggested everyone have food and rest, in exactly those words. No variation.)
This one is hard to describe, but the characters have believable backstories that suggest depth, but these backstories do not inform how they interact with other characters. The nemesis becomes the protagonist’s friend based on a single interaction, and this backstory, while mentioned in subsequent chapters, causes no friction, for instance. It’s as if every character was created in isolation and the author can’t figure out how to make them combine.
Could this all be the work of an inexperienced author? Sure. But that tells me that we have trained AI to work off story templates that inexperienced authors also rely on. If you have decades of “write to market” advice that treat books as widgets with “story beats” and “character arcs” that can be abstracted into formulas, you shouldn’t be surprised when books start to sound alike. They already were, prior to AI, it’s just that AI makes creating them faster.
Did people like the AI-generated book? Well, it has over a hundred reviews and a 4.5 star average rating, and even on Goodreads, it's doing well, so the answer is: “Yes, it’s good enough.” Did the author confess to AI-writing it? No. Maybe he didn’t! But my guess is that he did.
Do I care about this? Not really. I didn’t enjoy reading it because it gave me the same feeling social media scrolling does, that I’ve eaten empty calorie food that’s programming my brain to repeat basic and uncreative patterns. But humans have always riffed off bad things to make better things and I can totally see someone using AI to generate a draft like this, and then completely overhauling it into something enjoyable.
I don’t write like this because I’m weird. I am constitutionally incapable of the ‘write to market’ formulaic approach (which is why I’m not on a yacht sailing to my property on the Riviera). Even my attempts at romance and litrpg novels veer off into directions that make them too odd (yes, I managed to make both these genres unprofitable). But I’m one of those capital-A artists that indies like to sneer at, and I’m happy that way. I can’t even do that right: I’m an Arteeste who doesn’t care if you’re using AI!
My audience was always going to be the weirdos who want to learn my conlangs and vanish into alien cultures so completely they leave no traces. That's you all! You're awesome.
But yeah, AI-written books. You might have already read one and not realized it. The name of this one, if you want to check it out, is below, and yes I paywalled it because I don't want to bother with drama.
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Friday Update: Me, My Robot Army, and Long Career Thoughts
Red Honey has wrapped up! I’m not sure what I’m going to serialize next, but I figured I’d take a breather for the rest of the year since there’s so little of it left. We’ll continue to have Back-in-Time Tuesdays every week, but Fridays will be a hodgepodge of whatever’s on my mind. And what’s on my mind today is the Jokka game, which my Discord crowd has convinced me to just call JOKKA! (I think with exclamation point. With exclamation point, right, you all?)
I think I last seriously wrote about this around my birthday so it’s been almost two months. A lot happens in two months when you’re directing AI to code for you.
The foremost thing I’ve learned is that I am perfectly positioned to take advantage of AI for coding, because I have these things going for me:
I used to write technical documentation for software
I can do project management
I can draw
I can write and have written many novels' worth of material for background
I have done some light coding work
I like gaming and have played many games mindfully, noting what I hate and what I enjoy
But the number one thing that makes this easy for me is:
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