Thursday, February 29, 2024

Quick Post About TNT, and other matters...

And to think. 

The entirety of the Canadian Railroad System. The rails that connect the east coast of Canada to the west coast, providing the lifeline that was most essential to Canada's growth and is still a key element in the modern economy, that most of the intensive labour required to build those railroad lines was provided by the first labour force composed of the earliest Chinese and Asian Canadians, the Indigenous population who'd all worked amongst the British, French and European colonizers and of course a few million pounds of TNT (Trinitrotoluene). The explosives used to terraform much of the Canadian soil along the path of the railway.

I as a Canadian am grateful for all the labour that contributed to that wondrous project. A wonder of Canadian ingenuity, engineering and of course, those Construction Engineers (when I use that term I'm referring both to the skilled architects and planners whose efforts required a lot of math and physics, and the hired labour that actually implemented these plans) who made it all possible, and likely for a wage under the standards that we have today, relatively speaking when you factor in the timescale and the local value of the currency.

Sincerely, thank you to the Construction Engineers who worked on that railroad and made it possible back in the 1800s, and of course, thank you to TNT ;-)


Here's a short (8 minutes) documentary showing actual footage of the railway and its construction from Bibliothèque et Archives Canada on YouTube.

The Building of a Transcontinental Railway in Canada: [extract] (1910)

Click the following link if for some reason you can't see the archive, which will take you direct to the Bibliothèque et Archives Canada: Bibliothèque et Archives Canada.


Or, if you'd like a quick dramatization depicting one of the many risks that Chinese and Asian Canadians took during the construction of the Canadian railway, not to mention many other significant contributions to our history, take a look here at TVO (TeleVision Ontario). 

TVO is one of the public access television stations that I personally credit (amongst private stations like CBC, CTV, CHCH and of course CityTV) for spurring many elements of my curiosity as a child (under my parents' and teacher's guidance) and into my teenage years that led to much of the content you see here. Conside that during that time, the internet was purely a vehicle of research, academia and the military, all long before the world wide web. Check this link for the episode S01 E32 - Nitro and watch it to get a dramatization about this very topic. Now imagine that part of the Canadian Railway passes through the Rocky Mountains, and what an incredible feat of terraforming and construction engineering that must have been in order to make that all happen.

Not From Canada?

If you're arriving at this page from another country besides Canada, you should consider that there's probably an extensive railway there and that it was built by people who persevered through some of the hardest labour and engineering challenges that we can imagine, even today. I'd bet that if you searched on the internet for those topics local to your place in the world, you'd find a hoard of information on the topic. Maybe, amongst those people who built your railways, you'll find many other internationals and expatriates who worked alongside your own population and contributed to perhaps the most important project of your country's early history. Like the air ways in your body that allow you to breath, or your circulatory system that carries nutrients to other parts of your body, the railway is the first step to building a lasting infrastructure and economy.

Also, remember that TNT, although it can be used to make devastating weapons, can also be used to create the means to prosperity and feed many people ;-)

Climate Crisis

Now, with that same kind of determination and execution, we can tackle the climate crisis in much the same way that the railway system was transformed as newer, more efficient forms of energy became available, but this paradigm can be applied through expertise and labour to create the next generation of solutions. In the future, all trains will be zero emission electric engines with much higher speeds (approaching those of the sound barrier) while of course, producing little or no damaging exhaust, noise pollution, EMF or turbulent conn trail damage. The city subway systems are often the testing grounds for the technology involved in creating the future long distance commuter systems.

Much like the President of the United States did today (which was highlighted by Doctor David Suzuki's team in a recent email), President Biden stood down big oil, which definitely is the kind of thing that Ayn Rand would have been ecstatic about if she was alive to see it, for this highlights the very essence of what she was saying needs to be done. However, that choice to do so was made by Biden's team and highly likely, himself. 

The idea isn't to make big oil the enemy. It is however to encourage them in the direction of taking risks when it comes to alternative, climate safe technologies lest we chase away innovation in favour of the short term profits offered by exploitation of the world's oil reserves at the cost of the world's biosphere itself. We then end up in a perpetual loop where in order to repair the damage we cause to the biosphere by relying on such fuels, we're forced to increase their consumption in order to generate the capital required to fix it. 

