JacobCoffin
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jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
JacobCoffin
@jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
67 followers 14 following 99 posts
I write science fiction and pester magazines with it

https://jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com

https://movim.slrpnk.net/blog/jacobcoffinwrites%40slrpnk.net

https://magazine.metaphorosis.com/story/2023/the-frozen-generation-jacob-coffin/
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jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
#Solarpunk Cargo Ship

Full text post here: jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/2024/10/16/s...

#art #photobash #hopepunk #ocean #scifi
The image shows a strange container cargo ship, with junk-rigged sails on masts offset from the centerline, arranged in a sort of zigzag pattern with two masts to each side. The ship is red and white, similar to modern day cargo vessels, with colorful containers on the deck. The bridge is located in the front and is painted white. Two blue whales swim alongside in the foreground, one is spouting.
May 7, 2025 at 12:46 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
A softcover copy of the Fully Automated solarpunk TTRPG rulebook, made by hand following the Pretty Perfect Paperback Guide. Bookbinding is much easier than you think!

My guide: movim.slrpnk.net/blog/jacobco...

Penrose Press: www.penrosepress.ca/blogs/nerd-t...

#solarpunk #diy #bookbinding #TTRPG
A photograph of a softcover copy of the Fully Automated Solarpunk TTRPG rulebook, which I made by hand following the Penrose Press Pretty Perfect softcover bookbinding guide. The pages were printed in full color on 11x17" paper, sewn and glued together, and attached to a cover printed on canvas fabric. It's sitting on a wooden table. The cover is printed on canvas (similar to what you'd use for a wall hanging or banner) using a plotter printer and shows a color scene of a chase through a pedestrianized overpass which now hosts a community and market. The same book from a lower angle to show the spine with the folded and stitched signatures, and how closely the fabric cover fits to it. A closeup of the folded paper signatures, visible at the top of the spine, just inside the cover. I wanted to showcase the fairly even binding, crisp corners, and close fit of the cover as it's an improvement over my previous attempt.
May 2, 2025 at 11:18 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
Solarpunk Cargo Ship in a Storm - a steel-hulled, four-masted barque with an open-source variant of dynarig sails tries to escape a storm.

This image and (all the Postcards from a #Solarpunk Future) is CC-BY, use it how you like.

Full post: jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/2024/08/20/s...

#art
The image shows a steel-hulled four-masted barque (sailing ship) with modern dynarig sails trying to escape a storm perilously close to an offshore windmill. The sky and ocean are mostly grey, the sea is heaving with waves as tall as the ship, and a driving rain fills the sky.
April 21, 2025 at 4:12 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
My first #bookbinding project - a hardcover version of the Fully Automated! #solarpunk #TTRPG Rulebook

As with most of my DIY projects, I wrote up a step-by-step here: movim.slrpnk.net/blog/jacobco...
You can also get the interposed, ready-to-print files here: fullyautomatedrpg.com/resources/

#DIY
The image shows a hardcover copy of the Fully Automated Solarpunk Tabletop RPG, which I made by hand.
April 17, 2025 at 4:50 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
A Bike Kitchen and Sunken Greenhouse Behind a Reclaimed/Repurposed McMansion

This was both part of my postcard series and part of the art for the #solarpunk Buried Treasure #TTRPG campagin

Full post here: jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/2024/08/09/a...

#art #scifi #photobash
The image shows the backyard of a large building, formerly a mansion, now a communal living space. The swimming pool has been converted into a sunken greenhouse and the pool house is now a bike co-op. The sprawling lawns have grown into healthy forests, and a network of public paths runs right up to the house. The buildings have been painted with colorful murals.
April 16, 2025 at 6:18 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
Another Postcard from a Solarpunk Future: this time of a #solarpunk workshop built around multiple ways to use the sun, including several giant fresnel lenses beaming light down from the observatory-style dome on the roof

Full post here: jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/2024/05/17/s...

