Way of the Waifu

Latest Comics

Latest Chapters

Intro

Moon Weapon Seaman X

Sky Pirate Evangelium

Trekkee Muyo!

Battlescarred Dragattica

M.4R and M.3R

More Chapters

State of the Comic

Posted on November 11, 2026 by Jeremy Ray

I need to move away from A.I. “services.”

Posted on November 11, 2026 by Jeremy Ray

I’ve been thinking about the situation with Treblo. This is the second time I’ve been locked out of my account, or had my account limited, unless I agreed to a new “Terms of Service.” At least I wasn’t paying for Treblo, but I don’t have the time to go over a lengthy ToS and give it due legal consideration. For those who expect to be nobodies forever, maybe it doesn’t matter. I’m not a somebody, but the web traffic indicates that I may be, very slowly, getting somewhere. I don’t want to give Treblo the right to use my image in perpetuity, in whatever medium ever exists. Not that they have it, but would the ToS allow them to grab a pic of me from somewhere else? Can they create an A.I. avatar of me, and use it as their brand ambassador? Yeah, I think I’m moving on. ACE-Step 1.5 XL is free, open source, and can run natively –

My computer can’t run any of this stuff, and it will be a good long while before I can get a new one – but this is the direction I want to go in. No more “services,” no more subscriptions. As a general principle, it’s best not to be in any legal agreements with anyone, nor have recurring payments going out. Can’t help it with the power company, or water company, but I don’t need to make more music. I’d like to, but I’ve got plenty to release still, and there’s enough already posted. Most successful musicians of the past haven’t released as much. It’s not doing a lot for the comic anyway, although it is getting some listens. Not enough to sweat bullets over, if I can’t release any more.

In the meantime, the comic with Yaoi Hokkaido and the dwarf is an example of something that might be a good idea. I came up with the joke at work. The illustrations are A.I. variations of the familiar panel from Trekkee Muyo! Now the comic is becoming a technology demonstrator and social experiment. What strange times we live in. I can draw these pictures, but I can’t get paid to draw these pictures. I can get paid to do menial labor in a factory. Which doesn’t leave me time to draw my own drawings. I have to get the A.I. to do new drawings, based on what I drew years ago. Well, one foot in front of the other, and maybe we’ll get to a better place – but the rules of “supply and demand” are what they are. There is not enough demand for my “real artist drawings” for me to be able to supply them. The comic is still a personal indulgence which needs to be minimized, because it takes the place of work that has real value. But, it’s good for my mental health and perhaps it’s an investment that will pay off in the future. I’ll keep it going in some form.

“Gorillaz in the Mist” video progress

Posted on November 10, 2026 by Jeremy Ray

I colorized my pencil sketch –

Then used NanoBanana on OpenArt.ai to, eventually, generate a character model sheet based on my sketch –

It’s not exactly the same. It took several tries to get the details this close. I had to combine a few generations together in GIMP, then use GIMP to stretch the rabbit ears upwards, since NanoBanana made them too short. I eventually got close enough.

Now I’m trying to generate some good keyframe shots to animate. Here’s the best one so far –

Many of the costume details are wrong, the lighting is flat and the composition is too symmetrical. The red in her bunny ears might be a bad choice. Overall, I’m getting close to what I envisioned. Really close. A few more rounds of improvement will put it over the top.

I generated a bunch of poses, a few times what I’ll show here. Most are unusable, but a few could be good –

It’s a little weird using something other than a pencil, or stylus, to turn vision into reality – but life doesn’t always let you do things the way you want to do them. Or at all. I don’t have much free time these days, so I’m going to use the most productive tools available. I’m just trying to tell a joke. One that few will get anyway.

Way of the Waifu: Bar Fight

Posted on November 9, 2026 by Jeremy Ray

I’ll go ahead and release the tracks that, so far, are on the “album” Little Engines that Couldn’t. It’s not an actual “album,” but a collection of tracks that weren’t good enough for a main “album” (which would also be “make believe.”), but are a little too good to throw away. The first one is the track for the “Bar Fight” music video. There is no limit to how many tracks will ultimately be on this album, other than my life span, or until dementia sets in.

