I didn't know Cornell had a forum. Anyhow ....
It was years ago when as a young child a sketchbook was bought. Not long afterwards it was transformed into a sort of collage; one page for each letter of the alphabet - with stickers or drawings [by parent] of birds whose name that letter began. It was discovered years later, several pages short of an alphabet; but still a good find.
And of relevance to my life it has become once again; as I have set out to create 26 artistic tiles based off this sketchbook, using mainly Blender [to model birds] and Krita [to compose scenes].
'A' didn't take that long to finish ... but 'B' I set out to finish to really finalise the idea of doing the project. Comparing these two to later ones, I think there is some anatomical weirdness, prior to my total familiarisation with what I was doing - but still they are nicely composed I think. 'A' was mainly made up as I went along, but with B I had an idea in my head of a sort of taxonomic tree of evolution ... which came out in some form. And 'B' comes second in the alphabet, so sexual dimorphism is something here that I wished to convey. So that each sexually dimorphic bird has either sex present.
'C' took more effort and time however, both in compositing and making the birds look as they should. 'B' and 'C' are the most species-rich so far, 'B' has 21 different species [but only 20 that need naming!], and 'C' has 15.
'D' is an emptier scene, by comparison. It comes fourth in the alphabet, so I tried to capture, amongst other things, the four states of matter. See if you can find them. Four of the bird species here are alive today as well.
'E' is exciting from an artistic point of view I think. Plenty going on. It comes fifth in the alphabet - so I had a go at implementing the five senses somehow - as can be seen with the vulture, penguin, elf-owl and eagle-owl. The fifth sense is one more important to many humans than birds. Maybe.
I think 'F' I will post as separate message.
What I quite like about this project is the room it allows to expand ideas and improve over time - and I think between the first and latest tile one can see improvement happening. And I like that.
'A' didn't take that long to finish ... but 'B' I set out to finish to really finalise the idea of doing the project. Comparing these two to later ones, I think there is some anatomical weirdness, prior to my total familiarisation with what I was doing - but still they are nicely composed I think. 'A' was mainly made up as I went along, but with B I had an idea in my head of a sort of taxonomic tree of evolution ... which came out in some form. And 'B' comes second in the alphabet, so sexual dimorphism is something here that I wished to convey. So that each sexually dimorphic bird has either sex present.
'C' took more effort and time however, both in compositing and making the birds look as they should. 'B' and 'C' are the most species-rich so far, 'B' has 21 different species [but only 20 that need naming!], and 'C' has 15.
'D' is an emptier scene, by comparison. It comes fourth in the alphabet, so I tried to capture, amongst other things, the four states of matter. See if you can find them. Four of the bird species here are alive today as well.
'E' is exciting from an artistic point of view I think. Plenty going on. It comes fifth in the alphabet - so I had a go at implementing the five senses somehow - as can be seen with the vulture, penguin, elf-owl and eagle-owl. The fifth sense is one more important to many humans than birds. Maybe.
I think 'F' I will post as separate message.
What I quite like about this project is the room it allows to expand ideas and improve over time - and I think between the first and latest tile one can see improvement happening. And I like that. 
Here's the most recent tile - 'F'. A cityscape of flamingo's fabrication; as well as statues erected for fair fellows of former. 'F' comes sixth in the alphabet, and some hands have six fingers....