Celestial Ink

Anyway I was bitching about how hard it is to come up with feasible planets in Star Wars because sometimes you need a new planet from scratch and sometimes you need to know more about a planet than the 'has jungles, is probably a moon technically' than Wookieepedia will give you, and they're like 'oh yeah I can do something about that'.

So they've written (in Matlab but they swear it will run as a .exe as well and I may be conscripted to embed it as a web tool at some point) a star system generator.

You input what you know about the planet (ecosystem, population, sun colour, does it have liquid water, does it have a moon or moons, is it a moon or moons, temperature averages, atmosphere, you get me) and it will give you the... everything else about the star system, in obedience to real-universe physics. And if you input nothing you get a randomly generated star system.

And I’m like oh I know people who will be into this with a vengeance, and they're not on Tumblr, so this is me seeing who exactly would be keen on, and I cannot stress this enough, a real-physics comprehensive star system generator.

Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.

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.

First, check out my partner's Wig Seller Masterlist, though she hasn't updated it in a while and could probably add a lot of Amazon and Aliexpress brands that she likes.

Wig fit is such a personal thing that a brand that works for one person might be terrible on another (Arda gives me tension headaches, for example, but a lot of people swear by their fit), and what fiber you like is also personal and depends on what you are doing with it.

That said, if you're looking online for cheaper wigs, here's some tips (and me rambling about styling and wearing tips by the end lol):

Look for "rose net" instead of "button net." These terms will very likely not appear on the listing, as they are translations of Chinese terms and hardly anyone uses them in English (instead this just doesn't have a name :']), but the difference is in how the wefts are attached. Rose net will almost always be higher quality and more comfortable.

Rose net on left, with the individually spaced wefts with strips holding them, button net on right, with wefts sewn to a full mesh cap.

Look for measurements of the wig. They likely won't have full measurements, just circumference, but even that will help to know if it will be way too small or large.

LOOK FOR REVIEW PHOTOS. Even better if they aren't super filtered and show the inside of the wig as well. colors can be off, the fiber can be much shinier than you expected, it can be much thinner than expected and show the tracks, etc. Review photos will show you what product actually arrives.

Start with simple styling. You don't need a crimper unless you're doing styles that require one. You don't need to do a helmet wig. A flatiron or steamer (or both lol), some thinning shears and regular shears, and a comb will be your best tools. Look at tutorials, and not just the TikTok style "here's quick cuts of my process and not actually explaining what anything is" type of "tutorial." Look at older tutorials in addition to newer ones, since wig styling trends change, and something in an older tutorial might be the styling you actually need.

Another styling tip: wig hair is plastic. This is a material that, unlike real hair, holds style upon being *cooled* in a specific position. You can heat it all you want, but if you don't hold it in place until it's fully cooled, it won't hold the style. curlers, pins, clips, etc. will be your best friends there.

For wearing: get a wig cap. Stocking type that's closed on top vs fishnet type that's open on top is up to personal preference. Get something in beige or close to your skin tone rather than black so it's more versatile under different wigs, since a black one can show under a light-colored wig (they often throw in a free one with wigs, and sometimes these are black). If you have long hair, do French braids coiled around your head or pincurls. I swore by pincurls when I had hip length hair way back in the day, but basically you want something that will distribute the hair evenly around your head and also allow you to pin into it to help secure the wig.

Some people swear by wig grips (either velvet or silicone, though if you do silicone get the name brand Wig Fix, it really is that much better), some people hate them. YMMV.

Personality hire

https://wheelofnames.com/uh3-8jf

Obvious disclaimer that you shouldn't have wild animals as pets.

But like, cheetahs are the only large cats that keepers will do free contact with. Hell, even most small cats don't get free contact. (Because small cats can be VICIOUS. They'll have a baby pallas cat wearing thicker gloves than when handling an owl. Because small cats can just be vicious.)

Like I think the only other cat at our zoo where I've seen free contact with was servals? Because I know they've used servals in shows to demonstrate their natural jumping ability. But I know servals can sometimes have a mean temper as well. Meanwhile they'll do the cheetah run and afterwards put the mic by the cheetahs and it's just like an engine with them purring. It's fascinating to watch when the message in every other large animal is "no free contact because it's dangerous even when they're born in captivity".