lycomorpha

[lycomorpha]

[Siren wailing]... Big pink hawkmoth season is upon us. I repeat, big pink hawkmoth season. This is not a drill.

This is an elephant hawkmoth, warming up its wings & taking off. It's caterpillars are also magnificent chonks, and they eat rosebay willow herb (AKA fireweed in the US I think?) This is a perfect reason to do less weeding. Keep some weeds, get big pink hawkmoths like this one.

Thank you from the Moth Promotional Board ✨🦋🐾🛹✨

[lycomorpha]

My favourite micro moths are back!

So tiny.

So livid.

It's the furious grass veneers!

Furious garden grass veneers in this case, I think. Look at the rage in those tiny lil eyes. This is why I keep some long grass in my patch. Do less mowing, get adorably furious moths.

[lycomorpha]

Please enjoy this small blood vein moth. An A+ peachy moth pal to improve your day.

It's been a craptastic couple of weeks for mothing, but the weather is changing now 💖🦋🐾

[lycomorpha]

Heads up - my shop is open again at lycomorpha.etsy.com after a big handmade paint restock. (I know, the world is on fire, but small makers gotta keep going so here we are. 🙃)

There are new colours, replenished favourites, plus freshly baked 'Leaf-cycle' & 'Light on the Fens' sets.

Leaf-cycle sets are sold in aid of Medical Aid for Palestinians again - the best way to support them is donating directly at https://www.map.org.uk. But if you need an excuse (or just want some unique handmade watercolour paints) this set is ready to go.

Support your Tumblr-local paint-making bag of moths by dropping by here, or telling a friend. Thank you 💖🦋

[lycomorpha]

I'm grateful to have an amazing GP. I know not every spoonie has such good medical experiences & don't take it for granted.

Anyway, thanks to all the good clinical practitioners who make managing chronic illnesses a team effort, & who avoid the ableist shitslide. 💖

& may we all remember our meds.

[lycomorpha]

Buff tip moth. Another species from yesterday's trap. It's the best broken twig mimic, A+ camo, also has adorably flat fluffy face. Perfect moth pal, no notes.

[lycomorpha]

"Is this bad or are you trying to order a milkshake from Screwfix" might be my (UK-variant) response to dubious art criticism forever now. It's too perfect.

I feel like some people need to relearn Genre Expectations... "Man, this tragedy sucks!!! Why didn't they just do XYZ, then everything could have ended happily!!" well, then it wouldn't be a tragedy, would it. "Man, this lighthearted teen romcom is terrible, it's so sappy and unrealistic!!" Well, yeah. If it had been gritty and dark, it wouldn't have been a lighthearted romcom, would it. Is the writing actually bad or are you just trying to order a milkshake from a Home Depot

[lycomorpha]

Great prominent moth. Look at this fluffy beast. Behold it!

Flying kittens.

I rest my case, I will not be taking questions.

This moth feeds on oaks. Look after your local trees and you look after flying kittens. (And also all the birds that eat their caterpillars, and all the other good bugs that live in trees!)

Thank you from the Moth Promotional Board ✨🦋🐾🛹✨

[lycomorpha]

My little art shop has a selection of insect drawings in a. All one of a kind originals at affordable prices for gifts. https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheWeeOwlArt

[lycomorpha]

Finally put the last of the Insecta Deck ruby edition in my online shop here.

All the tucks have minor flaws so I'm selling them at a discount. I hate sending out things that aren't perfect but y'know what? I'd hate it more if these decks sat around forever & no-one ever played with them, just cos of small dinks in't tuck boxes!

Insecta deck was a fully illustrated poker deck I made in 2018-2019, with a different order of insect representing each suit.

I made the art for each card face in colour pencil, & drew each insect individually (no copy-pasting of bugs, even on the high number cards.)

Here are the receipts for that. (Also why am I like this, this is why my eyeballs hate me lol!)

Here's the link to the original Kickstarter for this deck, for anyone who wants to know more about the project.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1872216491/insecta-ruby-deck-minor-flaws-limited

[lycomorpha]

Good morning friends - lime hawkmoth, this is not a drill, I repeat, lime hawkmoth!

It's InverteFest week and look at this chonky jet-plane-looking pal that dropped by the moth trap! Here it is in the classic tail-up "you woke me TF up when??" pose. Sorry little buddy. Wouldn't fly off, so we coaxed it on to a tree & I'm hanging around so that it doesn't get picked off by a bird (although it's reasonably well hidden, but I worry... I have coffee and mini-eggs though, so it's all good.)

Moth trapping is a way to record and release local insects, no moths are hurt and they all get released afterwards (I try to put them somewhere well hidden though because of hungry birbs.)

[lycomorpha]

Today's mood:

Fuck all your binaries! Lichen doesn't care.

Be more lichen.

