Spider - Blog Posts
Credit to @maly_alkoholik._ on Tiktok.
Sorry for not posting much, I’m on holiday and doing Goretober
Here’s the artworks I’ve done so far.
⚠️Tw: blood, skull exposed, fake body. You have been warned.⚠️
jumping spiders and their babies
A few bugs seen this summer!
The East side of Île de la Table Ronde is the noisy side, with the motorway running on the opposite side of the river. It's also the side with the widest walking track, and it was teeming with grasshoppers! I noticed a couple had landed on my shirt and were just chilling (maybe interested in eating the fabric? I'm thinking of locusts, aren't I). @teamroquette took the photos as I was unsure how much I could move without them jumping off. Turns out they were really chill.
Other critters seen this summer include some seen at Oberkirch: bees working on flowers, that's a classic, and... some less fortunate insects.
Bonus - posted here because my sister will kill me if I post this on Instagram where she can see it: a spider hanging out by Nonnenmattweiher lake.
Desserts - Peanut Butter Cookie - Peanut Butter Spider Cookies
Jessica Drew
Spider Woman
Childe of the Darkhold
Mistress of the Black Blade
Icons!
Some more good news my film will be screening in Ghana on August 18th as part of the “Chale Wote 2016!” This means a lot to me, though I was fortunate enough to screen at festivals around the world, it’s now playing in my homeland for the first time! So I’m very grateful for this honor:)
CHARACTER DESIGN
FILM FESTIVAL
Hi!
Here’s the link to my TV Interview on “Divine Speech in African Traditionalism” which aired July 30, 2016. Feel free to check it out if you’d like! Also, here’s a rough sketch and detail of my Anansi “The Spider” character from my Graphic Novel comic (PHOENIX QUEST) Thanks!(O__O)
DIVINE SPEECH TV INTERVIEW LINK (Begins about 6mins in …)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaFqZrCOEZE&feature=youtu.be
Went out somewhere new yesterday and was lucky enough to bump into both forms of Maevia expansa male! Top images are the "tufted" morph and bottom are the "gray" morph.
They look absolutely nothing alike, and both males even use different courtship rituals to attract females! Like I've said before, the easiest way to differentiate this species from the much more common M. inclemens is to look for the bold white markings around the eyes of M. expansa, which are displayed in the pictures I have provided. The white is very bright and obvious, which makes distinction very easy, especially since jumpers love to look at you head-on!
Jumping Spider (Maevia expansa), female, taken May 8, 2025, in Georgia, US
A curious jumper making her way along a twig! She was not very happy with me but ultimately cooperated enough to get a single good picture. Like the Dimorphic Jumping Spider (Maevia inclemens), this spider's males have two different morphs: a "gray" morph that is gray with black stripes and bright orange palps and a "tufted" morph that is black with white legs and 3 black tufts of hairs above its eyes. The males of the species look nothing alike, which may cause them to be misidentified. This species can be differentiated from M. inclemens by the presence of white patterning on the head of the female and around the eyes of the males. You can also use locality, as they have currently only been found in Georgia and once in Tennessee.
Jumping Spider (Maevia expansa), female, taken May 8, 2025, in Georgia, US
A curious jumper making her way along a twig! She was not very happy with me but ultimately cooperated enough to get a single good picture. Like the Dimorphic Jumping Spider (Maevia inclemens), this spider's males have two different morphs: a "gray" morph that is gray with black stripes and bright orange palps and a "tufted" morph that is black with white legs and 3 black tufts of hairs above its eyes. The males of the species look nothing alike, which may cause them to be misidentified. This species can be differentiated from M. inclemens by the presence of white patterning on the head of the female and around the eyes of the males. You can also use locality, as they have currently only been found in Georgia and once in Tennessee.
Humpbacked Orbweaver (Eustala anastera), female, taken May 8, 2025, in Georgia, US
Some shots of a beautiful wild diamond... I intercepted her as she tried to web her way to the ground and placed her on a fallen tree in an attempt to get photos. Luckily for me, she curled up instead of running away! This spider is quite variable, some being brown like this and others having a coloration similar to lichen!
