Brumation? Or Vacation?

"My skink is brumating! I miss her a lot – it’s weird to have a pet that just kind of… Checks out for several months on end. Meanwhile, my family have been joking that she must be vacationing elsewhere for the winter, so have a colored sketch of tourist Tillie.

For those curious, here’s what she actually looks like!

She’s pretty over-exposed in this picture, but I hope her lizardy beauty comes through! She’s such a cutie! Has quite the attitude, though… But we love her anyway, huffs and all!"

 - 2018 Brennan

Suited Up

"I really get a kick out of formal events for one reason and one reason only.

I meant to upload this a while ago, but just got way too busy and lost track of things, so have it now! I don’t usually draw self-portraits much, but this was a fun one."

 - 2018 Brennan


Man, I need to find an excuse to wear this thing again.

Wild Day

"(This is gonna be fairly autobiographical, so if that’s not your thing, you can just skip this post. But it involves cute animals! Well, ones that I think are cute.)

Today I’ve had probably the coolest day in my life when it comes to animal sightings and occurrences. It started off pretty early in the morning, even! My Dad was driving me, and we were just leaving the neighborhood when:

Wait… Is that….

It is!

IT’S MINI-MORTY! After not seeing him for a month, he pops up again (in camera quality that would make Bigfoot photographers wince). He very politely waited for us to stop before crossing the road in a hurried shuffle and shambling off into the bushes, presumably to find a good spot to sleep for the day. What a cutie!

Moving on: so, for the uninformed, I’m going to be getting a northern blue-tongue skink this year! I’m super excited, since I’ve been researching for over two years now, and I feel up to the challenge of obtaining a brand new scaly friend. (In case you’re at all curious as to what blueys are, imagine a stubby snake with a massive head and tiny little legs that look like they’ve been stuck onto their sausage bodies with glue. Or just Google it, I s’pose.) I’ve been chatting with various breeders for months, and I think I’ve finally found a specific breeder I’ll be buying from, which is sweet! And also super relieving – skinks have been popular pets the last couple years, so they get bought up fast, and they’re pretty hard to come by.

Finally, to close out the day, I was sitting and playing some Skyrim (as I do), when I heard my Dad shout “THERE’S A BAT IN THE BACKYARD!” I booked it over there, and realized that there wasn’t just a bat – there were five of them! I’ve never seen bats this close in action, since they’re pretty uncommon where I live, so seeing one of my all-time favorite animals (ever since I was five!) doing their awesome acrobatics in the air while I got to watch was almost surreal. It was so fantastic! The dog barking kind of ruined it, though. But hey, animals are animals."

 - 2018 Brennan

Beetle Boy

"And the interesting animal sightings around my house continue!

We found this little guy jumping around in our house today! I called my dad over to look a him, we snapped a couple pictures (during which my dad so graciously agreed to having the bug sit on his hand), and let him go. Afterwords, I did some digging on what he might be, and, according to the internet, he was a brown stink bug. Yeesh. As someone with a sensitive nose, I’m glad he was feeling docile today!

It struck me as odd that he’s out and about, since it’s currently pretty cold where I live. We’ve been having some sun the last couple days, so that’s probably what woke him up. Well, I hope wherever he is, he can find a good place to winter over before it gets too cold again. Good luck, little bug dude!"

- 2018 Brennan

Mini-Morty

"Look who came to visit my house last night! There’s an apple tree in the neighboring lot, so we’re betting this little guy dragged some apple-sickles under this tree to eat them safely, since we’ve seen him munching on them before. What a cutie! We’ve dubbed him “Mini-Morty”. I hope he comes back again!

Unrelated, but did anyone see the the lunar eclipse last night? It was pretty cool! It never got extremely red like it sometimes does, but it had a nice russety tone."

 - 2018 Brennan

3D Morty

"Hey guys! Check it out! It’s Morty! (Looking less like a flailing air-filled balloon-man, I might add. Though he is pretty full of hot air on a normal day.) Woo, I’m glad to have him done! This is my first model that’s both asymmetrical and posed, which I think turned out pretty well! I stuck to a simpler type of coloring for his texture this time, since I thought it would fit his simpler character design (and also because textures are hard to do and I hate them). I’m not positive yet, but I might have this guy printed by Shapeways, so that I can have a tiny Morty of my very own sitting on my desk and judging my every move.

I’ve still gotta figure out how to render without shadows… Oh, and if anybody’s curious, here’s what his texture looks like:"

Loads of fun, there. Can you pick out which piece is which? Since… I made it, and I honestly still can’t."

"Hey, so, remember that 3D model of Morty I made a while back, where I said I wanted to get him 3D-printed? I did! AND BOY DID HE TURN OUT AMAZING!! I got him printed in color sandstone! Shapeways did such a fantastic job! I have a tiny Morty of my very own, now… This is the coolest thing!

(And yes, those are copious amounts of Thin Mints cookies in the background, if you were at all curious.)"

 - 2018 Brennan


Another combined post! I just figured I'd both pieces of this chronicle into one post.

Sadly, Morty has since broken his fingers off... And we've lost one of them. So he's either getting updated and reprinted or we're going to have to make him a replacement finger out of something. Also, a word to the wise: color sandstone doesn't take super glue that well. Do not release your hold on the extremely tiny, seven millimeter long finger after only ten seconds after you think the glue has cured when in a large shop with a bunch of debris and wood shavings all over the floor (most of which look exactly like said finger).

I speak from experience.

I’m Sick (of Blender)

"So, I’ve been super sick for the last week in the worst minor illness I’ve ever had. As a result, I’ve been both super bored and in constant, ceaseless discomfort. To pass the time, I’ve been attempting to learn how to use Blender (for anyone who’s wondering why I’m having so much trouble with a kitchen appliance, it’s a free 3D modeling / animation software), and the best way that I can describe it is if, in order to learn how to sculpt a clay vase, you first had to learn how to send signals from your brain to your hands to get them to move in proper ways, even if you knew how to make that vase conceptually.

Needless to say, it’s… Frustrating. I could make this out of clay so easily. I just want to stick my fist into the monitor and get the object to do my bidding myself… But I think that’d do more harm than good, really, being that I’d probably be down either a computer or a hand.

It reminds me of learning to use Photoshop Elements all those years ago when I was first starting to get serious about drawing digitally… Learning to use a completely new tool isn’t something that I’ve had to do for a while, and it’s a bit of an unpleasant shock. But I can actually move the camera around without causing Armageddon now, so there’s that."

 - 2018 Brennan


And just recently I adapted an Animal Crossing 3D model to a properly printable STL file! How far I've come.