#art #scifi
This digital drawing/photobash is styled like a watercolor painting/sketch of a brick building surrounded by trees. On the left side of the building is a short tower with an observatory-style dome on the top. The dome hosts a giant fresnel lens, similar to that found in a lighthouse. The front of the tower is a cutaway showing a metal staircase and catwalk, and a column of light traveling from the dome down to a second lens, where it is concentrated to a point, on the metal work surface of a CNC plasma cutter. Two people stand by and watch, one on the ground floor, one on the second level catwalk. The rest of the building is styled like an old brick mill, with large arched windows, and a fieldstone and concrete foundation. To the right, it supports a wooden water wheel. On the roof are several solar panels and a pair of fiberoptic daylighting systems, which capture sunlight and pipe it through fiberoptic cables to the workshop below.
March 31, 2025 at 1:58 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
re-uploading with alt text. I hadn't realized how much editing posts was part of my workflow until I found I can't do it in bluesky for some reason.
The scene shows a forested road with a streetcar track set into it. The viewer/camera is positioned on the side of the road, looking to where a monorail track branches off from the road. On the left, a large green streetcar is moving towards the camera. It looks like a strange mix of designs from several decades apart, with a large camera array on the front, a pantograph rig instead of a trolley pole, and most of the deck lowered for accessibility. It is towing a trailer which looks like something that would normally be towed behind a pickup truck, but which has been attached to rail bogeys. This would be used for cargo as the town is in the middle of a salvage rush.
March 27, 2025 at 7:13 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
Some more transportation-based location #art for the #solarpunk #TTRPG campaign

It shows a scene from inside the starting village's food forest, where few public transit options happen to be in the same shot. The game system is Fully Automated (fullyautomatedrpg.com) but you could use any system!
March 27, 2025 at 7:01 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
Postcard from a #Solarpunk Future: Deconstruction crews disassembling abandoned McMansions so the material can be reused, and #rewilding the site

Full post: slrpnk.net/post/9173975

This picture, and all the other postcards (jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/2024/05/02/d...) are CC-BY
#art #photobash
The image shows an overgrown neighborhood of cheap, abandoned mansions in front of an overgrown golf course. Crews of workers and vehicles are gathered in front of them, dissasembling them. The leftmost image is just a filled-in foundation hole where workers are planting trees. the middle building is down to stick frame and plywood. And the rightmost building is fairly new-looking, and crews are carrying out furniture
March 24, 2025 at 4:44 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
Another bit of location #art for the #solarpunk #TTRPG campaign book Buried Treasure - this time of a spring house. These (and cold houses) come up a few times in the story where they're used to collect water or for basic refrigeration. I've only seen one IRL that was this big/nice. Details in alt
The image is looking up a forested hill at a small stone and wood building with a fairly steep roof and a metal door. It's maybe six feet or two meters square. A small stream flows from below the stone under the door. A black pipe runs from one corner and down the hill. The building is a spring house, intended to keep a spring clean and to channel some of the water to a nearby building. It is also an effective means of storing food, using the cold from the spring to chill the space and preserve perishables.
March 23, 2025 at 1:39 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
Some more location #art for the Buried Treasure #solarpunk #TTRPG campaign book, showing the approach to the starting village (a repurposed development of McMansions around a golf course turned into an agricultural community and food forest). Last stop on the game's extensive public transit network
The image is a line-art style photobash showing the view from a ropeway (gondola) car descending towards a somewhat crude terminal station. Several simple rectangular ropeway cars dangle from cables leading to the terminal, going in either direction. Behind and below them is a wide forest dotted with several reclaimed/repurposed McMansions. This strange village was once an abandoned wealth enclave, a development of McMansions around a golf course. A faction called the Reclaimers have turned the overgrown golf course into a food forest and agroforestry exemplar, and the overlarge, cheap houses into a thriving mixed-use community which has recently become something of a salvage boomtown with the recent deconstruction effort. The view is framed by the window of the ropeway car the viewer is inside.
March 21, 2025 at 6:09 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
I've been working on some location #art for a #solarpunk #TTRPG campaign. This farm was part of the #meshnet for the mostly-abandoned town

Full text post here: jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/b...

