Mimosa Tree Review

Every year a bobcat mama gives birth to a litter of kittens on my roof. I set up a camera this time around. 

"oh. He was just autistic wasnt he"

1. Speaks in constant animal metaphors

2. Gets upset with people crowding

3. Got poisoned with a cherry blossom allergy and instead of going to the doctors went "nah im living with this now. fuck doctors"

4. Is easily woken up at even the sound of a pin dropping

5. Is so emotionally attached to school that he holds himself back and also teaches a little baby bird how to single the school anthem

6. Canonically, hes whatever age he wants to be. This implies age regression is canon.

7. Makes all his followers look exactly the same as kusakabe for some reason (kusakabe was the og pompadour haver of the group, btw. So i theorize that hibari learned kusakabes name and now he doesnt want to learn anyone else's name. Ever.)

8. Is a stickler for rules and routine and public morals and

9. Had to compliment Tsunayoshi Sawada one time and instead of being like "yea hes cool" he started waxing poetic about the skies and the cloud.

10. Has an emotional support blanket (his jacket)

11. Has an emotional support animal (hibird)

11. Refuses to stop wearing the school uniform, even during picnics.

12. His only friend, Kusakabe, sometimes just takes over explaining things for him cuz Hibari cant be assed to.

random yay

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.

-Half human/half psychic alien species

-Both's non-human parents were specifically famously effective Star Fleet diplomats

-Whether real or perceived seen as lacking in a lot of the qualities prized/specialized in by the non-human parent's culture. This is brought up untactfully by said non-human parent

-Nevertheless the field they went into heavily relies on said trait they allegedly don't have

-So much family drama

-Shenanigans related to betrothals that neither of them goes through with

"Oh I'll take this down to the charity shop" said my mother, missing hte part where no sane person is going to wear a clown suit.

"Nah" said I, "Have them dress him in it when they cremate him."

There was a pause and my throw-away joke started to slowly solidify into 'Yeah let's do that'.

A discussion was had with the mortician who had a bit of a worry that the costume would involve giant clown shoes which would prevent the coffin closing.

Luckily it wasn't that sort of outfit.

I told this to my dear friend who immediately envisaged someone trying to close a coffin onto a dead clown, only to have the big red nose go *Sad honk* every time there was an attempt to close the lid.