Big oil has the resources to advance toward solutions to this problem, they just have to be freed from their internal politics and business models that constrain the kind of innovation that will (eventually) lead to a decline of the exploitation of natural resources and eventually, zero emission forms of energy. The economy will adapt to support future companies who do, while those that don't will likely fade away into obscurity. There will always be those die hard enthusiasts who love having a big V8 Mopar, but that will become part of the hobbiest industry and such cars will run on entirely clean fuels and be seen on Sundays driven by their enthusiast owners on their days off.

However, I do my voting in Canada, but it helps to recognize effort that helps us all globally, because what happens anywhere, affects everywhere, especially concerning the environment. Poetically speaking, its called the Butterfly Effect.

I'll be back soon, just as red white, red black and yellow as The Butterfly Dragon, Shhhh! Digital and I will ever be. Though there's always some Mila, Barris, Nelony and Shaela in me too.


Credits and attribution:

Artwork: Amy Wong, Wendy Pusey, Ghastly, Birdman, Brian Joseph Johns, Daz3D, Unreal Engine...

Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Sadtalker, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, Borderline Obsession...

InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.

Sadtalker by: Zhang, Wenxuan and Cun, Xiaodong and Wang, Xuan and Zhang, Yong and Shen, Xi and Guo, Yu and Shan, Ying and Wang, Fei.
Research Paper Title: SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation.

Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.

Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian): https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui), https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)

Special thanks to Aitrepreneur, Hugging Face and the YouTube educational content producers, including those catering to the AI content production pipeline and of course AlphaSignal.

Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.

This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.

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Tuesday, February 20, 2024

New Character Designs

 Hi again. Brian Joseph Johns here. I thought I'd share this artwork with you.


This takes the characters to the next level for Shhhh! Digital Media and the Butterfly Dragon...


Alicia Westin aka Night Style


Here are Monique Defleur aka Eclipse

and

Heylyn Yates aka Ai Yuanlin Ying aka Butterfly Dragon 




There will be many more to come. You can start looking for new artwork in recently released stories while I'll update the artwork for the older stories over time and between other projects. This marks the beginning of the next phase in bringing these characters to life...

Expect some more written work on The Two Butterflies - Episode 10 this week, and possibly some new material for Night Boat...

Credits and attribution:

Artwork: Amy Wong, Wendy Pusey, Ghastly, Birdman, Brian Joseph Johns, Daz3D, Unreal Engine...

Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, Borderline Obsession...

InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.

Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR (both YouTube and Bilibili), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.



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Saturday, February 17, 2024

Work Then Gaming Saturday...


The Day's Colour Game And Philosophy


I watched an interesting short clip of Ayn Rand on YouTube (its always ironic when clips of her show up on a day when there's a big colour symbolism battle going on). I think she's awesome for a great many reasons relating to her ideas, but in all honesty she's one extreme, but her ideas on objectism are wonderful. An idea based upon observations that certain political processes, not specifically Government, but rather entangled discourse itself, stagnate society and actually curb innovation.

On her strongest points in that regard, I certainly agree that there are situations where that can and does occur, and that cliques in society can often collude to make that the case, while burying any evidence of it having occurred. When winning becomes more important than the preservation of the facts and the truth. When winning becomes more important than what's actually being fought for.

However, even someone as clever as Ayn Rand was likely played with the see-saw treatment, which socially would rock her back and forth at the most inconvenient of times for herself, so that she'd appear to be an extreme objectivist. Abhoring taxes and infrastructure, all part of a strategy to make her ideas appear like selfishness, which they really weren't.

Really, you have to read Atlas Shrugged or the Fountainhead to get a grasp on what she's saying. She's not undermining infrastructure or society, only the fact that it appears that our cliquiness and propensity for using symbol in ways to pigeonhole innovators as social obstructions who are often branded as not being team players, when in fact, the problem is that the teams involved are acting with the psychosis or narcissism as a group, in the same way that a solitary person would be diagnosed as such. This is a core phenomenon within Sociology itself and Doctor Briggs of the Butterfly Dragon will likely have dialogue in the near future that will deal with this very topic.

There's this idea in society that the more you are, the more right you are, which couldn't be further from the truth in circumstances involving vision, direction and innovation. It works great as peer revue in the sciences and it works great for democracy and making sure that we're acting in the best interests society along a pre-defined malleable founding set of principles, but when it comes to maintaining the course of a vision, its a disaster.

