Nada

This past week had the potential to become extremely stressful in our corner of the world. In order to take care of myself mentally, I took the week off from streaming, despite missing the company, and focuses my energies around the house and on spending time with our little family.

Someone was very happy for the extra cuddle time!

I did do some more research into ball python hatchlings so I've got a better idea of how to try and make 1:12 scale hatching eggs. The metaphorical wheels are also spinning about a roombox to display my mini pythons in.

With that, I'm back to streaming on schedule, excluding during thunderstorms, on Monday. I have no idea what I'm going to work on though. I'd better get that figured out and finish up some housework today!

See you next weekend!

Back Home

It's hot and miserable here. Plus FuzzyHusband and I just got home from visiting family, so I'm just going to leave you with this ball python sketch I did last week. Now to find somewhere to cool off...

See you next weekend!

Last of the First Round

I am finally caught up with painting all the miniature adult ball pythons!

First up is the Axanthic Leopard Pastel Spider - Snake Keeper Line. Photo of the morph can be found here. The body was one of the last I sculpted, so his proportions are good. Plus he's in a more "ball" pose, typical of these snakes. His markings were fun to do, even if his pose made some of the painting difficult.

Then I started trying to paint stripes. It's hard enough painting stripes, but when you try and paint stripes onto a sinuous body... I must be mad.

The Gabija was my first try.  It's a gorgeous morph and caught my attention with the stripe down it's back. I'd never seen stripes going that direction on a snake before. Looking back on it now, I went way too fast. Stripes require at least 3-4 hours of time commitment to paint.

Then I tried my hand, and patience, with the Caramel Albino Genetic Stripe. Another pretty snake that has many stripes. I spent more time on this one, but not enough. It's an improvement over the Gabi though.

And finally, the Banana Super Stripe. I gave my viewers on stream a choice between this morph and another Banana morph with stripes. This one won with a vote of 2 to 1. I'm planning on doing the other one in the near future. (Please pardon the dratted cat hair that I missed on the cloth!)

Now that all 10 adult/subadult bodies are painted, I will be making a few more adult bodies but I'll be doing them one at a time. I want to change a few things based on what I learned making the first tries. And I'd like to keep better track of when each one is sculpted. It will make it easier to see improvement over time.

I still have my hatchling experiment to finish up as well. Only one clutch is painted, but won't be completed until I make the egg shell sections. I'll likely focus on the hatchlings this coming week. Hopefully I can show off a successful experiment next weekend. Take care until then!

Moar Sneks!

Or More Snakes for those who don't speak "internet."

Between the holiday and Thursday being mini club day, it was a short streaming week. But I did get four more mini ball python morphs painted.

A little background on python morphs. There are many genes that will breed true and they have names like: Axanthic, Bee, Lesser, Mojave, Disco, Enchi, Ghost, Gravel, Albino... the list really goes on and on. So when you see a morph called Banana Pied Disco, you know that the snake carries genes to be yellow (Banana), piebald, (Pied), and have some interesting patterns and shading (Disco).  There's more to it than that, but that's the basics. If anyone feels like diving into the rabbit hole that is ball python morphs, I suggest this page as an awesome starting point.

First up is "Angry Pretzel Snake." That's his name, not his morph. We (chat and myself) decided the snake in the reference image didn't look happy to be photographed, so the mini was thusly named. The morph is called Ultra Pied.

I'm happier with the paint job than the sculpting I did on his face. He looks like he's smiling. Snakes don't smile. They're the kings and queens of poker face. Ah well. He was one of my earlier sculpts, so I'm not going to complain too much. That's what practice pieces are for.

Then I tried my hand at the Orange Ghost Mojave. I used one of my nesting females for this one.

Again, she's one of my first sculpting attempts, so she's not perfect. By why waste the chance at painting practice? I do like how most of her colors turned out. I think the purples needed to be grayed out more.

Next up was the Albino Black Bee. This snake was the last one I sculpted and it shows. He's much better proportioned than the others.

I'm extremely happy about the way his markings turned out as well. I think he's my best overall at this point.

Finally I painted my other nesting female as an Anxanthic Fire Bee - Snake Keeper Line.

I'm happy with her paint job. There are some changes I'd make if the clay was still raw, but other than that, she's good. Incidentally, this is one of my favorite morphs. Such elegant looking animals!

That's all for now. I need to go attend to things in the real world for a bit. See you all next week!

Happy 4th!

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday tomorrow! See you back here next weekend!