As I am posting this scene from COVID Dystopia this morning, I discovered that the caption was missing the word, metal. I must have watched the film dozens of times with the captions but honestly there is never enough time to read them all. I get distracted by the animation.

I edited the word back in before sharing the scene here, but the Cleveland Film Festival will be screening a version of the film missing that one word. I doubt anyone will notice the mistake, but I will know it is there. If this one mistake managed to sneak its way in, there might be others. I will watch the film several more times today and only read the captions.

This is a busy month for me. I am sketching at the science Center to document their new Nature exhibits which will be opening soon. Animals are being added now that construction is close to being finished. I sketched the reef tank yesterday and there was one lone hammerhead shark circling the large tank. I learned that all the other tropical fish were in the back going through quarantine.

I am also doing a season of theater posters for the Shakes. This is my favorite assignment each year. The painting have to be done quickly and the posters often evolve quite a bit before reaching their final version. On top of all this I am packing up the studio and will be moving April Fools day. I am sad to leave the space where I was able to safely produce the hundreds daily paintings of the pandemic series. I stopped doing the pandemic series when the National Emergency was lifted, but the pandemic is far from over.

A film Festival in Dublin proudly announced on their website that there would be no masks or safety precautions of any kind at their next festival. Clearly my film would never be accepted to be shown at a festival in such a state of denial. I considered sending it anyway, just so several judged might be rudely reminded of their blindness, but then I decided to keep the $25 and submit elsewhere. COVID Dystopia is a film that Festivals love to hate.

This shot has one child swinging from the meat hook. I think that is enough motion to carry the shot. The virus stamps on the foreheads of the children hardens back to the time I lived in Washington State and a cow escaped from a neighbors yard.  The family I was with brought in a van and the cow was string up. It was killed with a single bullet hole to the forehead and slaughtered on the spot.

An entire generation of children are being slaughtered slowly with repeat COVID infections. The first to go is the brain but since the damage isn’t visible to parents they think their children are fine. The solution is simple, just clean classroom air with HEPA filters. The investment is small and the benefits are huge but Americans are an  inflexible bread.

There are nine stages of grief and Americans can not moves past denial.

This shot from COVID Dystopia has the doctor arching his back and looking up at the barrel of the tank cannon. I used the free online depth tool to zoom in slightly into the scene.

Back in the day people respected heath care workers for their tireless work trying to save people from COVID-19. Since then people have learned to hate heath care workers who they feel were responsible for letting them know some of the dangers from repeat COVID infections.

Over the past decades healthcare has made strides to prolong life expectancy. However since the start of the pandemic healthcare has reverted back to the 1800s.

I recently went to a doctors appointment since I needed to get a refill on a prescription. No one in the office was masked except for one secretary who wore his mask as a chin strap. Doctors offices have patients pack into a waiting room and then go into a tiny examination room. I glanced around for any sign of HEPA air filtration but there was non. Doctors seem to want to get repeatedly infected and pass that virus on to their patients.

Much of the American population has been infected. Once infected the virus must alter brain cells because the infected, might have once taken basic precautions, but they then feel the need to pack into crowded restaurants and other venues. Though smart, people can’t accept that they are not immune after suffering an infection. The saying vaxed and relaxed goes for the infected as well. The rush to a “New Normal” is too strong for most to resist. The risk benefit ratio swings in favor of repeated mass infection when a decent indoor restaurant is a consideration.

This scene in COVID Dystopia simply had the bound man in the hazmat suit slumping forward a bit. It is enough motion for the moment. Several of the previous scenes shared could use some animation but right now I am crunching in a season’s worth of posters for the Orlando Shakes. I suspect the posters will dominate my focus for at least a month. I did a whole series of thumbnails of possible poster images the last two days and shared those. Now I need to get serious and do several large scale poser images for each show to get each poster approved.

I will also be doing sketches of the construction work being done at the Orlando Science Center. They are building a new area called Nature which features three separate environments. From what I heard, construction is close to being complete and animals are being moved in. The plan for now is to do 3 drawings on location and more if requested.

On top of all this I am having to move at the start of April. The house I will be renting has a nice large living room which will become the studio area. My mail and WiFi have to be moved to the new location. My studio is now half boxed up. I need to get maybe 10 more moving boxes to finish for the move. There are going to a lot of balls in the air this month. I just have to keep juggling.