are you happy or do you feel weird?

But have you considered: Ilya can’t drink on his meds.

Imagine them at the club after their first cup win with the Centaurs. Shane is absolutely wasted, having the time of his life, and Ilya is also having the time of his life stone cold sober, cause he gets to see his husband let loose and then afterwards he gets to drive him home and bridal carry him to bed and feed him a glass of water and make him a greasy breakfast the next morning because Shane is hungover. Like, that is his baby!

Imagine the Centaurs at the barbecue passing around a blunt and Shane looks kinda interested actually. He has been depriving himself his whole life, he kinda wants to try. So obviously Ilya can read this on his face and is like: Shanya you can try. I will take care of you, don‘t worry I‘m here. So then Ilya gets to witness Shane getting high for the first time and Shane is absolutely trying to crawl into Ilya‘s skin in front of god and everybody and every single one of the Centaurs. Shane and Harris both get the munchies so now they are standing in Bood‘s kitchen a little after midnight arguing over how to make apple pie. Harris is like: I‘m the king of apples! I know this! And Shane is like: Well. I have never baked anything in my entire life but I‘m still pretty sure I am correct. And then they are both giggling and shoving each other and they end up covered in flour. And Ilya is standing in the kitchen doorway arms crossed stone cold sober, has never been more lucid and present, and thinks: this is the best moment of my life. Like, he keeps complaining to Shane that he misses Vodka, but he doesn‘t. He would not trade this for anything and he knows Shane only lets loose 100% because he trusts Ilya to protect and take care of him.

And then the next morning Ilya wakes Shane with little kisses on his face like: Good Morning Shanya *kiss* can you tell me *kiss* why is there so much flour *kiss* in my car? Hm? *kiss* It‘s all over the seats? *kiss* any idea how that happened? *kiss*

We go together.

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.