breaking hearts left and right?

tentacle sympathizer, general flailing. icon art by @lifecrystals.

[mayakern]

A small sticker with a big message. 💜 Mirror Comic is available as a sticker and print, perfect for mirrors, laptops, water bottles, sketchbooks, or anywhere you could use a reminder to be a little kinder to yourself. store.mayakern.com

[lucylehane]

so if you really love me, say yes but if you don't dear, confess and please don't tell me perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

Strictly Ballroom (1992)

[nattousan]

ok so, I approached my local library with a proposal to donate a mural as a way to A: build portfolio/gain practical experience and B: give back to a beloved public institution. The director was very enthusiastic about it and i've been working on it since the beginning of March. Come with me as I endeavor to paint what is in all honesty an excessive amount of birds

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

and that was a whole week on it's own so next comes the paintin' >:)

[nattousan]

and now, the birds

Birds 1 and 2/14: Red Winged Blackbird, Male and female, Agelaius phoeniceus

[nattousan]

Bird 3/14, American Robin, Turdus migratorius

[nattousan]

hoo boy, ok *out of breath*

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

this guy took me about 4 days to completely finish, all of those freakingk coverts were a bear to render

[nattousan]

speaking of obnoxious coverts:

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

the friggin stripes almost got me chat, i may not make it

[nattousan]

Madam....

[nattousan]

birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female

pleasantly simple to paint! next is the flickerrrrr

[nattousan]

*melts into goo*

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??

nothing but pain and suffering, i'm sure hope the next bird will be much easier and with FAR less barring :)

[nattousan]

in other news, I am losing my mind hairline

[nattousan]

SHE'S DONE!!

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 🙏

[nattousan]

*does a little jig*

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!

Also thank you everyone for your kind words and support throughout this whole process, it's been a genuine treat thinking there are potentially thousands of you out there cheering me on while I paint this 🥹

[nattousan]

aaaand another one bites the duck,

we're movin right along with bird numero 11!! The lady Mallard!! Anas platyrhyncos

the 16th is looming in the distance so i'm trying to get thru these as quickly as i can so i can have as much time for the GBH as possible. i still need to do the names next to all of them so i've got about a week and a half to finish everything which is GREAT because i have adhd and nothing gets my ass in gear like a fuckin deadline, let me tell you

[nattousan]

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

[nattousan]

thanks for the reminder, kid

[nattousan]

at long last, we've reached the end...

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.

i'll see y'all soon :')

[annabelle--cane]

[desertgremlin]

josh ruben representing the people

[despazito]

Sometimes I'll be looking at bullshit online that I know will just rile me up and I have to think of this image to get myself to stop

[dragon-in-a-fez]

complimented a cashier on her turtle pin this morning and she said "oh thanks, I am a little bit of a Turtle Person" with the carefully contained energy of Cookie Monster telling you he's mildly fond of chocolate chips

I hope she and the multiple tons of turtle merch she definitely has at home are having a wonderful day

[wtf-drawing]

i love this metaphor so much i drew it

[rennerei]

✨The song we couldn't write✨

[cleolinda]

'The Ring' Creator Koji Suzuki Has Passed Away at 68 - Bloody Disgusting

We have learned the sad news this weekend that Japanese writer Koji Suzuki, who created the Ring franchise back in the early 1990s, has pass

Koji Suzuki was indeed a master of horror in every sense, his nightmares helping to define an entire era of horror that terrified audiences throughout the late 1990s and 2000s. It’s hard to imagine the landscape of the genre without films like The Ring, Dark Water, and the films that were directly inspired by them, and none of that would’ve happened without Koji Suzuki.

[furryprovocateur]

they should allow you to report posts for being gauche or passé

[girlswater]

[othellho]

julian de narvaez piranesi illustration i will think about you every day for the rest of my life

[exit-path]

so i accidentally went down a wikipedia rabbit hole and came across the funniest thing that's apparently been plaguing scientists for centuries

[exit-path]

it's called "maxwell's demon" and it's so easy to learn but difficult to disprove. basically a tiny demon controls a trapdoor, letting some particles through, and eventually it changes the temperature of two gases without applying any work. the fact that actual physicists are fighting over this 💀

but most of all imagine the tiny demon that's doing all this. all of this impossible effort and for what. why is he doing this. what does he gain

[exit-path]

*does a gay little violation of classical thermodynamics that pisses you off*

[thischarmingand]

Wait, that's what this is referencing?

[punished-venom-solitair-e]

my favorite phenomenon on tiktok is when all the comments will line up and start doing the same bit

[goddamnshinyrock]

r/boston is deeply antisocial and generally intentionally unhelpful, but where else can you go for 'the guy whose running gag is roleplaying as Cotton Mather on reddit gets corrected on theological history'?

[oysters-aint-for-me]

there’s a used bookstore in rural western massachusetts (the montague book mill) whose motto is “books you don’t need in a place you can’t find” and i just feel like that summarizes tumblr too

[oysters-aint-for-me]

posts you don’t need on a site you can’t search

[moveslikekeithrichards]

there is no greater joy on this earth than Making Lists, Categorizing, & Sorting

[flying-lemons]

oh do I have the game for you

[dancing-crow]

I could . not. put. this down for 48 hours - stayed up too late, had weird dreams about it, woke up early, and played it while I was supposed to be doing other things. the last several dozen items took a lot of googling, which I do not even begrudge it.

and then. My partner started it. And the SAME THING happened to him.

surprisingly compelling. start when you have free time. like, yanno, a snow day.

[foone]

oh my god, if you are the kind of person who gets sucked into logic puzzles, do not click that link if you have to do anything/go to sleep in the next couple hours

[improbabledreams900]

I was disappointed there weren't more levels, so I made them! The creator's code was under CC Share Alike, so I moved a copy to my website, rustled up 40 new categories, and added buttons so you can generate smaller puzzles!

Check it out! More levels!

[thedinosaurprince]

[lifecrystals]

Happy 15th Annual Ed Balls Day to those who celebrate!