Malmo's Museum @supermalmoart - Tumblr Blog

Making a hand painted mission patch

The sci fi project I've been working on and off for fifteen years involves a few missions into outer space and with that comes the opportunity to design mission patches. In real life, they look like this:

They can be quite complex and usually list the names of crew, but patches can also be made for unmanned missions and Earth-based operations.

I'm under no illusion that I'm any good at graphic design so the patches I create are nowhere near this elaborate. When I started, I made them with simple digital vector shapes with textures applied via layer effects. This is my favorite from that era.

I didn't find the process very fun however as I had little experience with vector art and never felt completely in control. This process works really well for creating reproduceable products like stickers and actual patches but I'm not making those, for the most part (I do have a Helen sticker on my keyboard). I'm making illustrations.

In 2020 I made this patch just for fun, unrelated to the project (obviously) and instead of mucking around with the shapes tool I worked with paper, pen, and watercolor. Instead of trying to make perfectly clean edges with physical media, I imitated the texture of embroidery.

This was way more fun than the old way and how I have done it from then on. Below the cut, I will show how I do it step by step.

#mission patch #tutorial #wip

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Departments of the Odyssey Program often get their own mission patches made. The Biosafety & Containment department was in charge of developing the barrier suit, a field capable hazmat suit designed to withstand the wear and tear of repeated outdoor use. They also developed procedures for decontaminating anything going inside or outside, using educated guesswork to determine the best way to disinfect alien materials.

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The Field Medicine department worked closely with Biosafety & Containment but their goals were often at odds. A rivalry between the two led to FM one-upping B&C on their mission patch, surpassing even the main Odyssey I patch in complexity. The eerily prescient design was based on Achilles tending the wounded Patroclus from ancient Greek pottery. It was redesigned after the return of Odyssey I.

#ilion #mission patch #the iliad

Departments of the Odyssey Program often get their own mission patches made. The Biosafety & Containment department was in charge of developing the barrier suit, a field capable hazmat suit designed to withstand the wear and tear of repeated outdoor use. They also developed procedures for decontaminating anything going inside or outside, using educated guesswork to determine the best way to disinfect alien materials.

#ilion #mission patch

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When I asked Jo why she wanted to take me to the museum, she said she wanted to know me better. Why she needed a museum when I was right there was a question only I could answer.

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The star walrus model exists! It's about a foot long in real life.

#ilion

When I asked Jo why she wanted to take me to the museum, she said she wanted to know me better. Why she needed a museum when I was right there was a question only I could answer.

#ilion #time dilation only works in your favor when the mission doesn't take years off your life

With seven crewmates to train, the shuttle simulator is always booked. Pilots and engineers get priority. For the geologists, a conference room will have to do.

#ilion #this drawing is brought to you by cable management

Let's go fishing. It'll be fun.

A botany podcast I listen to holds a book club and this month they happened to chose the next book on my to-read list, Annihilation by Jeff

#ilion #horror

Annihilation

#annihilation #southern reach

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Suntenna

Although yellow in color, the suntenna has features associated with black plants, particularly the hairlike microphyll leaves that interlock the way feathers do. The suntenna looks like a retrofuturistic spire crossed with a horsetail. Rings of descending size radiate from the stalk with the shadows cast by the top rings never overlapping the leafed portion of the lower rings. The plant seems to go out of its way to avoid casting a shadow on itself, while other plants utilize wind motion and darker pigment to make use of shaded foliage.

The leaves of black plants are filamentous and served by a single loop of vasculature. These are called microphyll leaves and are found on Earth in lycophytes, some ferns, and some gymnosperms, though their veins do not loop. Black plant leaves have barbules like those on a feather that can interlock with neighboring leaves and even neighboring fronds. They can assemble into structures resembling a complex leaf or hang independently like plume feathers. They can even form down for insulation in cold enviroments or for sun protection in exposed regions.

Suntennas usually angle themselves toward the sun and this is especially apparent in areas far from the substellar point. Plants growing near Ilion's terminator angle themselves to an extreme and have specialized structures for growing sideways.

Feather interlocking requires constant maintenence. Plants reproduce with haploid mobile offspring but these offspring can also be created as a worker caste. The mobiles of black plants are especially polymorphic. Males are adapted for flight or ballooning (in the case of suntennas and their relatives, by parachutes made of parental feathers), while females stay on the parent plant and are dispersed by animals. The workers of suntennas are about the size of grain mites and have claws specialized for parasite removal and feather preening.

supermalmoart

The suntenna is my favorite alien plant. I wanted to call it “plantenna” but Alex refused to use that name in the official report so I offered this name instead. The suntenna can grow to twice the height of a person or one and a half times the height of Alex. When I get home I will use my interest money to buy a real house and commission a sculptor to make me a suntenna garden out of shaped metal. I will hang birdfeeders off their limbs so they can enjoy the company of creatures that have golden feathers just like theirs.

supermalmoart

#ilion #speculative evolution

supermalmoart

Suntenna

Although yellow in color, the suntenna has features associated with black plants, particularly the hairlike microphyll leaves that interlock the way feathers do. The suntenna looks like a retrofuturistic spire crossed with a horsetail. Rings of descending size radiate from the stalk with the shadows cast by the top rings never overlapping the leafed portion of the lower rings. The plant seems to go out of its way to avoid casting a shadow on itself, while other plants utilize wind motion and darker pigment to make use of shaded foliage.

The leaves of black plants are filamentous and served by a single loop of vasculature. These are called microphyll leaves and are found on Earth in lycophytes, some ferns, and some gymnosperms, though their veins do not loop. Black plant leaves have barbules like those on a feather that can interlock with neighboring leaves and even neighboring fronds. They can assemble into structures resembling a complex leaf or hang independently like plume feathers. They can even form down for insulation in cold enviroments or for sun protection in exposed regions.

Suntennas usually angle themselves toward the sun and this is especially apparent in areas far from the substellar point. Plants growing near Ilion's terminator angle themselves to an extreme and have specialized structures for growing sideways.

Feather interlocking requires constant maintenence. Plants reproduce with haploid mobile offspring but these offspring can also be created as a worker caste. The mobiles of black plants are especially polymorphic. Males are adapted for flight or ballooning (in the case of suntennas and their relatives, by parachutes made of parental feathers), while females stay on the parent plant and are dispersed by animals. The workers of suntennas are about the size of grain mites and have claws specialized for parasite removal and feather preening.

supermalmoart

The suntenna is my favorite alien plant. I wanted to call it “plantenna” but Alex refused to use that name in the official report so I offered this name instead. The suntenna can grow to twice the height of a person or one and a half times the height of Alex. When I get home I will use my interest money to buy a real house and commission a sculptor to make me a suntenna garden out of shaped metal. I will hang birdfeeders off their limbs so they can enjoy the company of creatures that have golden feathers just like theirs.

#ilion #speculative evolution

This used to be the world’s deepest astronaut training pool. We purchased the launchpad, rocket and all, from a defunct aerospace company, another casualty of the satellite internet bubble.