Mechanical Donkeys & Driftwood Horse Art · 3:10am May 12th, 2016
Looking for cover art for "The Artificial Donkey", which will probably come out tomorrow in The Twilight Zone, I found some artificial donkeys:
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 
Donkey Engine, by HockeyRaven from deviantart
Which ones would you click on?
CiG hates the name "Artificial Donkey", but I still love it.
But I also found driftwood horses! Who knew that was a thing?
Two by James Doran-Webb:
The rest are by Heather Jansch, who does a fantastic job at getting the poses right:
Side note: Google image search guesses that the above is a picture of "horse with no skin". Google image search has attracted little attention from the press, but it's scary smart. It's closer to enslaving us than Google's go player is, because while Google's go-playing technology is very good at finding complex patterns in a given set of features, Google image search is very good at figuring out what the features are--and that's the really hard part, the thing nobody else has done.
You can even buy them on Amazon!
Benzara Driftwood Horse Head, $80
Benzara Teak Horse Head, $183
That reminds me: I still don't have my Blueblood wine holder.
Majestic. I want all of these in my house, spacial geometry be damned.
Those are undercover Timberwolves...
Google and Google Image Search are quite clever. Google is remarkably good at guessing what I want to find based on search input; Google Image Search is rapidly getting better at identifying stuff (though a lot of more complicated pictures it really struggles with).
No one seems to think of either as an AI, possibly because they are obviously "just" tools.
Something about the key/typewriter/pliers one deeply unsettles me.
3939084 And yet it is my favorite. It speaks to the writer in all of us. I'm not quite sure what it is saying, perhaps "Look out for that bus!" but it still speaks.
In terms of eye catching cover art, I'd probably say #4, 3, or 1 (rough order of my preference), though this is without knowing anything about the story itself.
#2 is really creepy for me. It reminds me of a nightmare I had where someone was wrapped in plastic food wrap. They then heated it up and melted with a hair dryer and left them. Overall, it was a bad job and the person was all laughing as they pulled themselves out.
Like a new slide clicking into place, Slenderman was suddenly there, standing tall over several organs wrapped in the used, melted plastic wrap and looming over a freshly made corpse.
Yeah. Creepy. Rather like that pic.
#3 is quite creepy, too. Well, not so much on a personal level. I guess it's cuz it's using bitz from an old mechanical typewriter and I'm at that midway point where I remember them being used/they're slowly fading from memory. I think writers would find that pic relatable. Y'know. Cuz typewriters. Writing. Might be a good choice if you're story is anything dark? Even then, it looks pretty damn keen to me.
Those driftwood horses. I went to see Body Worlds recently. Still got the imagery of musculature fresh on my mind. I'm surprised how much the wood's placement and I guess the type of wood makes it look so eerily like musculature
I wonder what (BZHN) means?
Number 1 seems the most appropriate, though I do personally like number 3's typewriter mane and number 4's absurdity.
Also, I've seen driftwood horses before, but those are some especially exquisite examples.
i like number 4 myself but number 3 and 6 are also cool
I prefer the first one by leaps and bounds. None of the others look like the one described in the story, in my mind's eye.
Tomfoolery! Shenanigans!
Probably the first one. :B
3939125 3939309 3939315 3939357 3939467 I like 1, 3, 4, & 7 myself, but due to front-page tiny-picture considerations, I think I'll have to go with #3.
3939084 3939111 3939204 #3 it is, then!
3939357
Hmm? You've read the story? I guess it's safe to assume it was a Writeoff story. Eheh... do you mind sharing what it's about? I mean, only like a few people know what it's about and a vast majority don't – hey... wait a minute... last time I remember BH doing something like this for cover art (that one disgustingly cute story that had no grimdark eww with Celestia raising the sun), he did provide some sort of summary. Here, we got nothing.
This is totally a social experiment, isn't it? A small summary being or not being there is a variable. Then again, it could be simple a matter of BH being indecisive and letting the minions handle it. Although, looking at pretty much anything BH does, when isn't it some sort of mini social experiment, judging the morality of mankind. If you listen closely, you can totally hear someone scritching hoof writing onto a notepad, all at a happy speed of urgent...
May I ass you a question, Bad Horse? Were you hoping that we would key things in for you without having to lift a single hoof?
... Yes, I am encouraging people to saturate this blogpost with donkey and typewriter puns because puns are evil and will please the Bad Horse. Also it will smell more of donkey than it already does. #typodonk
3939568
Uhh... my previous comment was sitting on my phone, waiting for me to finish up and post so I did not see this comment as I was doing job things. I need to shift my priorities. I guess you could say my words per minute was abysmally fail? My word count wasn't very up to snuff. What can I say? It's hard to fix sticky keys. Typing so fast... do I look like some sort of pack mule to you?Are these puns ribbon you up yet?[/dork]
But yay typodonk wins! TYPODONK FTW
They're up to no good...
Try a steam-powered giraffe instead:
3939719
What else are minions for? You think all these stories write themselves?
3942980
Is it something kinda like this?
derpiboo.ru/883845?scope=scpe603d9f6db4fd2ea40eafa2b55217754d5c5cced6
derpiboo.ru/856646?scope=scped1453910b5d336725943391caa262c8e9a2901c2
derpicdn.net/img/view/2015/3/24/856106__safe_solo_oc_oc+only_animated_looking+at+you_wat_frown_unamused_artist-colon-madhotaru.gif
3943179
Minions are best speech to text :B
3942980 I love Steam Powered Giraffe! Thanks; never heard them before.