It's along the lines of T.H. White's idiom, which can have two permutations: might is right, meaning that the more you are, the more right you are, hence the concept of what is actually right and wrong is discarded and can be treated differently even in two different situations with the same circumstances. Then there's the other permutation: might for right, in which the concept of right and wrong is defined in a way that adapts according to the concept of precedence, and the advantage of more people is used to ensure that those ideas are enforced and justice ensues.

Enjoy Life, Help To Live

Even Ayn Rand's ideas taken to their extreme are and could be a disaster for society, and when bright people like her arrive in society and on the stage, they're often played on the see-saw towards their worst extremes, not just of emotional behaviour, but of the expression of their ideas. And so when those ideas have arrived to our doorstep, they've been making their way through resistance that only sharpens them to the point of becoming extreme and even difficult for people. If you really want to know her, Ayn Rand's best contribution in terms of objectivism is the idiom: enjoy life, help to live.

Winding Up The Competitors

During her interviews, as it is obvious of many icons from the same and earlier eras whose words are part of the video and audio historical record, she was definitely struggling against critics of her ideas, whose biggest weapon is polarization. Pushing their opponents to extremes, so that their ideas rather than being rationally balanced towards a common good, are over-extended to an extreme perspective that was often arrived at after much provocation and just in time for the cameras to be rolling. History never seems to catch the part about when the people behind the scenes are stirring up the competitors, much like dog handlers stirring up the dogs before a dog fight. History never records that part. We only ever get the aftermath, so most people never understand that when you see and hear Ayn Rand talking about how its wrong to force the wealthy to pay taxes, she's making that statement after after having been stirred by people over the issue that she's actually talking about. 

That issue being that taxes for the purposes of infrastructure and the greater good (schools and hospitals for instance) are a must in society, but when those collecting such revenues over-extend their reach into the wallets of their citizens - the citizens' paying into a common fund for the greater good can quickly turn into a much bigger problem that stagnates innovation, and leads to business which alongside real estate and union labour is the biggest source of tax revenue, abandoning such a place where that is occurring, and that's a big hit to innovation and the economy. 

However, the same thing can happen on the other side as well. When the futures of big companies become entangled in internal politics and business models that actually hinder progress, possibly even with dire consequences for society [added on March 1, 2024].

Often, politics becomes involved and can be quite damaging when innovators are pit against bureaucracy. When I say politics, I'm referring not specifically to Government, but to the interplay between any groups of people seeking negotiation and discourse with one another. That isn't to say that Government is bad. It is to say though that the nature of humanity to divide ourselves along these boundaries often leads to situations where people that should be working together, are pit against one another in a game of show and tell before an audience (the citizens) they've deified. Truth suffers, and the one with the best public relations and best at sweeping things under the carpet often wins. When that happens, those innovators, will be stifled, and possibly gone for good.

That's exactly what Atlas Shrugged is about.

When I see icons like her speaking on camera, I notice certain things and can relate very much with what it must have been like for such a remarkable woman like her to deal with this constant social tide. Not just her, but many, many others. 

You don't realize how remarkable those people truly were, until you understand the kinds of obstacles they had in their way in getting their message to market, without becoming radicalized weapons of extreme views, but rather carried their message mostly gracefully the entire distance. A thirty second clip though? You're bound to lose a lot of the information and story of what's going on and what she's saying, and so I implore those of you who are acclimatized to the 30 second format, to consume it like a snack to get the taste for, but not the entire meal, of what these people were saying. 

Its like you ask the waiter to give you a sip of the wine and taste it before its served to the table or before you take the bottle. At least that's the way you used to do it when having a dinner at a restaurant. If you try a little 30 second clip, don't form an opinion until you've gone and looked into it much further. A remarkable woman like her deserves and is worth every bit of your time in that regard.

So. I'm off to do some gaming and hopefully, get some time in on PUBG too.

It was a bit of a stressful day during the last part, but I kept it mostly together. I hope that your day was a good one, and that your weekend is great.

I'll see you on Monday :-)

Oh yeah. Here's one with all three rows of the main roster of Shhhh! Digital Media characters. Look forward to more artwork this coming week. 




