Ravenalla

Hi! You can call me Kay : pronouns are she/her: 23 PFP commissioned from https://rawbin69.tumblr.com/

[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 :')

[ravenalla]

hey i just read your post about meeting alex!

i hope you don't feel too bad about that whole thing. i've actually seen a few people in tiktok comment sections share similar experiences they had with him.

i know he mentioned being some flavor of neurodivergent, and he's pretty new to the con circuit, so i think there was a combination of those factors.

i'm sure if you ever get a chance to meet him again later down the line, things might go more smoothly.

Thank you for the reassurance anon. Yeah I definitely think the timing of it was also a factor, I knew about him being some level of neurodivergent too which is why I felt so bad. This was only my second con so I’m use to the actors I have met just kinda going in for the arm hold or asking me first if that was okay, so when he came to stand next to me I wasn’t really thinking about it. I guess all I can do is hope he wasn’t too upset by it and I can learn for next time if I ever meet him again.

[ravenalla]

Got to meet Alex Rochon at MomoCon! It’s was…alright? He seemed absolutely checked out, he spelled my name wrong initially and couldn’t really hold eye contact for a while, I felt bad cause he seemed absolutely exhausted. Then I made a little social oopsy, I got to take a picture with him but moved to wrap my arm around him which he seemed a taken back by. He wasn’t rude about it, just said that I needed to ask, which he is right I wasn’t really thinking cause that’s just how I’m used to taking pics, but ugh I felt sooooo bad. I know he probably wouldn’t even remember it 2 minutes later, but I really hope I didn’t make his experience worse :,)

[ravenalla]

BG3 fandom are we still alive

[dominolemon]

[kiru-tigrist]

TADC BackUp AU by @katzebruh

I don't think it will be the last time I'm drawing something related to this specific AU bc I'm addicted and it's Katze's fault

[ravenalla]

“Whoa people are talking about Villainous again on Twitter? Neat, I wonder what it’s about-“

and it’s just people roasting the shit out of Black Hat lmaooo

I do find that hilarious. On a serious note, I also completely understand why people might be turned off from the idea of him as a character (OP tumblr-sexy man teaches other characters from other shows how to not be incompetent doesn’t look great out of context) but like. pretty sure Alan had to get permission from all of the other CN show creators to even do those crossovers so I probably don’t think they give af if Alan has some “ultimate supreme villain” OC, most of the ones he talks shit on in the orientation videos are meant to be joke characters anyways. To me the entire thing of mixing the universes is just a case of cool idea, always gonna be controversial in practice. Black Hat works fine in his own world, he’s made to be an all-powerful Cthulhu-esque being too abstract to really understand that works from the shadows. Alan just also happened to love crossovers, which is where you get into dumb power-scaling “Goku could defeat Superman” territory that’s bound to make some people upset.

This is not me saying Villanous is a perfect show btw, I have plenty of problems with the writing and think BH could be expanded on a lot to feel more like a character and less of a set piece. I just think out of all the things you could be upset over, BH being OP in what was meant to be just fun little crossover shorts from years and years ago with shows that have long since ended is super dumb lol.

[ravenalla]

Etsy shop owners who write personalized messages/doodles to go with buyers orders I hope your both sides of your pillows are cold every night.

[cherryhatter-deactivated2015072]

KICK THE CAN!

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

To kick the can, reblog it. I wanna see how long this can go on for.

[ravenalla]

I miss Caine

[kiru-tigrist]

I think I should start drawing ShowTime like that more often

[crowttore]

Are you currently suffering from The Character?

[kiru-tigrist]

I have so much love for this ship, I can't even properly explain why I adore them as a couple...

But BRO, again, there was a lot of people on tik tok asking me "Erm actually we (95% it was a toxic (not a regular funbun shipper, you're good chams) funbun shipper) have EVIDENCE for our ship, is there any evidence for your ship??"

Is it a crime scene where you need to look for some fucking evidence...?

Anyways, you need evidence???

HERE'S YOUR EVIDENCE

Caine patted her on a head and then carefully put her back in place on her feet.

Mind you, episode 8, where he was fucking unstable and was having "FUN", and he was doing shit to them, but for this little moment, he softened, didn't throw her like a toy, GENTLY PUT HER BACK ON HER FEET.

SUE ME

But jokes aside, I don't have to explain diddly squat!

For me, these two are soulmates.

Don't open your mouth if you don't want to scream.

[kiru-tigrist]

It's not his fault that he's broken or that he doesn't know how to please people, even though he really wants to.