[lycomorpha]

Fun thing I've been doing this bank holiday weekend; starting work on the next Journal of Video Game Botany I'm making with my partner in botanical SciArt-crime, Dr. Maria Christodoulou. We've finally made up our minds to head to ancient Greece. I've been putting off doing an Assassin's Creed Odyssey zine because Maria 1) is Greek, and 2) has a botanical PhD. So... I have some anxiety that my part of this better be good, or she might not forgive me and her mum might never send me food again. Yikes! I think we finally have a plan, though.

AC Odyssey is one of my all-time favourite games, and I will never not love Kassandra. But working out how to botanise the world of this game was trickier than expected. Partly because we want to make each issue of JVGB different to the last, instead of just making it into a series of field guides. And partly because of our expectations of what we'd see, based on Greece IRL and what we know about its history....

Initially we thought about looking for plants in the friezes at in-game locations that have real-life equivalents with ancient wall art featuring plants. For example some of the Knossos friezes - one shows a blue bird on rocks surrounded by wild roses, lilies, vetch, and other flowers. But that didn't fly - most locations depicted in AC Odyssey have just 2 or 3 repeating murals throughout.

Wall art from Agamemnon's palace and tomb in AC Odyssey - based on art from real historical sites, but only a small number of the designs are repeated throughout the location.

The Cup-Bearer frieze - Reconstruction of frescos from the South Propylaeum of the Palace of Knossos

The same frieze in AC Odyssey is repeated across walls and rooms.

It's understandable that the complete body of known wall art for somewhere like Knossos wasn't replicated in its entirety! The game isn't intended as an ancient art tour, after all. Temple artwork was another source of botanical imagery in game, but suffered the same problem. Still, that's fair enough for a game not centered around botany. So we considered plants left as tributes in temples. But again, the items left in different locations were often generic and repeating. Although there are differences between temples to different deities in the game, the fruits and flowers we find in them didn't vary much. We needed a different kind of plan.

This temple from the Heraion of Argos in AC Odyssey has pomegranates and flower petals in the offerings... But so do many other temples in game.

The spring biome

Finally, we turned to the structure of the in-game world for inspiration. The landscape of ACO is designed as various 'biomes'. Some of the biomes are habitats, some are seasons. Think of them more as themes than biomes in a strict technical sense. Each region in the game had been designed to fit one biome/theme; spring, summer, deciduous forest, arid, volcanic, paradise islands, and underwater.

Unidentified seaweeds in the underwater biome.

So for each biome, we're going to choose a plant that exists both in-game and IRL, and explore its links to Greek mythology and culture. The drawings for each will be in the style of a particular type of ancient greek art - red and black figure potteries, mosaics, fresco, sculpture, etc.

Red figure pottery - Wedding of Thetis and Peleus. Attic red-figure pyxis, ca. 470–460 BC. From Athens, South side of Mouseion Hill.

~

That's the plan, and for this project I'm gonna write some posts and take you along with us. We haven't done that since looking into Medicinal valley's blush for HZD!

Choosing the plants is our first challenge. Some in-game flora are easy to line up with real species. Others... Not so much. Stay tuned.

[lycomorpha]

Super-fluffy muslin moth being super-fluffy.

The twig is because if a moth is wedged in an awkward corner of the trap, it's safer to persuade it onto a pencil or twig or summat. Avoids touching their delicate wings. Also gives you a good view of their fluffy trousers.

A+ good fuzzy moth pal, would recommend.

[lycomorpha]

Heads up - my shop is open again at lycomorpha.etsy.com after a big handmade paint restock. (I know, the world is on fire, but small makers gotta keep going so here we are. 🙃)

There are new colours, replenished favourites, plus freshly baked 'Leaf-cycle' & 'Light on the Fens' sets.

Leaf-cycle sets are sold in aid of Medical Aid for Palestinians again - the best way to support them is donating directly at https://www.map.org.uk. But if you need an excuse (or just want some unique handmade watercolour paints) this set is ready to go.

Support your Tumblr-local paint-making bag of moths by dropping by here, or telling a friend. Thank you 💖🦋

[lycomorpha]

Behold the adorableness of this nut-tree tussock moth and let your Monday be improved.

Moths are important pollinators who take over the night shift when bees go to bed. Look how fluffy it is - basically a tiny flying kitten that pollinates your garden!

Thank you from the Moth Promotional Board ✨🦋🐾🛹✨

[lycomorpha]

Uncharismatic Fact of the Day

This star isn't far away-- it's just very, very small! Parvulastra parvivipara is the smallest known species of starfish, with adults reaching only 1 cm (0.4 in) in diameter. What's even more interesting, the Tasmanian live-beaing sea star is a self-fertilizing hermaphrodite, and juveniles hatch and develop within their parents gonads before being released, making them ovoviviparous.

(Image: A trio of Tasmanian live-bearing sea stars (Parvulastra parvivipara) by John Eichler)