Have a good one! ;-)

I'm an Atheist that leans toward Buddhism and Taoism. I'm not a security guard and have never worked as a security guard in my life.

Credits and attribution:

Artwork: Amy Wong, Wendy Pusey, Ghastly, Birdman, Brian Joseph Johns, Daz3D, Unreal Engine...

Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Sadtalker, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, Borderline Obsession...

InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.

Sadtalker by: Zhang, Wenxuan and Cun, Xiaodong and Wang, Xuan and Zhang, Yong and Shen, Xi and Guo, Yu and Shan, Ying and Wang, Fei.
Research Paper Title: SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation.

Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.

Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian): https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui), https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)

Special thanks to Aitrepreneur, Hugging Face and the YouTube educational content producers, including those catering to the AI content production pipeline and of course AlphaSignal.

Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.

This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.



at

Sunday, February 11, 2024

Happy Lunar New Year!

Sorry, I was a bit late putting this up.




See you on Monday!


Credits and attribution:

Artwork: Amy Wong, Wendy Pusey, Ghastly, Birdman, Brian Joseph Johns, Daz3D, Unreal Engine...

Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Sadtalker, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, Borderline Obsession...

InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.

Sadtalker by: Zhang, Wenxuan and Cun, Xiaodong and Wang, Xuan and Zhang, Yong and Shen, Xi and Guo, Yu and Shan, Ying and Wang, Fei.
Research Paper Title: SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation.

Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.

Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian): https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui), https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)

Special thanks to Aitrepreneur, Hugging Face and the YouTube educational content producers, including those catering to the AI content production pipeline and of course AlphaSignal.

Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.

This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.



at

Thursday, February 8, 2024

New Character Design Reveal (Updated by Brian Joseph Johns on February 8, 2024 at 4:30 AM)

Protecting Brand Identity And The Threat Of Bigger Fish


I also tend to stay away from the bigger fish (Marvel, DC, Disney, Sony for instance). One thing I've noticed as an independent publisher and creator is that its easy to become devoured by the bigger fish, and have your content and message diluted into theirs and in such a case, you lose the distinction of your brand and your work disappears in theirs and often without any acknowledgement.

Not because they are looking to eat you, but because in some cases, they have ravenously cannibalistic  fans who believe they're helping those bigger fish by devouring the smaller ones and digesting them for the bigger fish, so as to dilute the message of smaller fish into the brand of the bigger fish. A lot of creators end up disappearing or dying off by this very phenomenon and those artists and thespians who are part of that bigger fish don't always know or realize this is happening. Kind of a case of not being able to see the rest of the forest through the trees. 

But alas, there is hope, because many of the founders of those bigger fish, who started off when they were at threat of being devoured by other bigger fish, often left hints to other smaller fish explaining that very phenomenon, and how to navigate it to save your own message, content and brand. 

These are the help that is hidden in the stories and words of the very people who originated those bigger fish. In other words, those whose ideas started it all. They often shared their experiences as their creation grew to become like the bigger fish they had to avoid in order not to become eaten and simply disappear.

That threat is a sort of collective one, and finding the balance between maintaining a healthy identity and brand, a healthy social integration while maintaining an arm's length distance of safety is a very difficult lesson to learn, but its essential, and its a message that's hidden in the content of every single creator who's ideas culminated into the bigger fish you'll have to watch out for today.

Maybe someday, Shhhh! Digital Media might become the bigger fish that ravenously cannibalistic fans might think they're helping by devouring the other smaller fish, but nothing could be further from the truth. Bigger fish don't need to kill or devour independent creators to survive. They just have to protect and nurture independent talent, while continuing to develop their own and maintaining their compass as the times change. 

The monsters aren't the content creators, big fish or small fish. The monsters are the ravenously cannibalistic people in between them all. To the monsters, we're all little fish. 

Big fish and little fish can only survive by learning from one another, while nurturing creativity and content and avoiding eating each other.


Updates


As I update the preview composite character sheets, I'll add them to this post, updating the date so that the latest artwork is at the top of the post list, though keep in mind that this artwork isn't final. This is however the closest to my signing off on each of the designs as they all follow the initial designs I'd planned from the very beginning, more than twelve years ago.