The campaign will be published by @FullyAutomatedRPG.mstdn.games.ap.brid.gy

#scifi
The image shows an old New England farm with a handfull of modifications. The farmhouse and barn are covered in antennas, solar panels, and homemade savonius turbines, a swarm of UAVs are flying out of a dormer on the barn roof, while a robotic tractor trundles down the driveway and a woodgas truck is parked, running, out front. There are chickens in the yard and an old ski groomer for packing down snow on the seasonal roads parked in a lean-to on the side of the barn. The farmer who lives here was a fan-favorite with my first group of players – he does a lot of work maintaining the meshnet for the mostly-abandoned town where the campaign takes place and he became good friends with the group's hacker character. His farm is pretty conservative for the setting. I wanted to play with how perspectives would shift in this utopian solarpunk setting, to have a farm that would seem both futuristic and kinda crunchy-progressive by our standards that would still be pretty stodgy and conservative compared to his neighbors. He’s relying on biochar, crop rotation, and pollarded trees providing radial chipped wood to replenish his soil instead of manufactured fertilizer, using alley cropping and a handful of other agroforestry techniques to shelter his crops. He cooks his food using a scheffler reflector, drives a woodgas truck he uses to produce his biochar, and generates his power with a mix of solar, wind, water, and woodgas. But compared to the elaborate food forests of a nearby community, Bob’s open fields and heavy reliance on tech makes his farm look downright traditional. I find the sort of cyberpunk mix of scavenged tech and a traditional-looking farmhouse to be both a lot of fun and pretty much in line with the farmers I’ve known and worked for, who were happy to bolt new stuff onto old if it got the job done. Bob’s farm is full of scavenged robotics, radio antennas, and other tech, mostly controlled using cybernetics linked to his brain. He’s added a drone hangar …
February 10, 2025 at 5:34 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
I'll probably do another post about this one sometime but after this photobash I got talking with some folks about ways to improve on soda locomotives for the modern day and banged out a quick take on their suggestions, which would be designed around swappable boilers:
The scene shows a odd looking locomotive in front of a sort of watercolor-ish background. The front of the locomotive is a large metal tank inside a steel frame, often used for stack-able shipping containers. The frame has been painted with black and yellow hazard stripes. Several cables emerge from the back of the tank and connect to the cab, and several pipes emerge from the top and front to connect to the locomotive. Everything below the deck of the locomotive appears to have come from a steam engine. The idea is that the boiler section is swappable, and can be lifted off with a gantry crane to be replaced with a fresh (and possibly already heating) new caustic soda boiler.
January 20, 2025 at 3:53 AM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
A postcard from a #solarpunk future - a caustic soda locomotive stopped at a solar drying station

I think these mostly-forgotten engines could pair with solar steam generators in a really cool, asynchronous way to create analogue solar-powered trains

jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/2024/04/07/c...
The scene shows a scene of a train stopped at a way station on a grassy hillside. The is a forest and mountains in the distance. The train is a caustic soda locomotive, it looks like an old steam train with no smokestack, painted red. It's pulling six double-decker passenger cars. The waystation is a farmhouse, a workshop/warehouse, and a two-story building which partially overhangs the tracks, where the locomotive is currently parked. Next to it is a water stop (the elevated water tank/tower used to fill steam locomotives). Below the track, facing away from the train, is a large round solar concentrator (basically a wide, mirrored cone), which focuses light on a boiler, which is connected to the building above the tracks. This allows them to dry the diluted caustic soda used to power the train so it can be used again.
January 19, 2025 at 9:10 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
A #solarpunk photobash, set somewhere in the transition towards a #LibraryEconomy. An electric streetcar truck collecting heavy items from the waste stream for repair/reuse, and distributing fixed items from libraries.

Full post here: jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/2024/01/16/l...

#art #scifi
The scene shows a modified box truck on a city street. The street has been pedestrianized – it’s narrow and winds back and forth a bit. On either side, many plants have been established, including fruit trees, maples, and blueberry and raspberry bushes, and wildflowers. Overhead electric wires for buses have been strung above the center of the street. The truck has a wood and chickenwire box on the back, which is full of heavy items – a washing machine, a grandfather clock, a drill press, and two men are loading a bookshelf. The truck has a pantograph rig connecting it to the overhead wires. Behind the truck, two people are riding a cargo bicycle (one in the cargo bucket) and murals have been painted on the buildings. The buildings are brick
January 6, 2025 at 2:08 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
Another Winter #Solarpunk Postcard - A #Woodgas Conversion Plow Truck Filling a Village Snow Vault (an idea from a discussion on the solarpunk subreddit - www.reddit.com/r/solarpunk/...)

