dedennedillo
New member
It must have been a good decade, give or take some years, ago when at home a new thing arrived to excite myself as a young child; namely an empty sketchbook.
The thing to excite any child, truly.
But the wonderful thing about the sketchbook, however, is that it is only as empty as one leaves it. Either one can stare at its pages for eternity, its entropy untapped, or pick up a pencil and fill it with things and ideas and such.
And this particular sketchbook had its destiny foretold; for it would become a rather stimulating alphabet book to arrange. Each page had its respective letter, written in upper and lower-case, as should be with any alphabet book worth its salt, before placing into it stickers from other books of birds with whom their name that letter began.
The book was not to be a literary aid; I believe at whatever young-child age I was then I knew the alphabet from memory; but rather - one thing that consumed these years was the aesthetic joy of alphabetising things. Animals in particular.
And so it was that the 26 pages were filled, with birds either stickered or drawn [by parent]; and the book was skimmed through, mangled, and then forgotten of.
Until around the year 2018, that is. It would be found once again; but with several of the pages missing; but not most of them. Gone south for the eternal winter.
I have since made new pages to make up for what was lost; and all of the pages; new and old; live happily in the security of a folder.
But having found this thing again, it has consumed my attention on occasion. And now, it consumes me again with a new project - to create all 26 of the pages as artistic tiles.
As of writing; but not necessarily for much longer; the first five lettered-tiles; A through E; have been completed. With 'F' progress yet continues.
Here are the first two tiles. The birds are all modelled in Blender and texture-painted in Krita; and their environments are made in Krita as well. I think here I was getting my hands dirty with the process; one which I would learn to get used to going on. These tiles I think were merely to tell myself I could progress beyond the first. I don't like cliffhangers.
'C' was one I think I liked more artistically and anatomy wise as well. There are 15 species here; all but one of which alive today, depicted as alive. For extinct species I have resigned them to the fate of being background elements or inanimate props.
Here are the two most recent tiles. I think I like 'E' more both on artistic merits and the variety of species; but 'D' I think came out nicely as well. What I like to do with these tiles is to include some sort of puzzle; with 'E' it is that 'E' comes fifth in the alphabet so I had a go at incorporating the five sentences into the tile. You have it that the Emperor Penguin represents smell, the Elf Owl represents sight, the Elf Owl in the back represents hearing, and the Egyptian Vulture taste. The fifth sense, touch, is to be discovered once the braille is reproduced and successfully 'read', by someone blind or knowledgeable. Then you can figure out what is really going on in the background.
Here is then a glimpse of what is being worked on for 'F'!
One thing I have quite enjoyed about this project is the good bit of research I have done for each bird species; using the process of creating each tile as a learning opportunity for myself of sorts. All of these birds have inhabited my mind for some time now; but in depicting them I am happy now to get to know all of them better - I learned much about the birds I am depicting during work on the project that I did not know before. And I hope that once the series has reached completion it can instill an interest in someone of ornithology as well!
The thing to excite any child, truly.
But the wonderful thing about the sketchbook, however, is that it is only as empty as one leaves it. Either one can stare at its pages for eternity, its entropy untapped, or pick up a pencil and fill it with things and ideas and such.
And this particular sketchbook had its destiny foretold; for it would become a rather stimulating alphabet book to arrange. Each page had its respective letter, written in upper and lower-case, as should be with any alphabet book worth its salt, before placing into it stickers from other books of birds with whom their name that letter began.
The book was not to be a literary aid; I believe at whatever young-child age I was then I knew the alphabet from memory; but rather - one thing that consumed these years was the aesthetic joy of alphabetising things. Animals in particular.
And so it was that the 26 pages were filled, with birds either stickered or drawn [by parent]; and the book was skimmed through, mangled, and then forgotten of.
Until around the year 2018, that is. It would be found once again; but with several of the pages missing; but not most of them. Gone south for the eternal winter.
I have since made new pages to make up for what was lost; and all of the pages; new and old; live happily in the security of a folder.
But having found this thing again, it has consumed my attention on occasion. And now, it consumes me again with a new project - to create all 26 of the pages as artistic tiles.
As of writing; but not necessarily for much longer; the first five lettered-tiles; A through E; have been completed. With 'F' progress yet continues.
Here are the first two tiles. The birds are all modelled in Blender and texture-painted in Krita; and their environments are made in Krita as well. I think here I was getting my hands dirty with the process; one which I would learn to get used to going on. These tiles I think were merely to tell myself I could progress beyond the first. I don't like cliffhangers.
'C' was one I think I liked more artistically and anatomy wise as well. There are 15 species here; all but one of which alive today, depicted as alive. For extinct species I have resigned them to the fate of being background elements or inanimate props.
Here are the two most recent tiles. I think I like 'E' more both on artistic merits and the variety of species; but 'D' I think came out nicely as well. What I like to do with these tiles is to include some sort of puzzle; with 'E' it is that 'E' comes fifth in the alphabet so I had a go at incorporating the five sentences into the tile. You have it that the Emperor Penguin represents smell, the Elf Owl represents sight, the Elf Owl in the back represents hearing, and the Egyptian Vulture taste. The fifth sense, touch, is to be discovered once the braille is reproduced and successfully 'read', by someone blind or knowledgeable. Then you can figure out what is really going on in the background.
Here is then a glimpse of what is being worked on for 'F'!
One thing I have quite enjoyed about this project is the good bit of research I have done for each bird species; using the process of creating each tile as a learning opportunity for myself of sorts. All of these birds have inhabited my mind for some time now; but in depicting them I am happy now to get to know all of them better - I learned much about the birds I am depicting during work on the project that I did not know before. And I hope that once the series has reached completion it can instill an interest in someone of ornithology as well!