I apologize if you don't see your favourite character(s) yet, but I'll be getting to each of them as I go and that includes characters which have never had a visual representation in any publication here on Shhhh! Digital Media (2017 - Present), Poetry And Fiction (from May 2012 - 2017), Tales Of The Sanctum (from 2013 - 2017) and Butterfly Dragon (standalone site from 2014 - 2017).

We'll definitely be seeing a modicum of balance where it concerns Ai Yuanlin Ying's martial arts mentors. That is, Hanshi Morgan Hind, Hoon "Tiger" Kwang and Sifu Jinn Hua. Their upcoming artwork will include visuals of them in action, using actual techniques, Waza and Kata from Goju-Ryu (and Goju-Jujitsu-Ryu), Taekwondo, and finally Wing Chung/Gong Fu/Wushu, all of which make up the mixed martial arts curriculum of Heylyn Yates, one of three known Butterfly Dragons. The other two being Aikiko Tanaka (Dragon Butterfly) and Warai Jeong-Min Tokama (who is in training alongside Braden).

The order of images is the most recent at the top.


Without further ado, here are the most recently updated characters from Shhhh! Digital Media:

The Butterfly Dragon: Women Professionals


These two women are pivotal characters in the episodic storylines that have stemmed from The Butterfly Dragon. 

Ebtissam Rashida is originally from the United Arab Emirates, though she studied Fashion And Merchandising in Paris, France. Upon graduation, she returned to her home in the United Arab Emirates after sending out a flurry of resumes to a variety of global fashion conglomerates. Six months after her return to UAE, she received a response via email from Heylyn Yates, who arranged for a teleconference with Ebtissam about a position she had at her own company, West Meet East International.

Ebtissam aced the interview, and two days later she was contacted by Heylyn and offered the position. She accepted, celebrated with her family and then left for Toronto, Ontario, Canada to become the Head Seamstress of West Meet East International. She's been a key player on their team ever since. You can find her in just about every episode of The Two Butterflies and we'll be seeing a lot more of her in the near future.


Dina Shalhevet is a dedicated career woman who first pursued an interest in music at the Lin And Ted Arison Israel Conservatory in Tel Aviv during the early nineteen nineties. However, being an adventurous and fairly active woman, she found a renewed passion for life when she arrived for her service in the Israeli Defense Force. Like Ebtissam had with her own studies, Dina aced her basic training and found that she had a high aptitude for specialized operations, requiring both physical and mental discipline. 

Dina was quickly snatched up by her commanding officers who recommended her for a training program not available to many. When she finished her service for the IDF, she was hired into the intelligence community, working closely with Palestinian Israeli citizens to build a strong rapport of support and cooperation between Israel and Palestine as part of the Oslo Accords and the Generational Peace program. She participated in an extensive intelligence operation to avert terror that threatened to undermine the success of the Oslo Accords. Over the years as the nature of the situation in the region changed, so has her role. A story that will be visited in an upcoming We Who Stand On Guard episode. 
She first appears in We Who Stand On Guard in Episode 7. 

Like our own world, both of these women are key players in the overall unfolding of events. Perhaps by recognizing this there's hope for a lasting peace and future in our world.

The Butterfly Dragon: Male Mentors

Take your pick of these two images. They both work, but for very different reasons...

Sifu Jinn Hua will join them visually very soon.


Hanshi Morgan Hind and Sebomnim Hoon "Tiger" Kwang are the first two instructors young Ai Yuanlin Ying encounters on her path to becoming The Butterfly Dragon. Hanshi is a Black Belt in Goju-Ryu (Goju-Jujitsu-Ryu), 9th Dan. He initially trained in Okinawa, Japan under Meitoku Yagi, living in residence in Okinawa until 1990. He left Okinawa and established his own Goju-Ryu Dojo in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, maintaining his ties to Okinawa and their destiny as teachers of the centuries old Butterfly Dragon philosophy and forms. A tradition that had been secretly embedded in many different martial arts of many different cultures.

He was contacted by Jinn Hua, Sifu of the Butterfly Dragons and the guardian of their tradition. Jinn Hua at that time convinced Morgan Hind to train young Ai Yuanlin Ying, who had been directly chosen by one of the Two Dragons of Beyond Eternity. Training that could not be held in public classes, as it required the sharing of knowledge, principles and specialized exercises. From the moment they met, they gained a deep respect for each other, and Hanshi is considered one of Jinn Hua's allies known as the Two Hands. Sebomnim Hoon "Tiger" Kwang being the other of the two.

