The Mark Williamson Creative Universe

On another blog long ago... I briefly had a blog called Williamson Comics back as an undergraduate.  I didn't post too much.  So, I was looking through it the other day and found a few old statistics comics.  If you don't get the jokes, don't worry, that just means you're normal and don't think about statistical tests day and night. Comic #1: "Today is your birthday, happy birthday, its the most statistically significant day of the year..." Comic #2: having a little fun here with non-parametric tests Bonus: Birthday Nematode

  A little on the skimpy side this week...   I was rather sick this last week, which heavily impacted my ability to write and videocast.  Therefore, my weekly writing and video projects are on the short side. Writing: More Six Word Stories, a collection of (you guessed it) six word stories, is  available . Video: For Williamson Variety Show, we have the first of the Shorts Not Pants videos.  Learn what to put in your nearest hollowed out book. Bonus:  Here are some more ideas to put in a hidden book, free of charge. Bubble pipe Wax sealant, sea water, and miniature ship Gold coins (chocolate flavored) Lifetime supply of slap bracelets Beehive, or if allergic, ant colony

Some men will give anything for power...   Here, we continue our exploration of the  Looseleaf Sketchbook Pages .  I've tried to organize batches by general theme.  This post covers dark warriors and spirits. For beginners, we have a non-human warrior, the Blood Mongerer .  Seems to be on par with a large orc or small ogre. Moving along, the first of a group of human warriors that have committed themselves to a dark cause.  The Dark Templar , an evil counterpart to a Knight's Templar (note the spelling error below). Templars who prove themselves across many battles may be promoted to Dark Lords .  They are now able to wield weapons of metal close up (mace) and newfound magical abilities from afar (dark fireballs).  The strongest and most depraved of the Dark Lords will cross the threshold between life and death to become one of three rare enemies: Death, Plague, or Spirit Lords.   Death Lords are powerful wielders of unholy necrotic magics forbidden in every human kingdom.  Pla

Keeping ahead of the rockslide...   Because I post Monday to Friday on this blog, and also post a weekly short story and YouTube video elsewhere, I have a lot of creativity to keep up with.  Therefore, I've been working on building up a storehouse of blog posts so that I'm not forever scrambling to slap together and post an article the day it is due. Here's how I've been building a Blogpost Storehouse . 1. Streamline related posts by working on them at the same time. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I release my Explorations in Clayland and Adventures in Sketchtopia series.  They are excellent examples of streamlining, because each involves successive steps: 1) sort clay pieces/sketches into groups, 2) take picture/scan picture, 3) format pictures, 4) upload pictures, and 5) add descriptive text to post. Rather than taking a single post and running through all of these steps individually, it ends up being a lot shorter in the long run to run batches (3-5 posts worth of mater

We're just getting started with the spores... Here is another collection of mushroom folk. Winging in from parts unknown, a trio of arial forms.  The leftmost has the standard mushroom folk form, albeit augmented with a pair of wings.  Its pink coloring coupled with flight suggests a fey influence.  A fairy mushroom folk?  Not impossible.  In the center, a highly elongated mushroom has wings instead of arms and is equipped with a saddle.  Transport service with mycological style.  On the left, an ordinary green mushroom uses a pair of fluffy flowers with arial seeds to slow an otherwise fatal fall.  The floral version of a parachute. Sliding across the undergrowth, another trio makes their presence known.  On the left, an acorn-shell rider wizzes across grass stalks and leaves, spear at the ready.  In the center, one rider takes a more leisurely pace.  Astride, a domesticated slime mold, he'll get where he needs to go in his own time.  Finally, to the right, an orange mushroom

Word clouds, or how to sum up lots of text. I like using pictures than summarize a concept.  However, sometime the concept is rather abstract and either no such picture exists or such a picture would be a bland, generic stock photo. Instead, why not try a Word Cloud?   There are several websites that will generate ones for free. Wordclouds.com is a good place to start.  Here are examples of what I've used word clouds for. American Cancer Society Paper Titles I used a list of scientific paper titles from the American Cancer Society, common words omitted. R Packages Descriptions I used the descriptions for all R-packages as of July 2021 (17,820), common words omitted. BERDC Stats Page I used raw text (all text after latest releases) from the BERDC Statistical Resources page. A Knight of Ur (first 50 pages) I used the first fifty pages from my upcoming novel, a Knight of Ur.  I manually edited out uninteresting words (common verbs, adverbs, contractions, etc.) down to words with 10 it

Glad you've survived this week's creative roundup. Video: For Williamson Variety Show, I continue my bonus rules escapades for Too Many Cooks.  The name of the game is Sabotage!  You'll want to hide your pointy and flamey objects if you're going to be playing this variant with disagreeable friends. Bonus: Alongside the bonus rules, the unpublished special edition had additional cards with artwork scanned in from the initial, hand drawn demo cards.  Here are a few examples for your viewing pleasures. Writing: Kairos and the Chronorangers, Part 2, is available .  It rounds out my first, two-part exposition and goes out with a bang.   All done for now.  Best of luck surviving the next week.

