[Art] Puerto Rican Amazon sketch for Losing Altitude.

[moonvoice]

Woot! Final one.

It's probably a good thing I stocked up on fineliners for inking, now that I think about it.
Birds are just so much fun to draw.
Yay feathered dinobirds!


Puerto Rican Amazon

Comments

[silverjackal]

Heh. The expression on the bird in the centre is priceless. :D (You can really tell that you have direct experience with living parrots, instead of drawing from photos in these, by the way. I may not be familiar with a particular *species* in the flesh, but I recognize the posture and the movement directly from others I have worked with.)

[moonvoice]

Heh, I lived with budgies, and parrots were one of my 'areas' when I used to do rehabilitation, and for the short period where I used to do tagging / observation (though that was more cockatoos). I often wonder about the huge wealth of information I miss simply not being able to co-exist with an animal or observe it on a regular basis. I do the best I can, but obviously nothing makes up for direct experience.

[redsixwing]

I love how you handle bird expression and movement. I'm pretty sure my budgies give me That Look (the one on the left is giving it) every single day.

[moonvoice]

Haha, budgies and their 'looks.' I like the 'this shit isn't going down this way' look, personally.

[fox_bard]

Very awesome!

[moonvoice]

Thank you! :D

[elinor]

I love your art SO MUCH. When our finances have settled down I am going to propose to tanais a perusal of your Etsy to purchase at least one original :-)

[moonvoice]

That would be awesome! In the meantime, I hope your finances settle soon - not for my sake, but because I know what it's like to have unsettled finances and it is unfun.

[raze]

Oh, I LOVE this. I live with two 'zons and you've captured them beautifully.

[moonvoice]

Oh really? That's so awesome, and thank you ever so much for letting me know! <3

[spider_fox]

ALWAYS YES TO PARROTS <3

[moonvoice]

THERE CAN NEVER BE TOO MANY PARROTS.

UNLESS IT'S EXAM TIME AND YOU'RE IN PERTH AND THERE ARE 100 RAINBOW LORIKEETS CLATTERING OUTSIDE. THEN THE COUNCIL WILL GET GUNS AND SHOOT NEARBY TO SCARE THOSE NOISY BASTARDS OFF.

[spider_fox]

Do they really?

[moonvoice]

Yep, actually, they do. Talking from real life experience there. There's nothing quite so shrill as 100+ rainbow lorikeets screaming at each other on a tree (and they do scream - because they fly at higher altitudes than most other parrots, their calls are shriller and higher and louder than average), and they can hang around for hours. It is absolutely *impossible* to focus on an exam when they're nearby. So most councils have given permission for them to be scared away with sound - gunfire usually works.

This video, for example, was taken with a smallish flock: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV5a6mEQA3s

It doesn't capture how ear-piercing they are, but it does capture how incessant the sounds are. If they're in trees right next to your exam room (as they were for ours), you can actually physically feel the sound as well. That's about 20 or so. 100 or so is simply awful.

I don't know if they'd do it if the exams weren't university entrance exams, but ours were, and the issue was serious enough that they were worried we'd have to resit the entire exam without it. Problems in Australia!

[ariestess]

they look so playful, especially teh middle one...

[moonvoice]

The middle one is a mischief maker!

[ariestess]

Ahaha! I thought so!