Bords.
I should probably change the title of my tumblr, since I have to admit that it has already led to a really neat interaction.
I drew this and, despite feeling shy about it, sent the sketches to the researcher. And she loved it! She said she was gonna print them out and show them to her colleagues and I was sitting there reading the email and going AAAAAAAAAAA. And then she asked if she could buy the originals! And also asked if she could commission me for another kestrel drawing!! I was totally blown away. I mean, I feel like I'm still clawing my way back into drawing, and I haven't been feeling super confident about my skills, so this was completely amazing. Sorry, I know it sounds like I'm tooting my own horn here, but really I'm just so thrilled about this connection I've made, and am grateful for this whole situation.
Anyway, I sent her the high-res sketches (for free, how could I charge anyone for that stuff), and asked her if we could do an exchange - one of her photo prints for my drawing. So that's the plan! I am super excited about this. Though I'm also kinda concerned that I don't really know what I'm doing; it's been ages since I've done any proper illustration or digital painting. You can see some of the stuff so far here. I'm working at 200 dpi which I know isn't really as high as I should go, but I'm not used to large formats. When I'm working, I'm usually zoomed out to about 65%, which feels pretty comfortable. But it's still kinda strange. If anyone has tips or advice (about anything, really), I'd love to hear it.
But yeah - this is my current project. I hope I have time to work on it consistently; I've found that I still can't do much drawing during the week, but I do try to get a lot done on the weekend. I can pretend that I'm working as a scientific illustrator, which is a career I seriously considered for a while. If nothing else, it's great to be doing something that's making a rad scientist happy. She seems like a very cool person - not only does she like Mass Effect, but she writes stuff like this on her research project blog:
On Saturday, a male kestrel had some poop on his tail and he flicked it INTO MY FACE. I can't decide whether that is more or less disgusting than the time that I was dissecting a mouse tumor and it burst and squirted tumor juice INTO MY FACE. So the lesson to take from all of this is that if you become a biologist, there's a good chance that, at some point, gross things will end up ON YOUR FACE.
Man, science.
On a side note, I used to work directly with the admin for Boise State IR, and I remember seeing the Idaho Bird Observatory and the even cooler-sounding Raptor Research Center. I wish they would put more stuff from there in the IR, it's so interesting.
I drew this and, despite feeling shy about it, sent the sketches to the researcher. And she loved it! She said she was gonna print them out and show them to her colleagues and I was sitting there reading the email and going AAAAAAAAAAA. And then she asked if she could buy the originals! And also asked if she could commission me for another kestrel drawing!! I was totally blown away. I mean, I feel like I'm still clawing my way back into drawing, and I haven't been feeling super confident about my skills, so this was completely amazing. Sorry, I know it sounds like I'm tooting my own horn here, but really I'm just so thrilled about this connection I've made, and am grateful for this whole situation.
Anyway, I sent her the high-res sketches (for free, how could I charge anyone for that stuff), and asked her if we could do an exchange - one of her photo prints for my drawing. So that's the plan! I am super excited about this. Though I'm also kinda concerned that I don't really know what I'm doing; it's been ages since I've done any proper illustration or digital painting. You can see some of the stuff so far here. I'm working at 200 dpi which I know isn't really as high as I should go, but I'm not used to large formats. When I'm working, I'm usually zoomed out to about 65%, which feels pretty comfortable. But it's still kinda strange. If anyone has tips or advice (about anything, really), I'd love to hear it.
But yeah - this is my current project. I hope I have time to work on it consistently; I've found that I still can't do much drawing during the week, but I do try to get a lot done on the weekend. I can pretend that I'm working as a scientific illustrator, which is a career I seriously considered for a while. If nothing else, it's great to be doing something that's making a rad scientist happy. She seems like a very cool person - not only does she like Mass Effect, but she writes stuff like this on her research project blog:
On Saturday, a male kestrel had some poop on his tail and he flicked it INTO MY FACE. I can't decide whether that is more or less disgusting than the time that I was dissecting a mouse tumor and it burst and squirted tumor juice INTO MY FACE. So the lesson to take from all of this is that if you become a biologist, there's a good chance that, at some point, gross things will end up ON YOUR FACE.
Man, science.
On a side note, I used to work directly with the admin for Boise State IR, and I remember seeing the Idaho Bird Observatory and the even cooler-sounding Raptor Research Center. I wish they would put more stuff from there in the IR, it's so interesting.