This Is Why I Study Biology

Not to sound like a fuckin hippie but please for the love of god start noticing and appreciating the natural world around you. You don’t have to go hike the entire Appalachian trail or anything and I get that not everyone has access to the outdoors for various reasons, but just fucking … look around you when you’re outside. Notice the sky and the sun and the birds and creatures. Start caring about them. I’m begging you.

Gem's lighthouse

i made a character sheet. free to use as you wish, feel free to change whatever you want XD open source ass thing. spent all of ~maybe an hour on it.

Credit: the text in the insert-image box comes from this video, and the text for the top three lines (intense, complex, fruity) comes from this post. The actual image was made with the free NBOS character sheet creator, which is a sort of dated but free and solid text-layout sheet maker intended for ttrpg style character sheet creation.

Saint Pearl! This design is truly amazing I’m so glad I finally got to draw it digitally lol

My friends keep calling it the Mr. Beast dragon 😔

A Nargacuga I drew on the whiteboard in my dorm’s den tonight!

I may have severely shortened the lifespan of the blue marker,,

☀️🌸 Okami Amaterasu 🌸☀️

Sculpting process is under the break!

I made this during winter break using what I learned from making the Toothless sculpture. I used polymer clay this time and didn’t make it solid clay, which really helps the clay not crack.

I did not end up using the armature pictured above because the proportions were off and it was unbalanced.

I finished the details and put it in the oven along with her shield and rosary beads. In hindsight, I should have baked the base clay on and then added the details to that to bake again so I didn’t have to worry about ruining my work. Next time!

I made the beads hoping I could make the rosary work, but I didn’t have the right tools. Sent the beads to my friend to put holes in. I hope to finish that after the semester is over.

Once baked, I started painting. I got a new, thin brush just for this lol. I’m super happy with how I painted this whole thing, but oh my goodness I am so proud of that shield!

I also intended on the fire being translucent as I got translucent polymer clay for it, but not only was it crumbly and very hard to work with, it’s not even translucent!! At least not noticeably. Alas 😔

The shield is fully removable so I can swap out Okami’s weapons. Again, hoping to get the rosary to work, but I would also love to make one of the swords!

And that’s how I made an Okami sculpture! I wanna do a photo shoot with her now that it’s spring and there are flowers growing outside

Edit: I forgot to mention that I actually got sculpting tools for this too (great time for my combination Christmas and birthday gifts) so the details were much easier to make.

For Toothless, I used my tiny screwdriver I use for my clarinet screws and a mechanical pencil to get the details. It… worked I guess? Still not great lmao

wikipedia no longer being anywhere near the top of search results when looking up anything feels eviscerating

Made this for an event I’m planning on my Minecraft server! The idea is that every participant builds an arena in their base so every fight happens in a different part of the server. The arenas are going to be unique as people are encouraged to go wild with them. I know one participant is planning to build a maze arena! I’m excited for that one lol

This piece was a lot of fun because it was the first time I enjoyed making something in a while! Kinda went with a comic book look for it and I’m happy with it