Little Hunterman™ art is—and will remain—hand-drawn. No generative AI.

But in 2024, after losing Hunter, I could barely hold a pen. Flynn (our small, grumpy rubber duck) was grieving too. Badly. People like to tease him that plastic “lives forever if it avoids the recycling bin,” but that only made him more frantic about the one thing he loved most that didn’t last: his one and only friend. The idea that there might be life after doggie-death became Flynn’s lifeline.

I guess that this was why Flynn came up with his greeting-card coping projects, Matchmaker Dogs and Guardian Angel Dogs (his way of believing we’re not done when we’re gone). Unfortunately, he can’t draw. So he asked me to help him try generative AI for the dog images. I agreed with strict boundaries: we used centuries-old, public-domain frescoes and paintings as references, precisely to avoid infringing any copyrighted artist’s work—non-negotiable for me as an artist myself.

Back then (2024), AI outputs were hugely inconsistent. I spent long nights “de-Frankensteining” Flynn’s dog images—removing extra legs, toes, ears, wings; repairing anatomy, light, and texture; compositing and painting over in Photoshop until Flynn was happy. So, despite the AI experiment, every image was hand-finished.

It was a one-off, careful project that taught me a lot and gave Flynn and me a small island of shared solace. If these dog cards offer you a little comfort in a similar situation, that’s their whole purpose.

Our hearts go out to you.