Extraterrestrial Forensic Portrait Catalogue

A blog documenting my journey in creating a catalogue documenting human experiences with extraterrestrials through illustrations and artistic interpretations.

recent posts

    • Morning Thoughts – Tech & Tattoos

      Good Morning!

      Yesterday I got the back of my thigh tattooed by an old friend from the shop where I apprenticed 10 years ago. Whew! That was a tough spot! (The tattoo and the old shop, haha.) I’ve reached the point where most of the locations that I have left to get tattooed are difficult ones and I’d saved the backs of my thighs for a couple of larger projects.

      It was really nice catching up and shooting the shit about how wild it was at the old shop. So many crazy things were always happening and I had what most would have considered a fairly traditional apprenticeship full of hazing and excessive free work hours. Nowadays it’s becoming more and more rare for apprenticeships at decent shops to look like mine did and I’m okay with that. At times, it does seem like not having to prove yourself through every moment of your apprenticeship is letting people get into the industry that aren’t ready for the workload and don’t have the same drive to tattoo that was required then.

      Although I don’t agree with that style of apprenticeship overall, it did toughen me up a bit especially going from a 10 year corporate job into the world of tattooing. I’m not ashamed to admit I spent many hours crying in the bathroom of that shop but always came back out and went right back to work.

      It’s interesting how much the tattooing industry has changed even in just the 10 years I’ve been a part of it. There’s a lot of good with some bad mixed in there too. I think social media has really brought tattooing more into the mainstream but also put expectations on artists to perform and entertain possible clients; which is a lot in addition to doing good tattoos. Also, the prevalence of AI has created unrealistic expectations in a lot of clients who can’t tell the difference between it and actual tattoos as well as what is possible to tattoo for longevity. To counter this, I make a lot of flash designs so that there’s clear access to what is possible from me for my clients to see in advance.

      I think the biggest positive change in the technological side of the industry is the iPad paired with procreate. It’s rare to come across an artist that doesn’t use it for convenience and whittling down supplies usage. When I started we did everything on paper, had this giant copy machine, and so many pencils/pens/papers everywhere. When I’d draw something up for my mentor and he didn’t like it I’d have to start completely over while on an iPad you can create as many layers for changes as you want. The convenience for travel is amazing as well. I love that I can sit in my own bed at the end of a long day and finish up a design versus being stuck at a drafting table hours into the night.

      I do get the complaints that it’s not the same as paper and blah, blah, blah; but in the end, most artists still spend time drawing and painting in traditional mediums but are able to prioritize that for projects that really inspire their own artistic ideas.

      How has technology, social media, and the integration of AI affected your career?

      Stay curious!

    • Morning Thoughts

      Good Morning!

      I’ve been slacking on allowing myself time to write this week. It’s a difficult time of the year for everyone so I’m allowing myself a little leeway in my extra endeavors.

      This morning we got notice of our rented home inspection and I’m excited we just get to do it ourselves versus them sending in someone from outside. I really hope that someday I can own my small home and not have to provide proof of the standards I keep my household in. Also, as an artist and eccentric, I’d love the possibility of being able to customize more. Painting murals and having a permanent garden area would be amazing!

      Unfortunately everyday life expenses don’t indicate that it is a possibility in the future. Even now, to rent a home I live with another family and we split everything and still barely scrape by. We previously lived in separate apartments in the same neighborhood and rent had raised so much it was less expensive for us to just merge into one household. (What started at around $700 a month including some utilities went to nearly $1300 with no utilities over the course of 6 or 7 years.) I know this and worse is the case for so many others so I’m not complaining so much as accepting that this is the reality of the situation.

      I do love our home though. It’s a small, older, single story home with a kitchen separating the two sides so we can have our own personal spaces connected in the middle. The kitchen is a lovely meeting point were we put up artwork I’ve made for all of us in relation to silly antics around our household. We are always cooking and sharing meals and having a chosen family to live with has been fantastic the past few years.

      Coming into a more communal living situation was scary at first because of all of the what ifs but it’s been surprisingly easy to adapt to as long as we communicate well. We’re very different and also so similar and I feel more connected to others just by the experience of living with and being invited into being a part of another family.

      Although I’m sometimes sad I haven’t achieved owning a home at this point in my life, I am so thankful for my family and the cozy home that we have. After the past few years together it’s really hard to imagine not living with my roommates and I hope the future holds many years of friendship and chosen family for us.

