war is heck

Fishuary Day 12: Small fish

So, here's the exterior. Nice and simple and elegant!! Very straightforward!

Then, there's the inside. I was like 'hmmm, well, they met when they were working at a video game store together. And they still game a lot together and it's important to them. I know, I'll draw this thing like an illuminated manuscript!!'

Reader, this is where I lost control of the situation. This is where we come to the fact that I'll have to reblog this multiple times just to attach all the relevant images. I came up with eleven "main" images, eleven simple verso images so people wouldn't sign the wrong spot by mistake, two inhabited initials for the couple, and one demo page not included in the book directly explaining the concept for how the pages were laid out (spot for name + spot for message). I finished that last page uhhhh thursday. For a saturday wedding.

Before I get any deeper, i have to give MASSIVE props to the dobie draws 'codex pokemonus' illuminated manuscript zine. I highly recommend checking that link out, because it's a delight. I bought this thing, ohh... I'm not even sure. At LEAST half a decade ago. When i was gathering all my references and resources for this project, this was unquestionably the most helpful one. The influence is most obvious in the venusaur vines the pokemon pages, but it was truly, genuinely a LIFESAVER when it came to references for how hands and feet and faces could be drawn for little Creatures, and I'm so grateful. I would also like to state for the record that i learned medieval notation specifically to transcribe the jigglypuff song and that may be the detail that delights me most in this whole project

And since i have one spare image slot left, I'll also throw in one of my verso images, as a teaser while i line up my next reblog

No. I am boo boo the fool, most of these designs were so simple they were plain impossible for my sleep deprived brain to draw 😂 So some of these draw from the games directly, and some are more from the cabinet or box art, whatever i could find with a visual identity to latch on to.

So, for roll call purposes here, in order on the tumblr post, we've got: qbert, pitfall (featuring a beautiful pixel rope), frogger, major havoc, centipede, pac-man (both man and ghost), space invaders, berserk, yar's revenge, annnnnd et!

I think pitfall was what sold me on this idea conceptually, but et is my absolute favorite of the bunch. Look at him. Look at my wonderful hideous son. One thing i learned on this project is that if you're trying to get an illuminated manuscript vibe and it just isn't landing, try drawing the eyes Wrong, and that's very likely to do the trick

All of these pages were SO fun. Browsing the kirby wiki for the funnest little Creachurs was a delight. Working on mother brain was one of my favorite parts. The sonic page is my favorite concept out of the whole lot, using the loop as a frame for the message portion. And of course, once I was reminded of the animal crossing wedding couple, they HAD to feature prominently 😂

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE. My brother and his now-wife play world of warcraft together. He got her into it, and I think that's a cruel thing to do to your partner, but what do i know. And a few of their guildmates were even invited to the wedding! So a couple months back, i asked them for images of their characters, "for reasons." The reasons were to draw them each inhabited initials for the title page of the book :3c

(my brother, at the wedding: 'i thought you just wanted them for inspiration!!!' me, cackling: 'FOOL. when have i ever practiced self-restraint when it comes to crafts?????’)

And then!!!! In chronological order, this is where i paused to draw the eleven verso images in a fever haze and actually printed the book and made it. Fun story, my printer started misprinting images in the middle of this and I had to make a trip to my parents' place and use their printer to get the actual book pages. But once it was assembled and drying (it was a k118, also, which i don't think i mentioned), I staggered back to my tablet and drew a demo page for how i envisioned the signings. My little treat to myself is that it features haggard versions of me, including skeleton me in the corner.

And it all worked! It all worked out really well!! I'm SO glad its over, and I have two sets of lotr that I made concurrently as gifts that i need to scrape together a post for. But this came together better than I could have hoped, and I have learned important lessons about how long art like this takes me 🤣 But I've also learned how to do these pseudo-illuminated pages and the term 'inhabited initial'! I definitely, DEFINITELY plan to use that knowledge for much goofier and more frivolous purposes as soon as I rest up a bit. This was a much bigger project than I expected, but I'm SO happy with it

The soil testing equipment on Curiosity makes a buzzing noise and the pitch of the noise changes depending on what part of an experiment Curiosity is performing, this is the way Curiosity sings to itself.

So some of the finest minds currently alive decided to take incredibly expensive important scientific equipment and mess with it until they worked out how to move in just the right way to sing Happy Birthday, then someone made a cake on Curiosity’s birthday and took it into Mission control so that a room full of brilliant scientists and engineers could throw a birthday party for a non-autonomous robot 225 million kilometres away and listen to it sing the first ever song sung on Mars*, which was Happy Birthday.

This isn’t a sad story, this a happy story about the ridiculousness of humans and the way we love things. We built a little robot and called it Curiosity and flung it into the star to go and explore places we can’t get to because it’s name is in our nature and then just because we could, we taught it how to sing.

That’s not sad, that’s awesome.

Them: WHAT ELSE

The first was that each of us had attacked at least one of the others in print. I had dissed Eco’s book. Umberto had criticized Mario for being too right-wing. Mario had criticized me for being too left-wing.

The second discovery was that we all got on like a house on fire.

It was Umberto who suggested we should now call ourselves The Three Musketeers. (This, remember, was the time of the Three Tenors, Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras.) I remember asking, “Why Musketeers? Why not, for example, The Three Stooges?”

“No,” Umberto insisted. “It has to be Musketeers, because first we were enemies and now we are friends.”

#hello again martin and bosco!! sending you boys round for another go :)

Here is what the backside looks like. OP notes this takes more fabric than paper piecing, but that excess fabric makes it already triple-layered. Besides not needing backing fabric, I don't think you'd need batting for this quilt at all. It's already thick and soft just from folding all that fabric into a hexagon.

Each hexagon begins as a 6" circle. camelscrafts does this by creating a paper template using a compass. According to the video, a 6" circle will create a hexagon that is 2.5 inches tall.

These hexagons are hand-sewn. Thread the needle.

With the fabric right side facing, find the center of the circle by folding it in half right sides together, then folding it in half again (wrong sides are facing). The top of the triangle shape is the center of the fabric circle.

Make a small stitch into the center of the fabric. The wrong side is still facing.

Unfold the circle. There will be a small stitch in the center.

Now the hexagon is created by folding the circle into itself: Take the needle to one of the edges of the fabric (it doesn't matter which one). Pull the needle through and pull the thread tight. This will fold down the fabric and create an edge of the hexagon. Crease the fold with your finger.

This fold has two corners, one at the top and one at the bottom. Put the needle into one of the corners and pull the thread taut. This will create another fold.

Continue this going around the circle until all of it is folded down, creating the hexagon. camelscrafts notes that the last corner pulled in may be a little bit "wonky" (no precise point in the corner) if the corners were not done precisely. However, that corner is pulled into the back, so is not visible from the front.

The hexagon is now formed. Sew around the folds in the middle of the circle to hold the folds in place. Tie off and cut the thread.

Closest match: Epinotia tetraquetrana genome assembly, chromosome: 7 Common name: Square-Barred Bell