Hanshi Morgan Hind is first introduced in The Butterfly Dragon I: Heroes Of Our Own.


Sebomnim Hoon "Tiger" Kwang is a Master of Taekwondo hailing from his own family home in Seoul, South Korea. He trained in the family Dojang alongside his sister and brother, who eventually graduated and were hired by the city while Hoon continued his Taekwondo studies under his parent's tutelage. His sister eventually found herself in a position as a human resources and budget manager for Seoul's Police Service. She contracted their family Dojang, and the Dojangs of three other prominent traditional Korean Martial Arts Schools to supply Police trainees with professional Taekwondo training. 

Hoon Kwang by that point was a respected Sebomnim, and trained many Police Officers at their family Dojang. However, Hoon Kwang's father left the Dojang to his brother upon his death, shocking Hoon Kwang and putting him at odds with his own father. His mother eventually found him, and gave Hoon the letter that his father had hand penned for him. In the letter, his father explained that the reason he didn't leave the Dojang to him was because he wanted him to spread his knowledge throughout the world. Had his father given him the family Dojang, he explained that it would have been like giving an adventurous soul an anchor, which would have prevented his family destiny of sharing their martial arts tradition. Instead, his father insisted that he speak with a woman named Jinn Hua.

Hoon Kwang left Korea in 1994, and ventured to GuangZhou, China where he met Jinn Hua, and discovered the Temple Of The Butterfly Dragon. Upon learning of the knowledge, principles and exercises, he became Jinn Hua's second hand, meaning that he would be the second instructor for students learning the path of the Butterfly Dragon. 

Being very sensible and apt with money management, Hoon Kwang left GuangZhou to continue on his father's advice. He opened his first Dojang in Seattle, United States Of America. Within six years of its opening and mostly thanks to his keen skills with money, he had amassed a small fortune and set his heart towards expanding his growing martial arts empire. 

In a dream, he was contacted by one of the Dragons of Beyond Eternity, who implored him to venture to Toronto in Ontario, Canada. After some searching, he found an old warehouse in a strip mall, and converted it to a Dojang and his new martial arts brand: "Tiger" Hoon Kwang's Taekwondo, around the corner from Hanshi Morgan Hind's Goju-Ryu Dojo. Jinn Hua introduced the two, and directed a Butterfly Dragon student by the name of Myung Chung-Ae to train with Hoon Kwang. Myung was Hoon Kwang's first Butterfly Dragon student and the two became good friends. When he'd earned Jinn Hua's approval, Hanshi directed Ai Yuanlin Ying to "Tiger" Hoon Kwang for the Taekwondo training that is part of the Butterfly Dragon tradition.

The rest as they say is history.

Sebomnim Tiger Hoon Kwang is first introduced in The Butterfly Dragon I: Heroes Of Our Own.

The Butterfly Dragon Early Roster


Once again, we're back at Butterfly Dragon with an updated roster of characters, both new and old.

Bottom row, right to left: Linda Delmore, Myung Chung-Ae, Inspector Tricia Camden, Inspector William Halmand, Bryce Maxwell, Zheng Ni Wong, Stephen Briggs.

Top row, right to left: Heylyn Yates aka Ai Yuanlin Ying aka Butterfly Dragon, (Sifu) Jinn Hua, Alicia Westin aka Night Style, Monique Defleur aka Eclipse, Aikiko Tanaka as herself,  Aikiko Tanaka as Dragon Butterfly, Valerie Aspen, Kori Jonglyu, Warai Jeong-Min Tokama.

Linda Delmore is the territory sales rep for an American company that deals in office supplies and more recently, office technology. She works mostly on the road, traveling throughout her territory which when we first meet her in the book The Butterfly Dragon II: What Different Eyes See - Vietnam Special Addition (spelling pun intended), is South and Southeast Asia. More rencently, Linda's sales territory becomes Eastern Canada, where she visits her old friends at West Meet East International. As it turns out, Linda is a bit more adventurous than she first appears as we find out later when she returns in The Two Butterflies and most recently in We Who Stand On Guard.

