The Latest Geeky Decor In Our Collection, Inspired By Outer Wilds. Spoilers, Probably. Sorry.

The latest geeky decor in our collection, inspired by Outer Wilds. Spoilers, probably. Sorry.

So there are campfires in the game where you can pull out your trusty marshmallow-roasting stick and toast a few. The UI doesn't tell you this overtly, but they actually have the mechanical benefit of recovering hit points if they're toasted nicely. Most people just toast them because it's a cute little detail.

The game also has a supernova that happens at a certain point. If you happen to be at a campfire with your marshmallows out when the supernova hits, the supernova will actually toast your marshmallow (it'll go straight to "on fire," but that still counts as toasting it).

So I thought it'd be fun to do one of those "in case of ___ break glass" projects, specifically for this game.

Non-tutorial-style description:

The frame is a 6"x8" shadow box so as to sit comfortably on our bookshelves (we tuck decor among the sci-fi and fantasy novels). Unfortunately I didn't find one I could easily disassemble, so the inner frame (that holds the front clear panel in place) was securely glued. Since the frame was black with a white interior, this meant having to use painter's tape to try to protect the acrylic panel while I sprayed the outside red, and then being careful with sandpaper and a brush as I painted the inside black. You can still see white around the edges. Lessons learned: look for one that can be completely disassembled so I don't scratch/scuff the acrylic or get paint/tape on it by accident.

I don't have a handy vinyl cutter for the letters, so rather than track down someone who had one to cut the letters for me, I opted to have them printed on a backdrop instead. I added a high-res copy of the Outer Wilds Ventures patch from the game, and a starfield taken from the promo art. I'm actually happy with this look.

The marshmallow stick is made from three things. The stick itself is from a decorative apple branch from Hobby Lobby's floral section. I pulled off the apples and clipped off the leaves and extra twigs until I had a good-looking gnarled stick about the right length. Then I hot-glued faux suede around it for a grip. The marshmallow was made from Crayola Model Magic air-dry clay, which is the perfect color and texture if you get the white kind (which is easy to find). I shaped it into a soft cylinder and then poked the stick through it, and let it dry for a couple of days.

Once everything was ready, I wiped down the inside of the acrylic pane with rubbing alcohol and a microfiber cloth to try to get as much dust out of there as possible (because it sticks to the acrylic like crazy). I put the marshmallow stick in next, then used bookbinding tape (because it's the only acid-free tape I currently have) to fix the printed background to the insert card that came with the shadow box and put that in, then put the back of the shadow box in place and closed everything up. Wiped down the front with alcohol and microfiber as well, and now it's sitting in our living room.

Maybe sometime in the future I'll do a tour post of our geeky decor in the living room.

how do you consistently draw the same character without it looking weird or off every different time?? also how do i coordinate faces, i always make the eyes too far apart or too big or too small or make the mouth too close to the nose or chin edge. If you have any advice I'd really appreciate it since it looks like you have your art shit figured out 🙏

Oh man SO so much of it is just practice, and you're not alone! I honestly think everyone struggles with a sort of "generification" of their characters' features the more they draw them, even seasoned professionals. There's a tendency to just sort of average everything out into an unrecognizable mush over time, and it takes a lot of conscious effort to push back against that.

Here are a couple tips and tricks that I've found to be helpful over the years:

Make turnarounds and model sheets. There's a reason animation/game studios do this, and it is because we are all still bad at drawing a consistent face. Despite being gainfully employed. What are we, graphic novelists?? We wish. Anyway it's a great way to familiarize yourself with your character's face from multiple angles, and it gives you a single source of truth to return to anytime you need a refresher:

Gather real-life reference. Anytime I'm designing a character I'm pulling together a ton of reference of actual people who look, to some degree, like the character in my head. It's always a collection of analogues, never just a single person, but it can be a great cheat sheet for understanding how your character might move, emote, etc:

Make a 3D model. I know it seems daunting, but with the advent of programs like Blender and Nomad Sculpt it's becoming remarkably more accessible. Heck, even James Gurney was sculpting maquettes out of clay for Dinotopia back in the day! It doesn't have to be particularly detailed—just a sort of proportionate lump will do—but it's another great way to have dynamic reference that you can rotate and light accordingly:

Practice, practice, practice. Make expression sheets for your character! Either right there on the spot, just start drawin' expressions, or you can slowly collect drawings of your character that you like, as you draw them, and compile them all in one place for your own reference. Need to draw your character's head from a weird angle? Maybe you've already drawn it before and you can copy your own homework! Doesn't count as stealing when the call's coming from inside the house 😎

I'd love to pretend there's a magical point where you can just immediately rotate your character's head in your brain like some sort of photorealistic apple in a twitter meme, but a lot of the time it's reference, hard work, and whole lotta repetition. 😐👍🏼

Oh dear, the bots got worse. Now, instead of just an empty Tumblr, I got a "follower" with explicit material on their page. NOT. BETTER.

Driving the mako over a suspiciously large clearing like

what are people's stance on the oxford comma these days?

Kirby, what did you DO?