Today is a little experiment! I used my generator to give me a random topic and will try to come up with art ideas around it.

1. A movie/game where the main character is really hungry - he sees a fruit hanging high up on a tree and makes several (humorous) attempts to get it, until a girl suddenly appears and takes the fruit in a swift motion. He chases after her and a play between them two ensues. Then the girl introduces him to her world.
2. The witches garden - a game/installation where your task is to "babysit" the plants of the witch .. which have a life of their own (see "Pepper and Carrot" for style of narration)
3. An old lady in a shop sells the main character a special plant .. she is really nice and the main character likes her. Then she dies and the character is left with the plant. Soon they discover it has a life on it's own ..
4. The player meets a dyrad (a ghost connected to it's tree). Soon they discover the tree is about to be lumberjacked. (from here on player could either try to stop it or the tree gets cut down and a new sapling comes .. and he kinda has to watch over it, care for it.)
5. Art installation where plants are projected (with lightbeamer) into little glass jars - if possible: react on touch or other sensory input
6. A botanist's apartment that is filled with botanical illustrations come to life
7. There is a special flower that only blooms at midnight .. the main character is trying to get it, as it's a way to cure someone dear .. but next to the flower they meet another person, who appears to be ill themself .. who will they help? Someone dear to them or a stranger right in front of them? -> movie/game about moral dilemma
8. The player is a spirit that has the ability to inhabit plants and make them grow - game about moving around in the city, from green spot to green spot, with little city scenes, how people live, how they react on things growing
9. In a gray city, you enter a secret garden trough a back alley door. It's growing wild and is a bit dried out - the player finds out that the former gardner is gone and that he used to spread the plants around the city to bring people joy. - game about spreading seeds and plants in the city without getting caught -> player will see people smile and "blossom" themselves; nature as symbol for freedom, individualism, expression
10. A forest monster that forms out of plants, needles, etc.

I really liked this experiment! Was a really fun way of brainstorming, it just kept the ideas coming ^^

10 ideas about using so-called "neural networks" to improve one's (creative) workflow

I'm not deep into neural networks (yet). I trained a neural network on text based works (Jules Verne) the last days (used https://github.com/karpathy/char-rnn).

1. Assist in writing - trained NN suggests sentences in the style of e.g. a certain author
2. Create dialogue, names, graphics, sounds for game and other digital media
3. Use as creative writing prompt - create summary to base text on/ or rewrite generated text
4. Use NN to exploit or close bugs in games and other software
5. Train NN on own coding style - suggest fitting code
6. Use well-trained NN to assist in decision-finding
7. Use NN to suggest related art for a given keyword as inspiration - trained on the things the user "favorites"
8. Train NN on pieces of artwork with desired style -> recreate similar artwork for personal projects
9. NN trained on artwork can also be used to input random inspiration, e.g. stuck with painting, NN adds something to it
10. If need to create a big, similar set of assets by hand, can train NN to do it for you

I hope this makes sense .. a very interesting topic. I don't get it completely yet, but I think it'll increase in use and influence in near future.
I attached my first test of training a RNN on 4 books of Jules Verne for a day. It would need a bit more time and data, but it already yields pretty interesting results.

Time to revive the 10 ideas a day streak, to get better at creative thinking!

Today I want to come up with ideas to increase reader participation in the "traditional" blog format.

While blogs had a great importance in the early 2000's, the audience seems to shift more towards video formats. I assume this comes from videos being more fitting for the medium of a 2D screen (blogs as relic of newspaper and early text-oriented Internet), more visually appealing and more "personal", with a stronger connection of reader and author (e.g. Vlogs, Streams, Social Media).

So how can blogs be adapted to be more fitting for the current point in time? How can we make them more visually appealing, interactive and personal? Here are 10 ideas.

1. Involve 2D visual arts (images, video) in blogposts, as they are the dominating medium (will prob change later towards 3D representation & VR)
2. Use headlines & images (other means of providing a clear structure) to make articles easily skim-able
3. If fitting include personal thoughts, experiences and stories to underline points (more personal)
4. For personal blogs, introduce yourself as person (e.g. image, short description or video), not as pure name
5. Provide easy ways for readers to participate by discussing the points highlighted in the blogpost
6. Include specific questions about the topic of the blogpost to spark discussion
7. Provide opportunities for the readers not only to discuss with you, but also with each other. The traditional threaded blog-comment system is probably outdated. Maybe a more "grouped" system as on Youtube would work, but without the upvoting feature.
8. Create "illustrative" cover images (with title text), that summarize the expected content and spark interest
9. Host a regular blog format all focused around discussing a topic or question with the readers/ encouraging them to share their perspective and and experiences
10. Provide more "modern" ways to keep updated with your blog. RSS is great, but most people use Social Media. Or use an email-newsletter, everybody still has an email-address.

So this were 10 (random) ideas to make blogposts more fitting for the current developments. I hope you found some inspiration.

Day 4! I usually have too many ideas in my head to implement, so feel free to steal some.
My theme for today is blogging.

1. have a blog format where you answer questions with little doodles
2. create a bot blogging procedural diary entries from a fictional planet
3. create a blog where you as writer take the role of a cat, mix in stereotypes
4. create a blog where you post 10 ideas a day (so meta)
5. help make the world a better place and blog about local charities
6. post the faces you find in daily objects (e.g. houses, clouds)
7. make a blog where you curate sounds and pictures of nature
8. make a blog where you paint cute faces on tiny objects you photographed
9. curate images of cozy campfires from around the web
10. make a webcomic series about tiny, fluffy monsters

licensed as CC-BY 3.0 (attribute me as Rick Hoppmann - www.tinyworlds.org
The image is not included in the license.