For more information, see the full post: jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/2024/01/03/w...

#art #scifi #photobash
The image shows a winter scene, night time, during a blizzard, of a rusty pickup truck converted to run on woodgas, with a big vertical top load stove and gas cylinder between the cab and the bed, a metal pipe running from the tank to an extra radiator attached to the front of the truck. This rig allows the truck to 'gassify' burning wood to combustible gasses which will run in its internal combustion engine. The truck is set up with a snow plow, and is pushing snow into an open pit, covered by a roof on posts and surrounded by railings, in a way that makes it look a bit like a pavilion. Where the floor of the pavilion should be, is a half-open roller door. This is the top of a snow vault, designed to store snow and ice below ground as a reservoir of cold and stockpile of water. This makes clearing the streets and paths easier by giving the crew an easy place to put the snow, and will provide cheap cooling for nearby buildings during the summer. There is a brick apartment building nearby, and several snow-covered trees. The truck's lights and snow texture hopefully cast a sort of holiday card look to the scene.
December 26, 2024 at 4:54 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
Another #solarpunk postcard - it includes tons of elements suggested by folks on slrpnk.net and reddit.com/r/solarpunk.

You can find the full list here: jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/2023/12/21/s...
The scene shows a very green landscape, forests rolling down into a river valley and back up into mountains. A road winds past an abandoned McMansion down into the valley, through alley-cropped fields, past farmhouses and barns, and across a riparian boundary and river into a dense little village of brick apartment buildings, all of which are surrounded by trees. On the edges of the village several small houses poke their roofs above the tree canopy, and the river is branched with a levada-style stone channel to two water-wheel driven mills, and a small pond, before rejoining itself further downstream. On the left side of the village is a sort of higher tech agricultural sector, with a paulownia elongata plantation for woodgas production, a barn for animals, several warehouses which might house power generation or recycling, a anaerobic biogas generator, an algae farm, and several walpini style greenhouses. Behind the village, a train track vanishes into a buried train station. Beyond the tracks, an agrovoltaic solar field, and more farms climb the hill. A ropeway croses into the distance, where another village over the mountains is surrounded by windmills.
December 18, 2024 at 1:23 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
Another winter (technically spring) solarpunk scene, this time centered around passive greenhouses/walipinis:
solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/rein...

Full post here: jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/2023/11/15/p...

#solarpunk #winter #greenhouse #scifi #art #solar
The scene shows a hill in early spring. The snow is deep and it's dusk on a cloudy day. The trees are covered with fresh snow from recent storms. In the center of the scene are two greenhouses. These are shaped differently than normal, they have three concrete walls (two short ones, one long) and the front and roof are the usual clear plastic. Yellow light pours out from within. The interiors are full of plants and water tanks, barrels, and compost bins. Above each greenhouse is a large role of insulating material. Two people are unrolling it over the top of the lower greenhouse. In the background, a man is carrying sap buckets.
December 12, 2024 at 6:47 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
Continuing the theme of roads being less-used in #solarpunk, here's a winter scene of a ropeway over a seasonal road, with a snow groomer working as a modern day snow roller (how they made roads passable before plow trucks)

jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/2023/11/06/r...

#art #photobash #winter
The scene shows a blizzard on a seasonal road surrounded by forests. A ropeway runs overhead, vanishing into the snow in the distance. On the road, two snowshoers are hiking away from the camera, while a snow groomer, the modern equivalent of a snow roller, is moving towards the camera.
December 3, 2024 at 4:57 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
Another bit of the industrial side of a solarpunk future - looking at how to transport crops from farm to trainyard when roads have been deprioritized, since big trucks generally need better roads than passenger cars

Full post: jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/2023/11/03/a...

