Insert Clever Title Here

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

its finally over... all 352 species in the family columbidae!!!

took me 48 hours in the span of 34 days,,

the woke left: young and fashionable. visible tattoos. often enjoys matcha, lavender flavoring, oat milk, and cold foam. pretty decent customers.

sweet old man: drinks very sweet iced lattes, pays in cash, puts all of his change in the tip jar. sometimes orders hot coffee and i get scared that his shaky old man hands will spill it and he'll get burned but that has not yet happened and god willing never shall.

evil old man: only wants drip coffee and declares it ridiculous that any other form of coffee exists. some variants only want americanos and these variants are even scarier. watch out.

sweet old woman: might need her daughter's help to order but is very bubbly and open to trying new things. compliments baristas freely and frequently.

evil old woman: does not want coffee and only wants sweet tea or soda. will not tip even if she spends three hours in the shop repeatedly asking baristas to fetch things for her.

errand husband: either stiltedly recites an order to you or shows you the order in their texts/notes app. needs to step out of line and make a phone call if you ask any follow-up questions.

grindset girlie: always wearing scrubs, an apron, and/or a name tag. orders the exact same thing every day and knows the exact change she'll need to pay for it. her regular order is both extremely caffeinated and extremely sweet.

#mamabear: is actively wrangling two to four children while ordering. order changes repeatedly because the children cannot decide if they want a muffin or a cookie or apple juice or chocolate milk etc. for some reason these women are always wearing an article of clothing or carrying some personalized item that says "mama" on it.

schoolchildren: band of two to eight adolescents hanging out after school. extremely indecisive but generally quite polite and tip well.

amnesiac in love: grown adult who needs their partner to tell them what they like. gets asked a question about their own preferences and turns to their partner to answer for them. generally acts like a shy child looking to their guardian for behavioral cues if you try to interact with them and only wants to talk to mommy i mean their wife.

things to say when you are not a place of honor

Hiroshi Nagai's paintings need sunglasses to look at.

They look like how it feels to walk across a parking lot on a 98° summer day without a speck of shade in sight.

They look like heaven but also like you'd burn your bare feet on the ground.

Even when you can see shade you know it's not enough and the minute you step out you'll be burnt to a crisp like a vampire.

This feels like I could trip on that radio and fall right into that water, feeling the crystal waves as I drop in.

And this, a nice stroll down a resort strip, where my sunscreened skin could literally feel cooked if I leaned too close to the tiling.

And then a nice stretch of summer street, wherein you could see your face in the flushed red of that car provided it didn't blind you from its sunny reflections.

He’s her best friend, and she doesn’t even know it. They’re so close, that in the book, people think they’re sleeping together, and poor Grace is so confused because he thought that was his platonic work wife, wdym people think we’re sleeping together, that’s my person that I crack jokes with and then she glares at me because they’re not funny.

She’s softer with him than anybody else and is only ever vulnerable around him. We see in the movie, he’s the only one who ever gets her to smile, and sometimes even laugh, and then she serenades all of them, but mainly him, and he stares at her with those big, shiny eyes so lovingly, and she points at him when she sings, “everything’s gonna be alright”, and then she gives him those eyes, so loving.

And then she’s trying to stop herself from crying when she’s sending him away because, against her will, he’s become her person, and somewhere along the way, she’s become his, and they will have forever ended this relationship on bad terms, and nothing can fix that.

It’s a platonic tragedy. It’s a platonic love story. This is something we don’t get often, or, like, ever, and it’s deep and it’s tragic and it’s sad.

But even after, Eva’s still taking care of him. Packing clothes she knew would bring him comfort. Programming the ship to know how he likes his coffee. And Grace is still watching out for her, speaking to her directly in his video logs, with that same lopsided smile he used to throw her way.

He uses Rocky’s sign for goodbye, and she uses it back, and how did this book and movie give us such a deep platonic friendship because, guys, this NEVER HAPPENS.