Elementals of uncommon constitution...   In our travels across Sketchtopia, we've come to a multi-part series that I've informally labeled as Looseleaf Sketchbook Pages .  They were all drawn around the same time and most have titles.  Starting out the batch, we've a variety of elementals. Elemental Elemental:   An elemental made of elementals.  How deep does the inception go?  Only it knows. Glacier Elemental:   Cold and slow.  Just try and stop it though.  I dare you. Gold Elemental:  Second place winner in the 'most expensive elemental' contest.  He lost to diamond elemental.   Joke Elemental: If I have to explain it, you don't get the joke. Haze Elemental: Hard to see the appeal in this one (cough, cough). Lava Elemental: Once he cools off, he's not so bad. Bonus: Unidentified elemental.  Perhaps it represents the four classical elements (earth, air, fire, and water)?  

Braving uncharted waters...   I'm excited to share my first webcomic under the Williamson Creative Universe umbrella.  Enjoy.

Much room?  No, much 'shrooms!   If you thought the acorn folk or fruit and vegetables warriors were something, well, you ain't seen nothing yet.  Here come the mushroom folk! At the head of the pack, we have fourteen, light-green mushroom folk with spears.  What sets them apart are the markings on their caps (heads).  Each represents a different natural phenomenon.  They are protected such phenomenon and are even able to summon a lesser version of it.  Starting from the top-left and ending at the bottom right we have the following: tidal waves, high waves, avalanches, rockslides, meteors, forest fires, volcanoes, earthquakes, tornados, blizzards, hailstorms, rainstorms, thunderstorms, and hurricanes.  Blow me down! Whoa, are all mushroom folk so intense?  No, many are pretty simple.  Here we have a collection of simple forms (guess I should have opened with that). More details here.  The spotted and large-capped varieties. The mono-colored varieties, along with an outlier, a

Like PB&J, some things are better mixed together.     I don't think I'll ever get tired of these.  You asked for it (or at least didn't decry it strenuously enough).  It's another edition of the  Power and Thrill of Naming Things , an exercise in creativity.  This time, we'll keep it simple with a single, sprawling list.  A list of story mashups. Mashup List: Pokémon: Mewtwo Strikes Back mixed with X-Men: Apocalypse The Dark Tower mixed with Care Bears The Mistborn series mixed with Transformers: Age of Extinction Jurassic Park mixed with Independence Day The Lego Movie mixed with The Emoji Movie How to Train Your Dragon mixed with The Hobbit The Lord of the Rings mixed with The Chronicles of Narnia Out of the Silent Planet (C. S. Lewis) mixed with The Ball and the Cross (G. K. Chesterton) Casablanca mixed with  Arsenic and Old Lace True Grit mixed with Hail Ceasar! The Once and Future King mixed with  A Canticle for Leibowitz Dune mixed with Waterworl

Glad you could crash this week's creative roundup. Video: For Williamson Variety Show, more dinosaurs are instore for the intrepid, B-movie time-traveler. Bonus: For an affordable way to get your hands on An Alphabet of Dinosaurs , a book I reference in the video and which so happens to be one of my favorite childhood books, you can usually find a reasonable copy at Thriftbooks.com.  Just search for 'An Alphabet of Dinosaurs'.  It'll be the one by Peter Dodson (hint, the cover has two, pale-red Deinychus fighting on it). Writing: Kairos and the Chronorangers, Part 1 , is now up on my writing website.  Have no fear, if you're itching more and you haven't read the first part until now, Part 2 will be available on Monday, February 14th.  Think of it as a Valentine's present, except it's not.  At all. That's it for this week.  Cheers!

Dust off your prehistoric D20s.   Blasting back in time for another adventure in Sketchtopia, I found a wonderous relic.  In a past life, I'd put together a concept for a table-top RPG of thunderous proportions.  Dungeons and Dinosaurs . I went so far as to match each of the classes in Version 4.0 with a species of dinosaur.  The image above is hard to follow, so I reproduced as a table below.  Even better, I had pictures to go with each dinosaur class.  All except a Plateosaurus Paladin (hmm, maybe I'll have to create that in a future adventure).  For now, enjoy 15 dinosaurs. Page 1: Hard to make out, but this is a Mosasaurus Wizard .  Using the powers of levitation and summoning fireballs, this non-dinosaurian marine reptile means business. Page 2: Triceratops Sorcerer, Plesiosaur Shamen , and Tyrannosaur Warlock .  Triceratops is sorcerer because of connection between horns and the occult.  Plesiosaur, another marine reptile, uses a totem to levitate.  Tyrannosaurus had to b