      I wasn’t expecting this to be where my morning thoughts went. I didn’t have any specific subject in mind to write about today so it feels good to have taken a moment to look at something so personal.

      Stay curious!

    • Evening Thoughts-Community Struggles

      Something different today with some evening thoughts that have been brewing all day.

      It’s been a beautiful fall day here but the coldest yet with a chance of flurries overnight, which I am definitely not ready for. I’ve spent a portion of today reaching out to local groups looking for some support to a lovely homeless individual who has been frequenting my work this past month. I’m not sure where to go or how I can assist them at this point and it’s becoming disheartening.

      They’re looking for some financial aid or just a ride across a few states to get home to some family that can help them with a place to stay and get back on their feet. At this point I’m finding no resources available for someone in his situation past a certain age limit. They have a number of mental health issues that aren’t being addressed through local support networks and they are falling through the cracks of our flawed systems.

      It’s hard to believe that there are people out there with pretty much infinite finances but so low on empathy that they won’t do more to help those that are really struggling with nowhere to go and no way to do better until they receive treatments that will help them to do more for themselves. The current systems in place in my area are so overloaded that the volunteers running them can’t even get back to you in emergency situations let alone those that they decide are less pressing.

      I definitely understand wanting to take care of yourself and your family first but if you have the means to do more why do so many people choose not to? It’s sad and I hope as a society and on individual levels we can find ways to do better.

      I will continue my search for resources for this person and if that makes me a sucker or an empathetic fool I’m okay with that. If I can spend some of my free time working towards finding solutions for one individual hopefully there are more people out there doing the same and eventually we’ll work past these selfish, materialistic mindsets encouraged by society and work towards taking care of each other because we are all humans and our situations are often dictated by how we were raised and the situations our finances put us in, or the physical and mental disabilities that we do not have control over.

      The world is sad sometimes but I live every day thinking that there is hope and caring and with enough of it we will work past these issues that we’ve allowed to be an integral part of human society. It won’t be quick or painless and there will be ups and down but hopefully there are others around who are working one on one with someone struggling in their community to provide them with the opportunities that they may not be able to provide for themselves,

      I suppose this is a deep and multi-faceted conversation that could be addressed in so many ways. It’s difficult but important to make the world a better reflection of the positive qualities of us (humans) as a whole.

      If you have an suggestions for resources that may assist with this person and would be comfortable sharing them, please let me know.

      I will keep researching and reaching out until I find a solution for this person but I know after them there will be another. I won’t allow myself to become complacent if I have the ability to help, even if I don’t have the financial means, I can give my time and efforts and so can you.

      Stay curious and help your community!

    • My Muse vs. The Nothing

      Good morning!

      Today is my “Friday” in that I’m off the next two days. Woo! It’s been a busy week, not so much in a tons of appointments and financial gain type of way, but creatively speaking for sure. I’ve been making efforts to write as much as I can even if it’s just my own silly musings. Also, I’ve completed a painting and have a couple others in the works that I’ve made some progress on.

      Does anyone else feel that impending guilt start to sink in when you aren’t “doing”? I find it very hard to wind down and just sit back and watch tv or read fiction. I definitely schedule my time in my head and make sure to maximize as much time for creativity and learning as possible, but sometimes it’s hard to turn that off and just relax without much thought.

      I’ve heard others use their art and creative endeavors as relaxation but I usually feel some sort of compulsion and although it’s sometimes like meditation it’s often like I’m the sole worker in my own personal factory.

      What do others do to relax and how do they allow that time to go towards embracing doing nothing?

      Stay curious and try to relax!

    • Morning Thoughts on Body Image

      Good morning!

      I’m spending a little time this morning thinking about tattooing, art, AI, and the people that get tattoos.

      As a visual artist I’ve seen a lot of discourse on the integration of AI and how it’s going to, and already has affected visual artists. (Not to mention the environment, the finances of artists it’s derived from, and society’s demands for instant gratification; but that’s a whole bunch of other conversations.) In my career as a tattoo artist I am seeing a large uptick in clients using AI to create visual aids for what they’re looking for in their tattoos. Sometimes that is really discouraging to me and feels like they’re coming to me without the trust that I can create a piece specifically for them based off of what they want but if I take a moment and think about it then I realize for non-artists it can be difficult to describe what they are wanting. Maybe I’m making assumptions but it seems like many people who don’t have a more creative mindset feel like they have to show me exactly what they want even if they know I am fully able to create it with just a conversation and we can also make revisions on the spot. The same mindset seems to have been around for the entire time I’ve been tattooing and I’ve seen it with the common Pinterest references all the way to the flash walls that have been around forever in the industry.