Treblo launched a new terms of service, which I haven’t made time to read, but it looks like an onerous thing which I do not want to agree with. So the 2nd Way of the Waifu album might not get done the way I want it to, but there’s lots of good tracks for it. They’re almost entirely instrumental though. It is what it is. I don’t want to touch another subscription service after this. I hope someone has a linux version that can run natively on my old PC.

Just wanted to say “Thanks” to everyone who is still coming by.

Posted on November 7, 2026 by Jeremy Ray

I am totally swamped and it will be this way for another year, maybe a year and a half, if things go well. And I can’t say anymore because it is time to rush off to work again. I can’t even do a half decent blog, all I do is complain about work. But all I do is work, come home to eat my one meal of the day, and sleep four hours – than it’s back on the road again. The traffic has gotten worse lately, so I better get going.

Low Effort Surf Rock: Sunset Barrel

Posted on November 2, 2026 by Jeremy Ray

I’m not a fan of this one, but maybe there’s something in it that produces a great idea one day. But, probably not.

Wicked Hokkaido costume sketch

Posted on November 1, 2026 by Jeremy Ray

I envision most of the video taking place at a Comic Con, with a bunch of photographers taking photos of the cosplayers. You can probably guess which ones get the most attention. Or maybe I can’t guess, because I’m thinking it’s the scantily clad young women. But it could be the guys in nine foot tall gundam mech costumes. That’s impressive too.

In other news, I made progress fixing the lyrics in the La-La Hoo-Di_Di song. It’s taking a while to do the whole thing, but the current Treblo model has been mostly successful at changing lyrics. I’m tired and drawing a blank on what the remaining lyrics should be, but it will come to me.

October’s traffic was mildly better than September’s. It will be cool if it keeps growing, despite all the problems I’m having.

Low Effort Surf Rock: Salty Strings

Posted on November 1, 2026 by Jeremy Ray

Not digging the vibe of this one so much, but it’s there. It’s there.

Only one more track off this album to go. It’s not a whole lot better. Then I’ll work on the next real album. I’m having second thoughts about naming it “Battle of the Bands.” I wanted to tie it into the end of M.4R and M.3R, and I’m planning a running theme through the album of “Wicked Hokkaido” launching attacks on other cartoon bands. I like the music of Gorillaz, BTW. It’s the low-line count art style I can’t stand, which has afflicted western animation for decades. Everything has to be done for cheap, but I love the line art medium, and I find “low line count” to be a hateful thing. It’s like, “Oh, you wanted a car with four wheels? Well, you get half a wheel. Work with it.” Just miserable. “Tank Girl” has a funky style, but it wasn’t as low-line count as Gorillaz. It’s more detailed than “Way of the Waifu,” which is the quickest, simplest art style I could bring myself to draw. If I had all the time it would take to draw “Way of the Waifu” the way I wanted it to look, it wouldn’t look like it does. Maybe Gorillaz wouldn’t either.

Way of the Waifu – Gorillaz in the Mist (finished)

Posted on October 31, 2026 by Jeremy Ray

By “finished” I mean “finished until I decide to change it again.” I’m questioning whether that first sound before the bass hit should be longer. The vocal quality is likely as high as I’m going to get it. The track went down far easier than I expected though – I wasn’t sure I could get it to go down at all this time, either. But now it’s done, and I can think about the next one that I haven’t been able to pull off. But that one has to be a Dreilide track, so the trick I used to make this track work isn’t going to work.

But first, there has to be a video for this song. It’s only 69 seconds long, so perhaps it won’t be too hard. I’ve got a clear vision of what I want, and it must be. WotW is about all the enjoyment I’m taking out of life these days. Everything else is work and school. Miserable and no fun at all.