Bubo ascalaphus and the wanderer man
“The Pharaohess, the Great Queen… She guides me through this endless desert, She knows every corner of it. She’s the only presence in this entire desert and I owe Her my submission and devotion. Uhoo? Uhoo!”
-–
Alt-text: a digital drawing depicting a bearded man, seen in profile, walking across an endless desert, while an owl (meant to be a Bubo ascalaphus, Pharaoh eagle-owl, a large-sized owl native to deserts, with deep orange eyes, prominent ear tufts and strong physiognomy) is perched on his neck. The man, wearing marine purple trousers and marine blue shirt, walks barefooted over the sand with some difficulty, seemingly weary, while he looks downward at his hands, which are extended next to his waistline with the palms facing up as if he were carrying something on his hands (but there’s nothing being held). The owl, in contrast, is chillingly calm and simultaneously focused, asserting dominance over the man as she looks at his face with the same focused (and majestic) look that of when owls are watching a prey. Her head is slightly tilted leftwards (in relation to them; to us viewers, it’s towards us), adding to an uncanny tenderness. Behind them, a deep red sky typical of late dusk blends with the sand at the horizon, while an enormous red crescent moon emits a deep red glow, a glow of which is the source of light for the entire scene (shadows are cast on the ground).
-–
Originally, my drawing involved a bit of blood (where the owl’s claws meet the man’s neck because, in fact, it’s something quite expected if an eagle-owl were to perch onto someone’s neck with all her mighty, as her claws seem very sharp, more so than other owl genera) and the man only wore trousers (no nudity because there’s not even a detailed chest, but the lack of a shirt may be seen/understood as so), so I made a more family-friendly version (no blood and he’s wearing a proper shirt) in order to make it fully NSFW-free. The original version can be seen in my PixelFed gallery.
Also, I wanted to have a time-lapse of my drawing, just like I recorded for the previous drawing (Athene cunicularia, burrowing owl) I posted here. However, drawings such as this one tend to be more complex (this drawing has 33 layers, some of which use composition modes such as “linear burn” and “glow”, which uses a bit more GPU; in comparison, my Athene cunicularia drawing involved just 13 layers and no composition mode), making my phone more prone to hiccuping/hanging/crashing during my drawing sessions (and recording a time-lapse is, itself, additional GPU load alongside the load from the drawing app).
Is there a birthday? Someone’s bringing cake!
@acockworkorange@mander.xyz @artshare@lemmy.world
Um, sorry? No, today’s not my “cake day” (or account’s “birthday”, as some people seem to call it); for this Sharkey/Calckey profile of mine, it’s July 13th… but I personally don’t see a purpose in commemorations regarding the specific day and month when a Fediverse account was created (this “cake day” thing seems to be part of a Reddit-inherited part of Lemmy culture; as Reddit wasn’t exactly a part of my digital existence, it’s a social concept I don’t really comprehend).
The man in the drawing has a big butt.
Bonus: I built a behind-the-scenes layer disclosure, followed by a comparison between the drawing and real photos of Bubo ascalaphus.
The real photos are included so anyone, regardless of knowing this specific species, can have a visual reference to compare and notice the origin for each specific aspect seen in the drawing. It seems overly specific to depict the exact species/genus among many, because it is: my intention was to depict a very specific, Bubo ascalaphus owl, just like my previous art was intended to depict an Athene cunicularia owl. The reason is because both species and their genera have very specific, symbolic (and esoteric/religious) meanings to me.
For the layer disclosure, I exported my Sketchbook project as a .psd (Photoshop file, because the layers within the Sketchbook’s .tiff project file are only recognized by Sketchbook itself), then I imported it using GIMP, then I isolated each layer specifically building up the depiction of the owl (other layers are related to other parts of the art such as the man, the landscape, the sky and the crescent moon), then I copied each layer against a transparency mesh pattern and rearranged them into the diagram-like arrangement you see.