#solarpunk #art #scifi
The picture shows an airship docked at a wide metal mooring tower standing between four grain silos on top of a hill of recently-reaped wheat. The top of the airship has been covered in solar panels
November 27, 2024 at 7:56 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
Airship yard in the early morning

Another glance at the more industrial parts of this #solarpunk future. This one was inspired by the massive mountains of clothes which have been dumped, brand new and unsold, in the Atacama desert in Chile

Full post: jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/2023/11/01/a...
The scene shows the Atacama Desert in the morning. The ground looks red and brown, there are mountains faded in the distance. In the foreground, closest to the camera, are massive heaps of unsold clothes, looking like colorful confetti piles at this distance. In the center of the shot, a square, geopolymer landing pad holds a single rigid airship, which has a wide, multi-sectional design and is covered in solar panels on the top. To the right of it, several warehouses and a massive airship shed line the landing pad. A road leads from them down to the piles, and several tiny vehicles are traveling to and from with loads of clothing. A truck and a small group of three are gathering under the airship. In the distance, massive metal towers support airship mooring masts, with a variety of craft attached nose-to-tower at the tops, weathervaning with the wind.
November 25, 2024 at 4:34 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
Another Postcard from a Solarpunk Future - a photobash of a waystation in a ropeway network

Full post here: jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/2023/10/20/r...

#art #scifi #solarpunk #photobash
The scene is of a way station between two ropeways in the mountains. In the foreground, a small red ropeway car/cable car with bike racks on the front and back is leaving the waystation, which is a pair of ropeway terminals and a large wooden structure, sort of a lodge and scenic overlook built on top of some cliffs. The lodge structure is a sort of base camp and waystation for hikers, rock climbers, and other people enjoying the outdoors. It might have some kind of communal dining hall, bathrooms, perhaps even sleeping quarters. People might hike up to this spot for lunch, or start their adventure here. Or, if they’ve been hiking from peak to peak for weeks, they might rest up or even catch a ropeway down into a town to resupply. The color pallet is somewhat oversaturated, aiming for a retro park postcard vibe
November 22, 2024 at 5:08 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
One of my #solarpunk #art goals is to show more of the industrial spaces that societies will still need. Like this photobash of solar furnace steel recycling (realistically EAF smelting on green power will probably work fine)

Full post here: jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/2023/09/15/s...
The scene is in a desert, or a high-elevation pit mine. Before us, the rocky ground slopes down to an open flat space, and manmade, stepped-cliffs climb up towards distant mountains. All around us, and ahead of us, we see the backs of reflectors, adjustable mirrors, heliostats, pointed forwards. Set into those rough cliffs, there is a massive, convex mirror, a parabolic reflector focused on something like a steelworking blast furnace. This is an attempt to smelt scrap steel using nothing but concentrated sunlight. Molten metal pours from the tapped furnace down to a crucible, which hangs on a track leading towards a nearby building. On the other side, heaps of old cars and scrap metal have been piled, waiting to be recast into whatever this society needs. An electric freight train pulls a single passenger car of plant workers, and several flatcars loaded with wrecked vehicles up to the site.
November 8, 2024 at 2:25 AM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
Another Postcard from a Solarpunk Future - this one of a repurposed parking garage and a streetcar.

Full text post here: jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/2023/09/11/r...

And here: slrpnk.net/post/2137460

#solarpunk #photobash #art #scifi
The picture shows a colorful solarpunk scene of a parking garage which has been converted into living space. Each bay of the garage has been filled in with a different type of wall, most in bold colors, and every window is radically different. Some sides are wood boards, shingles, brick, sheet metal cut from shipping containers, or pieces of modern apartment buildings. The windows come in all shapes and sizes. The plain grey concrete of the building has been painted with a mandala pattern in darker grey. On the first floor, two bays have been dedicated to a bicycle co-op, and the garage doors are open, showing a workshop space with tables, tool boxes, and a large lathe. Beside that, a fruit stand fills the next bay floor to ceiling. The center two bays are an open lobby and community space allowing access to the building, with a large mural of a deer painted on the back wall. The next three bays are more living space, and are partially obscured by a streetcar reminiscent of a 1910s design, but with a bubble windshield, and modern digital LED destination sign on the roof. It's been painted with a colorful mandala pattern.
November 4, 2024 at 1:51 PM
jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social
A quick tool fixup - a set of outside calipers I bought secondhand. Full step-by-step here:

movim.slrpnk.net/blog/jacobco...

I much prefer finding old tools and fixing them to buying them new.

#diy #fixing #solarpunk
The image shows a side-by-side before-and-after of a set of outside calipers. In the first one the calipers are rusty, in the second one they are bright and shiny, and text which was hidden before is now readable.
November 3, 2024 at 6:41 PM