Alkimara HQ

#alkimara -- i added thoughts or made an original post

#syscourse -- im a system. i try to keep it on my other blog though @dragonfly-system

#politics -- i very rarely rb politics. if i do i tag it so people can avoid it.

just to reiterate, this is NOT canon to the comic. or to either movie probably lol.

just love the idea that the reason simon didn't listen to the written stuff was because it sucked to read (and not, like, either defiance or a purposeful disregard for the sake of survival)

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female

BIRD NUMBER 8, (yellow shafted) NORTHERN FLICKERRRRR, Colaptes auratus

genuinely made me start questioning my sanity around day 3, it's half the size the of the goose, WHY did it take me 4 days to finish??

Bird number 9: Red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis

my chains are broken i am FREE. although i did have a great deal of fun with this, the barring on the wings itself took me like four days and i am READY to move on

this was a week and a half of continuous work so please excuse me for getting a little emotional in the bg 🙏

BIRD NUMBER 10!!! The Male Mallard Duck, Anas platyrhynchos

the male and female ones are gonna be posted separately bc they're taking a lot longer lol but yea! super happy i was able to capture the iridescent green of the head, i found metallic green and blue paint at a craft store that really made his head POP. it looks better in person i promise

ALSO!! As this is the 10th one, BIG announcement. The end is in sight!!!!! I plan to finish within the next 3 weeks and there will be a small dedication ceremony/ unveiling happening at the library to commemorate its completion on the 16th of May. If you live in the Western New York region and want to check it out for yourself shoot me a dm!

aaaand another one bites the duck,

we're movin right along with bird numero 11!! The lady Mallard!! Anas platyrhyncos

power couple that they are, here's bird number 12 and 13,

the Northern Cardinals, Cardinalis cardinalis

and NOW that they are complete, ITS GO TIME, in the next five days (library's closed for mother's day 😭😭) i need to have the GBH fully rendered, the names of the birds vectored, weeded, masked, applied to the wall, and then painted, plus additional cattails throughout. I may be able to get away with just getting the GBH done in time for the unveiling and then just have the names and cattails added later, but i'm gonna really try to get it all done in time. BUT, i have a plan. Part of why i take so long on these is because i really am just figuring it out as I do it lmao. there have been many a time where i am sitting on top of the ladder googling "how to paint birds" but I think if i take the time tomorro to do all that figuring out how to approach it beforehand, this will go a lot faster. I may also recruit some of my artist friends to help with the placing of the names... hrmm we'll see.

Anyways, shout out to the librarian who tracked down exactly the thing i needed so i could figure out where to place the highlights in my birds eyes, ur the real mvp

Bird number 14 out of 14,

The Great blue heron, Ardea herodius

thank you to everyone who reached out or got excited about this project, it genuinely gave me the fuel i needed to keep going. In total, the 480+ total hrs it took me to cover this wall pales in comparison to how long its expected to spend on there, hopefully imparting a sense of beauty and love for the natural world to the next generation and here's hoping i'm only getting started with these.

Time passes

Project Hail Mary is ago, and Grace panics because he is actually going to die. Mortality is a bitch, and he doesnt even get to die on the planet he loves.

Meets rocky, rocky susses him out immediately.

"You say human, question?"

"Yeah I'm human bud."

"Lie. Grace lie. Why heartbeat wrong then, why Grace lie question?"

"... because if you want something hard enough its sure to come true."

Cut to Tau Ceti, they retrieve the sample but Grace is crushed and placed into a comatosed state. Rocky recovers before him, watches as he sleeps. In his sleep, however, Grace hears a prayer. It should be impossible but-

"Please, I just wanna live. Is that too much to ask for?"

It's an echo of his very own soul, and without meaning to, Grace reaches for the whispering soul and drags it closer through time and space, holds it close to his chest and breaths life into it's very being.

Rocky is very surprised to check on Grace one day and see... new human. But this does confirm his suspicions about Grace NOT being human.

New Human wakes up before Grace as well, panics, before seeing Grace and calming down, claiming He must be dead because Grace is a god his cult would pray to. Eden did a lot of bad but it gave him this one last peace...

Rocky tells Simon Grace not god, Grace leaky Space blob. Simon can't understand him, but lays in reverence at Grace's side and together they watch Grace sleep.

Grace wakes up, sees Simon, and is very confused because wtf new human how tf???

Blah blah blah Grace was born in Eden, when man committed the first sin and God chose to love his children regardless, to give them Grace. The other gods could stop Grace from receiving worship in this universe, but they never expected the pleas of one scared man in another to reach sleeping, compassionate ears.