White-jawed Jumping Spider (Hentzia mitrata), female, taken April 22, 2025, in Georgia, US
A cute female jumper who thinks she's hiding from me! I absolutely adore this species—they're my little locals. I'm seeing lots of adult males about, so they're preparing to breed soon! Juveniles of this genus are usually unable to be IDed to species until they begin to gain their adult colors. H. mitrata juveniles retain their white legs while H. palmarum (Common Hentz Jumping Spider) and most others in the genus develop brown front legs and brown or black patterning as opposed to orange.
Crab Spiders (Genus Mecaphesa), taken April 12, 2025, in Georgia, US
Some crab spiders hiding underneath flowers! This is a known undescribed species, currently labeled "black tibia spot" (for obvious reasons) as far as I know. I see them pretty often hanging out, especially on fleabane flowers like this. Crab spiders are ambush predators, and most in the genus Mecaphesa lie in wait on similarly-colored flowers until a prey item (flies, beetles, and perhaps small bees) lands on it. The spider quickly overtakes its prey and hides underneath the petals of the flower to enjoy. A rather boring life for us, but these guys don't seem to mind!
Garden Ghost Spider (Hibana gracilis), taken April 4, 2025, in Georgia, US
A sleepy spider resting on a blade of grass. This lady didn't move at all while I was photographing her, and paid no mind to me crunching away in the leaves around her. While dozens of wolf spiders fled for their lives beneath me, she was living her best life, having a rejuvenating nap. I wish all spiders were this unbothered—they're so hard to photograph when they run away!
Whitman's Jumping Spider (Phidippus whitmani), female, taken March 28, 2025, in Georgia, US
A jumping spider lifer for me! I initially caught a glimpse of her while trying to photograph a bee and thought she was a mutillid. That was until she peeked back out of the leaves to watch what I was doing! She was an excellent model, turning in all directions and moving slowly and calmly so I could get the best photos I could. It's almost like she knew what was happening!
Orchard Orbweaver (Leucauge venusta), juvenile, taken March 18, 2025, in Georgia, US
Behold, a spider belly! In even the smallest orchard orbweaver, the orange smiley on their abdomen is visible. This is diagnostic for the species, along with 3 stripes that run down their cephalothorax, one down the center and 2 on the margins, but that isn't visible here. Those markings allow you to differentiate the species from Joro Spiders, which look extremely similar as juveniles. A smiliar species, the Mabel Orchard Orbweaver (Leucauge argyrobapta), is often confused with this one but can be distinguished (if not by range) by its blue hues and larger, more yellow smiley. This is only the case for some individuals, though, as females of the species are nearly identical and males can only be distinguished by the shape of their palps. Both are beautiful regardless!
Tube-dwelling Spider (Ariadna bicolor), female, taken March 18, 2025, in Georgia, US
Well, good news is that she definitely is living in a tube! Bad news is that it is no longer inside the log she was in, but instead on the chunk of wood I ripped off the log. This provides and excellent view of the nest structure, but doesn't serve very well as a home anymore. I put the wood chunk back as well as I could, but whether it was good enough is still up in the air!
Jumping Spider (Pelegrina proterva), male, taken March 18, 2025, in Georgia, US
My first angry face of the year! Regardless of his grumpy appearance, I missed him dearly this winter. These guys are quite common in my area, especially the males which like to climb the posts of my boardwalk to hunt. They're quite hard to distinguish from some other species in the genus unless you compare them side-by-side, but luckily this is the only species of this genus that appears in my normal hunting grounds, so I'd notice if they looked off. The females are a different story entirely, as is the case for most in Dendryphantina...
White-jawed Jumping Spider (Hentzia mitrata), juvenile male, taken March 9, 2025, in Georgia, US
I love this small baby man with his bald patch on his head... It's a little too early for it to be jumping spider season, but I'm still occasionally seeing juveniles out and about. As April comes in, the magnolia greens will begin reaching adulthood and breeding! Mitrata waits until a little later in the year, but that just means I get to see the awkward teens for longer!
