Monster-Loving Safe Zone

Howdy! I make art and shit and I love chimeras and reptiles. Currently a fourth year in my PhD Cell and Molecular Biology program. Mostly furry art + space + monster fucker blog.

[chimericmacandcheese]

Giant Microbes does not have haloarchaea, so I must take matters into my own hands.

This is my first attempt but I’m not the happiest with it because it prioritizes look over tactile feel. It is overstuffed so it’s not very squishy, and the tail is posable but the archaellum wire isn’t fun to cuddle.

Here’s attempt 2, going for something softer, less detailed, and cuter. Soft minky, not overstuffed, and it’s weighed down with plastic beans. Wanted to make it extra cute and added a lil tag to write my signature.

What do you think? Do you prefer my first attempt more?

I might make a tiny keychain version of one of these soon. I also want to make a bunch of these for my lab members but I need to collect more materials beforehand, both plushes were made with scraps.

[manuciruja]

awww the like button turns into a rainbow when you press it! that's so cute...hey staff what's with all the trans women you keep nuking?

[manuciruja]

i think we should be ridiculing them more for this. you don't get to try and go all "queer website" when your staff likes to go on nuking sprees targeting the trans fem users

[chimericmacandcheese]

fruit fly needlefelt sculpture made for a professor, nickel for scale

It has a pipecleaner skeleton, allowing it to stand on its own and have a mild degree of posability

The wings were very challenging, as I wanted them to look transparent but couldn’t achieve that look with roving. At the very least it looks like a fly, I suppose…

[chimericmacandcheese]

I’m so touched by all the replies to this, I genuinely did not realize this would excite so many people but I’m so happy you enjoy this sculpture too.

I made this for a professor that continues to support me through the rough time I’ve been going through for the past year, and I wanted to gift something back to show how grateful I am. I gave it to my professor and she loved it, she said it made her week. She studies Drosophila melanogaster as her model organism for her research.

If you want to try your hand at this yourself please do! The pipe cleaner skeleton is a bit difficult to work it, and may damage your needle keep in mind, but it’s what allows the head, legs, and wings to move. There might be other alternative wire frames you can try, experiment!

here’s progress shots to help

Use references! I used a picture and lined up everything to retain proportions. The legs I added after wrapping roving around the thorax, but after finishing this I think keeping the legs attached to the pipe cleaner skeleton before adding roving would have been better.

The wings are mesh fabric wrapped around a pipe cleaner and fastened with hot glue, but you could try other materials too for more accurate/detailed wings!

[chimericmacandcheese]

fruit fly needlefelt sculpture made for a professor, nickel for scale

It has a pipecleaner skeleton, allowing it to stand on its own and have a mild degree of posability

The wings were very challenging, as I wanted them to look transparent but couldn’t achieve that look with roving. At the very least it looks like a fly, I suppose…

[chimericmacandcheese]

Pacifica coast

done with acrylics and gel pen

[chimericmacandcheese]

[chimericmacandcheese]

glep needle felt sculpture I gifted to a friend

the eyes are clay, painted over with acrylic and anchored with a paperclip

[chimericmacandcheese]

[chimericmacandcheese]

I’m still alive

I have been struggling mental-health-wise greatly, my mood shifting erratically over the past months. My desire to do any art has been near nonexistent, I have no passion when I feel so stressed, afraid, and unappreciated in this hell timeline. I might even just abandon this blog, I feel so tired, so vulnerable, so very sad, and with the era we are in I feel like my will to try is slipping

why does it even matter in this fucking hellscape

I’ve been trying so hard to stay alive this whole time, staying alive to show that black and trans people wont disappear, but everything just sucks so fucking much…

i cant even feel like im doing a good job of that, the overwhelming powerlessness is just impossible to fight against and it feels pointless to make art or post anything when im invisible as is. i lost a lot of really good friends last year, some tore my fuse too short, most i had to abandon for being uncomfortable, the closest i lost because he unmasked into a fucking racist

at the end of the day it still fucking hurts, but I still have to worry about when i need to leave the country for my own safety. It’s a wonder I still can do my research

everything is too much

[chimericmacandcheese]

ive been decaying this month

i genuinely have found it so hard to keep going and losing lava was just one final nail in the coffin for my fragile mental health

im sorry to my followers rhat i post so little and keep this account run like shit but im such a broken person and repeatedly wonder how i havent died yet

i had lost pets earlier in my life when i was young and always said to myself id never let it again, i spent over a year prepping for lava and it feels like it didnt matter when she was neglected by veterinarians i was supposed to trust

this month feels harder than usual to keep myself alive

[chimericmacandcheese]

My corn snake, Lava, has died today.

This was not expected or anticipated or not due to accident, but what I believe was maltreatment.

I found her lifeless this afternoon in her tank, just barely 3 days after I had picked her up from reptile boarding at the nearest exotic veterinarian in my area. She was left in perfect health to these vets to be held for 15 days, but was returned to me lethargic and noticeably thin.

here she was the morning before I dropped her off, she is young but she was eating eagerly, moving around, full of life

they returned her back to me like this, she lost so much weight her scales had started to fold out. They called me twice while I was on vacation, saying she regurgitated her food a couple times, they didn't stress enough how much weight she lost while in their care. They even charged me over $300 for a fucking x-ray (where they found nothing) and told me to bring her in next week, what a fucking joke that she couldnt even survive until then. The vets I left her with had me sign a waiver for the boarding so I genuinely don't think I can hold them accountable for this, I feel so utterly broken and powerless that there was nothing I can do in the couple days I had her to help her recover.

I was so fucking excited to see her grow up, to learn more about her and cherish our journey through life together. I had grown so attached to her over the short time we had, it's so fucking unfair that she had to be taken from me like this.

she deserved so much better.

[murkthegator]

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!

[chimericmacandcheese]

Freak on the Streets

[chimericmacandcheese]

please take this faygo sbubby because there's no way i could post it on r/sbubby

[chimericmacandcheese]

a needlefelt blue-ringed octopus as a gift for a close friend :)

the suckers on the bottom took a long time to make but i really wanted to get all the little details to really make it feel more realistic (it also turned out bigger than i expected, it’s double the size of the average blue-ringed octopus)

[chimericmacandcheese]

snek

[chimericmacandcheese]

i think she likes it

[chimericmacandcheese]

snek

[chimericmacandcheese]

i love embarrassing scammers real time take yo goofy ass back to facebook BEYOTCH