      It’s wild to me, as someone who creates art every day, to think that it would be necessary to show a professional artist exactly what I want in order to reach a specific result. I also wonder if this whole phenomenon is about control in some way? Or maybe even fitting in? As is everything related to humanity, it is an extremely complicated and convoluted topic and I’m pretty sure there is not only one correct answer and set of actions to be taken in regards to it. As an adult in this tumultuous world there are so many things that feel out of my control and how I present my physical form is one way that I am lucky to have a majority of control over. Not everyone is so lucky.

      I worked a corporate job for a number of years prior to beginning my path towards tattooing full time, and it was stifling with the rules about appearance and the weirdly specific criteria which was aimed at a professional visage. (Always the question of why these specific things make it look like you know how to work? It always seemed pretty arbitrary and silly to me.) Everything from hair color to the material of your clothes was controlled with no reasoning that made sense on a personal level.

      I definitely have a lot of thoughts on all of this and won’t be able to put them all together here and now but figured I’d get started with a little bit of what’s going on in my mind this morning.

      I think my take away this morning is that humans want control of the way we present out bodies and we deserve that autonomy but we need to keep in mind what is influencing us. As more alternative styles and body modifications are becoming mainstream I would challenge people who are getting the modifications to seek out those that they can trust to give them a unique and meaningful experience. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting exactly what you want but keep in mind who you are supporting through the process. If a tattoo artist creates a design specifically for you, then you are supporting them artistically and financially as well as your own individuality and uniqueness. You always hear nothing will every be fully unique and everything is derivative and that is fine but consider what you want your image to represent. Who are you under the visual representation?

      I feel like I could go on forever in this stream of thought but that’s enough for this morning.

      Be yourself and stay curious!

    • Morning Thoughts

      Good Morning!

      It’s a beautiful fall day here and as I sat outside watching the sun rise higher and leaves falling I realized I don’t really know where to start with this blog. I am very much not a writer so doubt my personal musings will bring a lot of interest to the table but figured regularly posting some of what’s on my mind might bring more opportunities to interact with people of similar minds.

      This morning I spent some time perusing the blogs of others here and read a few interesting posts on a number of topics. I realized I would like to spend some time re-reading and researching topics of my interest and thought this might be a good place to document my thoughts and theories. There are so many books on metaphysical and paranormal research, and more specifically alien abduction experiences, that I would like to sit down with and read.

      Do you have any recommendations? I’d love to hear what inspires others to question and look for more connections.

      When I was around 13 I was an avid reader and I remember reading “Cat Magic” by Jonathan Barry and Whitley Strieber. I had picked it up at a local small used book store and was hooked from the get go. This was before I had daily access to the internet and I spent a lot of time immersed in books. My friends and I were constantly at the library “hanging out” sometimes just to use their computers and other times we would walk the rows of books and find whatever seemed the most “weird”. There was an extremely small, one-shelf section, on the paranormal and I’m pretty sure I read every book in that section at least twice.

      As an adult i revisited “Cat Magic” a few times and a couple of years ago I went on to read “Communion”. I’m pretty sure most people interested in alien abduction have read it and I found it to be pretty terrifying, if I’m honest. Looking back there were a few sleepless nights while I was in the process of reading it. As a take away I think the correlations from one book to the other really instilled an interest in how fae and alien experiences are similar. Growing up with an Appalachian mama who was extremely invested in the paranormal and would tell me chilling stories of fae creatures passed down from her own childhood also has been a big factor in inspiring my research.

      While my mom’s interests where more focused in psychic abilities and reincarnation I was more interested in personal experiences with otherworldly beings and the stories of the people who’ve had those experiences. I think her strong held beliefs opened me up to the possibilities of lots of non-mainstream ideas, while my own more proof based ideals didn’t align for accepting so much without a lot more questioning and a higher skepticism but I won’t discount others beliefs and experiences. I want to know more; I want to hear what others beliefs are in regards to these subjects and where those beliefs began.

      I guess what I’m trying to get at this morning is that I want to hear your stories, experiences, and recommendations for further books/articles to read in regards to these subjects. I’m looking for more in this world than the everyday grind of paying bills, cooking meals, and conforming to society. What is it we’re missing and how can we make the world a better place through listening and learning of other’s experiences? I want the excitement of learning and the connection of shared experiences.