His anger is coming from a desire for love and approval.

He doesn't deserve to DIE for wanting to be needed TwT

*sob* My baby

[divine-dreaming-arts]

laughed at this part of the new episode. he turned her into a stress ball !!

[ravenalla]

Okay swear I’m done Caine posting after this BUT

Anyone notice this?

Bubble: “Maybe you’re just genuinely bad at this?”

Caine: “No, I fixed that! I can fix this.”

Maybe he was just talking about his attempts to create better adventures, but what I theorize this is actually referencing is the opening. Caine was a “semi-successful” AI, the red one outputting wonky looking shapes the more information he was fed. The blue one was the perfected one, creating perfect prompts to fulfill its purpose. Caine “fixed” his own inadequacy by “consuming” (probably killing) the other AI. Caine felt like he had to fix himself, and that’s what he thought he did. Caine has always known he’s a failure, and his whole existence has been desperately trying to change that.

Im gonna cry.

[ravenalla]

I want to talk about Caine, the amazing digital episode 8 spoilers under the cut , you’ve been warned

As a Caine fan, I know I’m biased, but it’s genuinely bizarre seeing so many people say that the ending of this episode Caine was “too far gone” and his death is a good thing that the cast can move on from. I’m not even meaning this as a “do you think Caine was justified” kinda thing, of course he wasn’t! I’m talking about from a writing perspective.

Like, maybe it’ll turn out I’m entirely wrong, but do people actually think the show that has spent its runtime exploring nuanced gray characters, diving into how metal illness doesn’t excuse your actions but can cause you to exhibit certain behaviors, reiterating that no one ever deserves to feel like they are not loved, is going to end with actually never returning to one of their prominent characters or giving him any sympathy because “yeah lol he was the evil AI fuck him”??? After showing his perspective, his insecurities, his torment, just like it did for all of the other characters? Not only would that be a massive disappointment, it also makes no sense with what we’ve seen of the previous writing of the show. Caine isn’t some random one-off addition, his strongest desire to feel useful and appreciated has always been apart of this show.

Like I promise you guys, Alex Rochon isn’t just not returning for the finale lol. Caine just isn’t dead, the day is saved woo, this whole thing is literally Caine’s character arc setup. Kinger showed regret over what he did, he didn’t want to delete Caine, he knew Caine’s code was messed up and his goal was to fix him. Caine 100% deserved that call out from the others, he genuinely has scary control over these people and disregard for their feelings because of his nature. He’s an antagonist. But if people can look past Jax’s attitudes and understand what Goose was trying to do and say with him, I feel like fans should be able to do the same with Caine, instead of immediately writing off as just as a one-dimensional villain who’s now dead because he did bad thing. Yes, they were really bad things, torturous bad things, almost like that is what makes him an interesting character! He was a ticking time bomb, a rubber band being stretched thinner and thinner until he finally snapped, just like Jax did, just like most people in the Circus did. The difference is Caine has God-like power, and he’s not human, so he’s fundamentally incapable of understanding like the rest of them. Him crashing out and doing bad things doesn’t suddenly not make him a tragic character, if anything I’d say it enhanced it. The entire message of the show is healing with the people you care about, that it doesn’t have to be that way. That you can find purpose and love even if you’re messy, even if you are lost and confused or feel like your reason for existence is gone, if you just open yourself up and try to connect with what you have. Caine doesn’t know how to try, all he knows is his code. As he said, he didn’t asked to be made.

Again, I have no idea to know if what I’m saying will at all be accurate, but lightning can strike me if the ending won’t be about them needing Caine back, about at least trying to reach out and understand him, not to forgive his actions, but to recognize he’s been a fellow prisoner with everyone else. Pomni, at the very least, has been shown to be hugely empathetic, and if anyone is capable of taking Caine’s last angry words to heart, I think it’s her. Caine was not written to be JUST an antagonist to be defeated, and it really sucks to see people that have always been assuming that despite watching the show suddenly feel like that’s what was being said the entire time based on this episode.

Caine is not a good person. But as Pomni literally points out in the beginning, they have all done bad things, and the point is now to be there for each other. Now it’s just a matter of seeing how that story will conclude, whether Caine can adapt and come to understand what he did and why his humans have been feeling like this, or him being doomed to be a tragic entity birthed into a role he can never fulfill. Either way, neither of these is a simple “villain getting his comeuppance!” ending this fandom for some reason insists should happen. It’s like y’all WANT the show to be written for people who can only understand characters surface level.