Myung Chung-Ae is one of the early Butterfly Dragons who never completed her training due to life circumstances intervening. She first meets young Ai Yuanlin Ying in the first book The Butterfly Dragon I: Heroes Of Our Own while the two attend Taekwondo training at "Tiger" Hoon Kwang's Taekwondo. She befriends the young Ai Yuanlin Ying, but eventually they lose contact with one another over time. As Myung gets older, she follows an educational path which leads to her becoming a professional Courtroom Stenographer who works at the Judicial Courts of College Park. She returns in The Two Butterflies - Episode 02, where she reunites with Ai Yuanlin Ying (Heylyn Yates) to assist the Butterfly Dragon as she investigates the mystery of Mentis.

Inspector Tricia Camden is a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and among the first investigators selected to uncover the nature of a dangerous social phenomenon that often culminates in violence. She first appears in The Butterfly Dragon III: The Two Dragons - Act I, where she is one of the first investigators on the scene of a bank robbery connected to her case. She teams up with fellow Inspector William Halmand (a field specialist in technology), and veteran Toronto Police Detective Ed Farnham to uncover the nature of this mysterious threat to society.

Professor Bryce Maxwell is a charismatic and legendary Quantum Physicist and accomplished Pianist, whose other claim to fame is that he used to jam with fellow Quantum Physicist Richard Feynman (who was an avid bongo player). Bryce was amongst the Alumni of the University Of Waterloo's Physics program, eventually earning his Professorate during his years working with renowned Physicists Sylvia Upadhaya and Murray Gell-Mann, filling his remaining time with piano and big band gigs.

Thanks to his notoriety, he is hired as a touring lecturer in a variety of Universities, landing a recurring lecture series at University of Windsor during Alicia's student curriculum. She attends his lecture and instantly becomes her favourite Professor. His influence upon her life and education leads her to become one of his greatest fans and proteges.

During the events of the short story A Piano, A Full Glass, And The Disappearance Of Time, when Alicia starts dating business mogul Walton Norler, he arranges for her to meet him when he finds out he's playing a piano gig at The Looking Glass, a notable Toronto Jazz venue. She arrives and discovers a table full of her alumni peers, including mathematician and computational biologist Zheng Ni Wong, Doctors Katya and Victor Piotr and Sociologist specializing in Eastern Studies, Doctor Stephen Briggs. Bryce who is performing that night, eventually joins them between sets for a physics and philosophy discussion unlike any other. Alicia discovers a few coincidental connections between the two of them and this leads to a lasting friendship between Alicia and Bryce that eventually brings them all into contact with Heylyn Yates, The Butterfly Dragon, leading to the events of The Butterfly Dragon II: What Different Eyes See.

Jinn Hua, Aikiko Tanaka, Kori Jonglyu and Warai Jeong-Min Tokama will get their own background paragraphs in an upcoming artwork update post.

Tales Of The Sanctum: A Lady's Prerogative

From right to left: Nelony Ardbloem (and a bird friend), Shaela Sheowellyn, Mila Ren Dubel, Barris Windsor, Mishima Sato, Yirfir Lacharme, Jasmer McCavanaugh.

The story of this group of friends began in the first book A Lady's Prerogative I: The Yearning And The Learning. 

Mila Ren Dubel is a young artist who produces a painting that draws the attention of a wealthy investor, who just happens to own an art gallery. Mila ends up selling her painting for an exorbitant sum of money (in the multi-millions) and is invited as a guest of honour to the art show presenting her first work. Her parents, excited about her sudden success agree to fly out to meet her at the art show to celebrate, however they never arrive.

Years later, Mila holds a special dinner, and each of her mysterious guests, Nelony Ardbloem, Shaela  Sheowellyn and Yirfir Lacharme arrive on the wings of magic. The dinner as it turns out, is actually a graduation party for their success as students of Wytchcraft, under the guidance of their teacher and mentor, Yirfir Lacharme.

Their mentor however is kidnapped right from their midst, and they must work together to rescue her from the clutches of the nemesis Lorr. On their travels following the trail of their mentor's kidnapping, Mila rekindles her friendship with an old Japanese friend, Mishima Sato in Sheppterton off the Thames in London England. There, she meets Barris Windsor a humorous  man by whom she is immediately enthralled. With their new friends and acquaintances in distant places throughout the world, they continue their search for Yirfir, but ultimately their adventure finds its way home, where it will change Mila's and Barris' future forever.