Orchard Orbweaver (Leucauge venusta), female, taken April 28, 2024, in Georgia, US
A lovely young lady! I believe she's still subadult because she isn't very dark yet, but she's still beautiful! Orchard Orbweavers can be identified by the orange smiley face on the ventral (under) side of their abdomen, which you can see a bit of in this image. They're one of the most common orbweavers in my area—absolutely all over grasses and shrubs during the spring!
Tan Jumping Spider (Platycryptus undatus), female, taken October 28, 2023, in Georgia, US
A head-on view of a small jumping friend! You can see her tapping her palps on the post as she moves, likely for extra sensory input. She was quite wary of me, but she was nice and allowed me to take a nice video and get a couple pictures! Tan jumpers have such fuzzy faces, unlike most other jumpers I see, and that gives them extra cuteness points in my head!
Magnolia Green Jumping Spider (Lyssomanes viridis), juvenile male, taken February 7, 2025, in Georgia, US
This streak of warmer weather has reawoken the magnolia greens, and I am very happy to see them again! I saw two individuals this day, both juvenile males. This one was very nice about jumping at the camera, while the first one proceeded to climb up my phone, onto my arm, and into my hoodie sleeve. I took off and inverted my hoodie, but I never found him so I suppose he dropped to the ground somewhere. His tricks worked for once!
Spider with fringe covering its eyes. That's it, that's the design.
Random lore bits from universe that exists in my head since like 4 years but i never wirte it down enywhere lets gooo.
Bees domesticated spiders long time ago, since they usefull at dealing with pests in hives, but only some of the spiders. Most species are dangerous predators making deadly traps. To diffirinciate beetwen them, fluffy companions are refered to as arnids (shortern arachnids) and wild remain spiders. Yeah that works like dogs mostly.
Unobvious difrence is spider food is sell as a large capsules to mimic slurping from exosceleton, and they have usually cobnests as their rest area. Also they are many breeds, and working spiders. One of most difficult one is spy-ders who are send to collect pheromone traces after someone (form of eavesdropping).
This one role is being a fluffy boi ^^
🥲this is giving many feelings.
God I wish we had this more in the films
thinking about the sully siblings and how Spider was smaller than them physically, but he was still their big brother, and the pure shenanigans it must cause.
like. they're so much bigger than him, but they no doubt still act like they're little compared to their brother at times.
like you want to tell me they don't hide behind him or lean over so they can rest their head on his shoulder or tuck under his arm. tell me they don't lay on top of him like he's their personal pillow.
its not odd to see all his siblings gathering around him, Kiri resting her head on Spi, while Lo'ak holds his arm, Tuk tucked against his waist, while 'tey rests his chin on Spi's head (he loves all the attention, even if he huffs and puffs like any good big brother). they look silly cause the kids have to crouch and twist and bend to use their brother as a leaning post, and he practically disappears under all their blue.
and that includes rough housing, even if it's unintentional. the kids jumping up for a piggyback ride even when they're nearly double if not triple Spider's size.
Tuk wanting to be carried around by her big brother all the time. Kiri accidentally tugging her brother too hard when excited to show him something. the boys teaming up against their brother when playing, forgetting he can hardly handle one of them, let alone both at once.
his siblings getting the rare chance for a sleepover and cuddling around him like a bunch of big cats. they're tucked around him, under him, on top of him, with just enough care to make sure he doesn't suffocate in his sleep.
when they need some loving, Spider has to beckon them down to give their foreheads a kiss or to wrap them up in a proper hug. Spider likes to tuck his siblings head to his chest with both his arms and squeeze them tight.
when he's got to give them a big brother chat, the kids have to be kneeled down so Spider doesn't have to stare up at them (he tends to kneel too, so they're eye to eye, cause when he looks down on them, they tuck their little ears and he feels bad).
like. they're just big babies that need their big brother to take care of them and love them, even if they're giants compared to him.