B

this was a real blog a decade ago

[disgustinggf]

[ahotknife]

YOU don’t have to be perfect to be loved. but I do

[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 :')

[fagcrisis]

i hate the word spicy can we bring back calling things erotic

[maryoliveoil]

rolling up to Wendy's to get an erotic chicken sandwich

[kosmogrl]

[udunie]

Okay guys, so on the eve of getting rid of our fucking authoritarian leader, I will tell you how we did it, despite the governments overwhelming media presence and fucking undercover operations against the opposition.

It was actually said best by a Hungarian comic, I'm paraphrasing a bit: If your house is on fire, you can't be like 'well that's not the fireman I imagined'.

I know it's been said a thousand times before, I know everybody is raging against having to vote for a less than ideal candidate, but today has proven that it fucking works. It's the only thing that works. And if the new guy is just a step closer to what you want? That's a fucking win. That's a fucking step in the right direction.

Is Péter Magyar going to usher in gay marriage and UBI? No. But he's not going to ban pride, like Orbán tried. Is he going to cut all ties with Russia? Probably not, but is he going to make sure that we stay in the EU? Fuck yeah. And over Orbán, that's a fucking improvement, and I will take it gladly.

[ralfmaximus]

Don't let 'better' be the enemy of perfection, writ large!

[zendeyas]

Zendaya wearing ASHI STUDIO – Euphoria premiere

[zendadya]

SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY (2026) dir. Destin Daniel Cretton.

[sybbalb-deactivated20221228]

me remembering when i was nice when i should have killed them

[casscainmainly]

People demand fans of colour to be soft & gentle & have articulate thought out criticisms at all times. Never be wrong never be loud never be mean you have to coddle White fans and creatives, otherwise you're part of the problem. Never mind that your whole experience in fandom has been one macroaggression after another. Never mind that fandom can never be your escapism, because the discrimination you face in real life is often present in both the media you love and the fandom you participate in. Never mind that even when you are soft & gentle & articulate people will still get angry. Just shut up and let White people go to their beautiful fantasy world where people like you don't exist

[donuts4nal]

[ageae]

[sprinkledsalt]

So many people who love generative AI don't have a creative bone in their body and can't imagine anyone actually enjoying the time and effort it takes to write something or draw something.

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

for all their talk about "now anyone can make art", they don't actually want to make art, they just want to have art

[sprinkledsalt]

This post is getting a good bit of notes, but I think these tags sum it up best. When people point out that the genAI stans literally did not write anything, a lot of them get defensive like "BUT I TYPED THE RIGHT QUERY INTO THE TEXT GENERATOR SO I STILL DID SOMETHING!!!"

That's like saying you made Chinese food because you picked up a phone and told the guy on the other end what you wanted! (Except at least you'll get what you expected from a restaurant order, whereas AI still hallucinates bullshit quite a bit)

[un3ndingtragedy]

it’s actually awful in every single field. so many people rn are doing phds and outsourcing the research

[azertyrobaz]

Not anymore. They ruined it.

[tzthrowbacks]

1) ouch the list was not necessary

2) the side by side is killing me, tom's 🥹 face is truly one of a kind lol like i get emosh just by looking at it

[un3ndingtragedy]

[zapbib24]

The Zendaya Cinematic Slapverse

[eroscestlavie]

Nice to Me November

Don’t Be Mean December

Just be Sweet January

Friendly February