      I hope you all have a fantastic day and stay curious!

    • Gauging Interest in the Project

      Good Morning!

      Since I’ve never really worked on a project like the EFP Catalogue before I’m not quite sure where to start. There are a ton of groups on social media sites for discussing encounters with ufos and other paranormal experiences and I’m beginning to reach out to see if it’s okay to post and share a link to the blog but if anyone has other suggestions please let me know!

      I’m wondering if it would be a good idea to include some case studies based off of more famous documented experiences so that people with an interest in sharing their own can see some examples of what the case studies will look like and gain a better understanding of what I’d like to include in the catalogue. If I do that I may make a different classification of study to focus on historically documented experiences.

      In the end, the main focus of the EFP Catalogue will be the experiences of individuals who don’t have an outlet they can share that information. It will be purely focused on documentation and not a bid for fame or recognition online or otherwise. I’ve spoken with some acquaintances who suggested promoting in places like tiktok but that is really the opposite of what I’m going for. There are tons of people with an interest in ufology but there are so many opinions stated as facts and it doesn’t give off a reference source so much as a place to make broad statements without anything to back it up. I want to provide a source that people can come to conclusions and opinions on but not share misinformation through over-confident and bias based statements.

      As an aside, I will include more personal opinion based blogs so you have a basis for understanding who I am and why I am creating this reference source. I have so many thoughts and my own opinions on related subjects that I’d love to share and get feedback on/start conversations.

      As always, feel free to contact me if you want to share an experience or have a question! I’d love to talk with you and learn more about what you think of extraterrestrials or metaphysical science in general!

    • Case #000

      Description: Two individuals no more than 3 feet tall. Both looked rather uniform with large round heads that were fairly flat and big dark eyes. They just had a bump where their noses were, no visible ears, and small, lip-less mouths. They were porcelain white and there were no differences to indicate gender or anything like scars, belly button, nipples. Very symmetrical features and both were extremely thin and looked frail.

      Incident Details: “I was around 5 or 6 years old at the time and this occurred after I went to bed so I’m unsure of the exact timeline. I heard a noise in the hallway, went to look and they were beside the bookcase. I don’t remember them saying anything or doing much and I didn’t feel any particular emotion related to them.”

      “After that I had a dream possibly. I was on a hill overlooking a large, grid-like city that was lit up with lights. It was nighttime and I could see the stars above almost mirroring the lights of the city. There was a tree beside me and an owl was on a branch. I looked up at it then back out at the city. I’m not sure how long I was there.”

      “Eventually I woke up as normal in my own bed. Nothing seemed out of the norm.”

    • Introduction

      Hi Everyone!

      This is the starting point for the Extraterrestrial Forensic Portrait Catalogue. This is a passion project that I wanted to begin as a source for studying visual representations of human experiences with extraterrestrials. Technology has opened up the world to all forms of information but in ufology I’ve been unable to locate a consistent source of modern experiences with extraterrestrials as shown through illustration.

      As a visual artist, I’ve often found that if I don’t have the words that I feel properly describe what I’ve experienced I will create art as a better representation. This is my first project on my own as a paranormal researcher/ufologist and I feel it is important to bring a fresh viewpoint to the study of extraterrestrials while also providing a resource that can be easily accessed by anyone with an interest in the subject. I also think it’s inherent in human nature to want to share your experiences and would like to provide a non-biased and scientific approach to collecting data in a manner that is both artistic and validating to those I work with.

      I feel like this resource will be a new way to add to current research projects of multiple types from scientific to anthropological, etc. The idea formed initially as I was working on comparing fae and extraterrestrial experiences from historical records and research. (There are so many interesting correlations and I’m sure I will put together some blog posts in regards to this interest of mine.) I quickly realized imagery is scattered and there is not a lot of modern experience illustrations that are easily accessed so I’d like to work towards creating some standards for classifications and a way to access them with consent from the people who have the experiences.

      At this time I don’t have a set way of gathering this information and I’m not entirely sure how this project will come together in the future. I am looking for anyone interested in sharing their experiences and working together to share a visual file with as much information as they are comfortable providing. Although my initial idea will focus on an artist’s interpretation, any additional data would be interesting to have for future research.

      If you’d like to be a part of this project feel free to reach out to me and we can discuss it further. I am a single person working on this so please be patient with me as I work on developing a standard for the catalogue.