Heylyn Yates aka Ai Yuanlin Ying aka Butterfly Dragon and 

Monique Defleur aka Eclipse



Heylyn Yates (aka Ai Yuanlin Ying) is the daughter of a family that emigrated from GuangZhou, China to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, when her father, a prominent Architect and Civil Engineer was offered a position as Chief Architect in a series of multi-national projects. Heylyn's mother became a professional Real Estate Agent and license holder, the two raising their daughter at home. 

Heylyn began having dreams of a mystical field, where she discovers a cocoon after a series of adventures. The cocoon hatches and she comes to know its offspring, who introduces her to her destiny as the Butterfly Dragon. 

After years of training in both martial arts and school, she befriends a young Alicia Westin. With graduation around the corner, and Heylyn's marks in Math and Science very lacking, she makes a deal with her friend Alicia to tutor her in Math and Science. In return, Heylyn who is hoping to become a Fashion Designer, designs and creates a graduation dress for Alicia, who is very self conscious about her appearance and weight. 

Alicia tutors Heylyn, who passes the mandatory subjects to graduate and is accepted into a prominent Fashion Arts program. Alicia attends the graduation dance in the dress Heylyn designed for her, and discovers a sense of renewed self confidence, which leads to her pursuit of her own career at the University Of Windsor. Alicia eventually loses contact with Heylyn over the course of her University years, while Heylyn Yates eventually becomes a successful Fashion Designer, creating her own company: West Meet East International.

Their newfound lives are interrupted when Alicia arrives nearly a decade later, as part of Heylyn's destiny to become the Butterfly Dragon. Together, with two more of their friends, they become heroes of their own.

Monique Defleur is a former waitress who upon losing her residence during a difficult breakup, is discovered by Fashion Designer Heylyn Yates. Heylyn takes Monique under her wing and hires Monique as a fashion model for one of her shows. From that point in time, Monique takes the initiative and opportunity afforded by Heylyn, and builds her life into a solid foundation, saving up net worth and accruing financial stability in her life, all while working on her career. 

With Heylyn's help, she eventually buys her own condo unit as well, and her life stabilizes with the opportunity. That is until Heylyn's old friend Alicia Westin shows up in their lives, introducing the both of them to the SY-349 formula and changing their lives forever. Heylyn re-discovers her destiny as the mystical martial arts superhero: The Butterfly Dragon, and Monique finds purpose and meaning in her life as the superhero: Eclipse. Together, the three women along with their new friend and ally Valerie Aspen, take on a criminal mastermind and industrialist who secretly rules the world.


Alicia Westin aka Night Style


Alicia Westin received her Doctorate in the field of Quantum Biology at the University Of Windsor, Ontario Canada. She is one of the first in the field of her vocation working for biomedical investment firm Tynan And Associates, and the inventor of the SY-349 formula. The SY-349 formula is the formula that gave her superpowers. She used her abilities to take on the growing threat posed by local criminal mastermind Grier Torman. Alicia was the first of the ladies of the book The Butterfly Dragon I: Heroes Of Our Own to become a superhero. 


Summary

That's the artwork thus far. Anything updated in this generation of character design will be appended to this post in the form of a simple character sheet with portraits much the same as these posts.

There are many more finished characters to be added, but each of these posts takes considerable time. 

There are also still many characters left to create (many of whom never received a design in the first place). They're coming soon, but I have many other things to do (like writing the current episodes and working on projects related to administration and production). All of these other things have to keep going, while the artwork is brought up to the next level and as preparations are made for what's to come.

Thank you to my (non-abusive and non-harassing) readers. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you except by creating more content. 

If the inspirations in my life have been the wind in my sails, then you're the current of the water that keeps that boat going when the winds become quiet.

Credits and attribution:

Artwork: Amy Wong, Wendy Pusey, Ghastly, Birdman, Brian Joseph Johns, Daz3D, Unreal Engine...

Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, Borderline Obsession...

InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.

Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR (both YouTube and Bilibili), the Gaming and Software Developer communities and of course, the audience.

Martial Arts links to come...

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