A few words on: Email, Messages and Requests

Just wanted to touch base with those who write me about this blog and with those who make requests for me to create things for them.

• First, thank you for visiting my blog and having an interest in what I do here.

• Second, I don't allow comments on my posts for one major reason: I cannot police or control comments every waking hour of the day. I hope to someday create more picture books for children; I cannot afford to have people cursing, arguing, or making crude comments on this blog.

• Third, this blog's software doesn't have a good messaging system. But everyone is more than welcome to continue sending me questions and comments. I do eventually read comments/emails sent to me from this blog, but... please don't expect quick turnaround responses.

Finally, please do not send me requests. That is not why I have this blog. This is a blog of my random thoughts and sketches. It's a public diary, even though I don't know what I'm going to post next.

I often get requests to post more images of what I do for a living, which is product design. There are too many legal reasons why that's not going to happen. It would be unprofessional for me to show designs that are exclusive to any client. Occasionally, I will post work-related designs, but those are usually either out-of-date or they no longer have any legal restrictions.

Again, thanks to all visiting this blog.

An ARGH! Tune: Muse (Classic Rock)

 This song is inspired by unsung heroes of great music who never made a big name for themselves. Musicians like: 

    • Emitt Rhodes, a fabulous young singer whose albums were compared to Paul McCartney. 

    • The '90s band, Jellyfish, whose fantastic two albums were filled with classic '60s & '70s styles; but they were outshined by the hair rock & grunge movements of the time. 

    • And the better known Marc Bolan, aka T-Rex, whose life came to an all-too-soon sad end with a car crash in 1977. 

Muse (Classic Rock)

This song is about creativity, where the music and words come from when one creates a new song... (perhaps from a legendary mythical muse.) 

Created using UDIO.com
Music: "Muse" lyrics and arrangement by Jim Romer

Want to hear more of my songs? Link: youtube.com/@ArghTunes

Christmas Toon - My Santa for 2024

This year's 2024 Santa image was created via physical pencil sketch, into Procreate for some "pencil setting" inking, and then under-colored and text added using Photoshop. ("BWAAH!" created using AI generating Ideogram.com.)

My wife and I enjoy watching Kathleen Madigan's weekly podcast; she's one of our favorite comedians. She often talks about her touring, including places she visits, foods she discovers, and gifts fans give her at shows. On one particular show, she mentioned a place called The Fainting Goat, where she purchased a small plastic goat figurine that makes that hilarious screaming sound we've all heard in videos. It never fails to be funny, and she uses it in nearly every podcast.

My 2024 Christmas Cartoon

When I do a Christmas cartoon, I want it to be unique. It's too easy to do the usual Christmas gags, puns or traditional jokes. So the goat scream was my influence in this image. Hopefully you can hear that goat scream in your head, (I certainly did as I was drawing it. Never not funny.) 

The original sketch

An ARGH! Tune: When the Night Falls (Upbeat Folk Rock w/Celtic Undertones)

This time I'm going for a more Folk-rock song, inspired by a little mix of The Waterboys, Tom Waits and the Jayhawks. I wanted to have a real Celtic vibe, with a hearty singer and I believe I got what I was trying to achieve. 

When the Night Falls (Upbeat Folk Rock w/Celtic Undertones)

This song is about heartbreak, regret and hope; reflecting on a relationship that has crumbled under the weight of unspoken words and emotional scars. The narrator expresses feelings of betrayal and sorrow, emphasizing the pain caused by a partner′s indifference. The  night symbolizes both the end, and a time for introspection -- evoking a melancholic yet hopeful yearning for a possible rekindling of their relationship. 

Created using UDIO.com Music: 'When the Night Falls'
Lyrics and arrangement by Jim Romer

Want to hear more of my songs? Link: youtube.com/@ArghTunes

An ARGH! Tune: Superficial (Dark synth-pop with post-punk)

This song was inspired by the '80s post-punk band New Order.
It critiques someone for being superficial.
The song was co-created with my friend and New Order fanatic, Struan Grant.

Superficial (Dark synth-pop with post-punk)

At the time, creating a song using Udio meant working with 32-second blocks of music.** After extensively studying New Order's style, I generated 4–6 samples approximating their sound for Struan to choose from. Every few days, we added another 32-second segment, repeating this process until the song was complete.

SIDENOTE: The song’s biggest weakness was the inability to replicate Bernard Sumner’s (New Order’s singer) vocal style. I tried hundreds of ways to describe Sumner’s unique, unpolished delivery but couldn’t capture it. If vocal control technology improves, I plan to revisit this song and update the vocals—though this may never happen if the current lawsuit rules the AI software guilty of copyright infringement.

Created using Udio’s AI technology
Music: Superficial (Dark Synth-Pop with Post-Punk)
Co-created by Jim Romer & Struan Grant using Udio.com
Title by Struan Grant
Lyrics by Jim Romer

As of this writing, Udio.com has improved, now allowing 2:10 song clips, trimming, inpainting (editing sections of music), and remixes (completely reimagining a song). However, I still find that working with half-minute segments provides better control over the music I want to create.