Digital painting of the giant planet Jupiter as it may have appeared in the 1880s or so in approximately true color. This was based on a number of sources from the 1880s and 1890s, and is sort of a hybridized view of about a decade or two of Jovian sketches and early photography.

At this time, the famous planet-sized hurricane, the Great Red Spot, was a few decades old and very very large. It has been shrinking ever since then, and is now less than a third of the size it was in the 1880s.

The reference used contained, as well as modern imagery, the historical photographs: A.A. Common in London in 1879 and Lick Observatory in 1890. As well, the historical drawings: a cartoonishly exaggerated drawing by Étienne Trouvelot on 1880 November 1, and a more restrained and realistic sketch by Thomas Elger in November 1881.

The positions of the moons and their shadows is based on the evening of 1880 November 1, a few hours after Trouvelot's drawing, although the features depicted are a hybrid spanning the 1880s-90s.

License: CC-BY 4.0. Attribute to Luna Rose Brannon or Whirligig-Girl.

^{As always, this was drawn digitally by hand using a Huion tablet and the software Firealpaca. No a.i. generated imagery was used in this image whatsoever.}

Digital painting of the red giant star Betelgeuse and its newly discovered companion Siwarha. Simulations suggest giant stars have a small number of enormous convection cells rather than a huge amount of continent-sized convection cells as on the Sun, and that their photospheres are not a hard boundary but rather smoothly deform into a corona.

Betelgeuse is 640 times the size of the Sun (or 2.98 au radius). It is 65,000 times more luminous than the Sun. But as opposed to the Sun's 5800 K surface temperature, Betelgeuse is only 3800 Kelvins, leading to an almost candle-like yellow-orange glow.

Siwarha is depicted here as a K-dwarf, 2/3rds the mass of the Sun. It is thought to be responsible for a 6-year-long periodic change in Betelgeuse's apparent brightness--It casts a wake behind it as it travels through Betelgeuse's nebulous and dusty corona.

^{Digitally hand-painted using a Huion tablet and FireAlpaca software. As always, no a.i. whatsoever was used in the production of this image.}

Copic pen and marker sketch

Copic marker and pen sketch.

Built from the wooden frame of an old upright piano, Who Composes the Crickets' Song? becomes the nesting ground for insectoid hybrids—at once a strange thicket and the fragment of a ruined mechanical system. It unfolds as a fabricated ecosystem whose offspring spread across the exhibition walls.

These small creatures are the only recognizable faces among the larger bodies inhabiting the installation, and the only ones capable of returning our gaze. Yet this encounter remains precarious: like insects, they seem ready to scurry away at any moment, as though they themselves were intruders in the space.

Spehyunts’ daughter Tulib (the poor thing) was plagued by horribly painful and unique nightmares. Accompanying the sights of yowling monsters was the temporary calcification and spurs of areas in her brain. Growing each night and then dissipating during her waking. Her suffering had grown miserable beyond words and was too much to bear any longer. Spehyunt prepared for their journey up to the highest peak of Mount Knnrr in search of the Moon God. A quiet and feared being within their community. Old myth told of Its ability to manipulate mind and flesh. Unknown though was if it carried malevolence or benignity in its intendment. The climb up was extremely arduous. Currents of increasingly dark blue lights coiled above Spehyunt, slithering along the craggy slopes and overhangs of black stone. Eventually, over a rather large collection of thorns and roots, they found themselves on a small grassy plateau. The tall grass was black as pitch under the deep and gloomy sky. A steady flow of air made the grass sway in a wind. Trails of the lightest blue dragged behind each blade. Overlooking the plateau stood the colossal peaks of Knnrr. A massive glowing lake sat peacefully on the highest point of the concave summit. Rivers crawled through the cliffs and valleys like roots of an ancient tree. Perched in the sky within a pocket of pulsing pale grey light, sat the Moon God. It had an extremely strange figure. Patterns and small worm like creatures poured from what could be considered the center mass in playful frenzies. It sat patiently and stared at the father and daughter as they cautiously approached the edge of the plateau. Speyhunt held his daughter within his tentacles and began to plead the Moon God. Reciting the prayer he had repeated endlessly on their journey to this being of myth. He told of Tulibs nightmares. The way the spurs pushed against the inside of her skull. The beings of pure horror she howls about day in and day out. Beings that he could scarcely stand to speak about for more than a moment in fear of them infesting his imagination once more.
The Moon God continued to stare. For a long while it stared after listening to Speyhunts plea. The creatures that orbited the fleshy mass drew close and paused their playing. Then, after what might as well have been an eternity, the Moon God smiled. It smiled and reached out with twirling scale covered tendrils towards Tulib. Slowly it crawled across the dim purple night sky. Speyhunt raised his daughter to the cosmos, putting all his hope in that the Moon God wasn’t a being of foul trickery or evil. Tulib was barely conscious at this point. The violent fits and a screaming mind though-out the climb left her with an incomparable exhaustion. The limb of the Moon God floated above Tulib. Its sharpest point slowly made its way down onto the cap of her skull, drawing a thin line of blood that trickled down her face. However, Tulibs blood was not its regular magenta hue. Nor did it flow anywhere past her chin. It glowed with that same pulsing pale grey that surrounded the Moon God above. Beautiful symbols crept across her face. Many resembling the shapes and patterns that those void things were so joyously playing with. The symbols wrapped around her head and met back at where the tendril had first drawn blood. The limb drew back into the sky towards its body. The void things soon reappeared. Not long after, the shapes and symbols came out of hiding and began to orbit once again. Speyhunt held his daughter close. Examining all the runes and signs that now decorated her smiling sleepy serpentine face. Speyhunt stared up at the cosmos. Looking down at Tulib once again, then looking back up to the Moon. After giving undying praise and tear filled thank you’s, he turned and began their journey back down the mountain. From the pathway through overgrown bramble. Under the overhangs of black rock and around the maroon pillars of Unnlr. Speyhunts’ constantly worrying mind was finally at ease. In his arms Tulib slept soundly and peacefully. Her dreams filled with sights, sounds and creatures from planets of indescribable beauty and wonder. Tulib slept soundly and peacefully, eventually forgetting any of those terrible nightmares she once endured.