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@IAmSciComm - On a Break!
@iamscicomm
On a break! A
@SciCrastina
rocur, managed by
@prksrng
.
crastina.se/i-am-scicomm/Joined May 2015
5,223 Following
40.8K Followers

@IAmSciComm - On a Break!’s Tweets

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@IAmSciComm - On a Break!
@iamscicomm
Howdy, bird site? This is
@franzanth
. I draw critters for a living, with a particular interest in invertebrates and marine fauna. Throughout the week I'll be showering the feed with unsolicited bug pics. But first, I need to take care of some vertebrates at home. Be back soon!
schedule sheet. monday is for the bugs and the slugs. tuesday dead bugs & dead slugs. wednesday how i work. thursday science illustration in indonesia. friday how i work, part 2. saturday art share.
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@IAmSciComm - On a Break!
@iamscicomm
My friend
@beccalachuchi
is a graphic designer/illustrator who has worked on various infographics, covering a wide variety of topics!
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Becca Yu 🇵🇭 🚢
@beccalachuchi
Replying to @iamscicomm
Hello! I'm a graphic designer working for the Marine Science Institute at the University of the Philippines. I design publications and can write/illustrate/depict whatever they ask me to 🤓
Top: A book showing information on mangroves and seagrasses. Geographic distribution, species amounts, and associated organisms are visible. Bottom: A book describing sea level rise and ocean acidification. The left page shows the effect of sea level rise on different slopes. The right page visualizes how ocean acidification occurs.
A diagram depicting the journey of microbes from plastic waste through the ocean
A diagram depicting the different zones of a coral reef
A diagram depicting the rationale and benefits of marine protected areas
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@IAmSciComm - On a Break!
@iamscicomm
Nicole
@fossilforager
is one of the most prolific artists out there who draw bugs and other underappreciated creatures. She even started the hashtag #Invertober2022 to highlight funky invertebrates for one full month!
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Nicole 🌱
@fossilforager
Hi everyone! I’m a naturalist and illustrator who is passionate about ecology & the natural world 🪲 You can find my other 🔗s & places to support me here! 💕 🌱 fossilforager.carrd.co
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@IAmSciComm - On a Break!
@iamscicomm
This book is gorgeous & suggests common names for wasps that lack any so laypeople can familiarize themselves with the animals. Like the citadel wasps, which build intricate fortresses. And the pastry wasps, with their delicious-looking nests.
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🦋 Alie of the Woods 🦋
@humanbyweight
The eBook and softcover of THE SOCIAL WASPS OF NORTH AMERICA are out now! Order your copy today!!! owlflyllc.com/publications ALSO: I am hosting a GIVEAWAY for a free copy of the eBook for the best response to THIS TWEET (as judged by me)!
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@IAmSciComm - On a Break!
@iamscicomm
We have
@The_Episiarch
, who is known for designing characters based on real-life parasitic species, like this aquatic isopod/pillbug known as tongue-biter.
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「VεεLoΧΧγ・BITΞƧ」
@The_Episiarch
"Ara ara- Louse got your tongue? Or is there one in your throat...?" New Parasite Monster Girl just dropped - it's Cynthia the Cymothoid Monster Girl  deviantart.com/the-episiarch/
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@IAmSciComm - On a Break!
@iamscicomm
And thus, this is how we end up with a poster summarizing the diversity of crab fossils throughout the ages in 14 species.
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franz
@franzanth
Behold, crabs. In the past few months, @JaviPaleobio and @jopabinia have been helping me reconstruct 14 fossil crabs - many of which have been illustrated in full color. 7 true crabs, 7 false crabs. But can you tell which one's which?
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@IAmSciComm - On a Break!
@iamscicomm
Fast forward a few hours (or days, or weeks if I'm distracted), and we get one more crab to add to the army. I'm currently tweeting the finished images one by one on my own account, let's hope birdsite holds up until I'm done!
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franz
@franzanth
On the eighth day of #Crustmas, my true love gave to me Eight Petrolisthes walking among seastars in Florida Read the paper: academic.oup.com/jcb/article-ab
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one delightfully rotund crab illustrated in blue with light mottles like a field of stars because hell yeah
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@IAmSciComm - On a Break!
@iamscicomm
From each flat-colored blob on the image you saw before, I then started fleshing out each one of them. You can read how I illustrate each animal in this thread from 2 days ago:
a crab sketch with flat blue color
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@IAmSciComm - On a Break!
@iamscicomm
two elongated small creatures, not quite worm, not quite shrimp, swimming through a field of sea sponge. they have flaps on their segmented body, with small conical leglike things under each flap. the face ends in an elephant-like trunk with spikes.
Today I'll be tweeting about the process behind my latest image—the 460 million years old wonder "worm" Mieridduryn bonniae! The paper only came out yesterday, so if you want to read the science, go to this thread by @jopabinia. twitter.com/jopabinia/stat
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@IAmSciComm - On a Break!
@iamscicomm
Another big one to consider is colors. I mentioned before that animal color is correlated to their habitat or lifestyle. I.e. reef animals are likely to be colorful. This means I constantly shuffled them around to make sure similar colors don't clump in one corner.
the same poster but now with each animal assigned one basic color for placeholder
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@IAmSciComm - On a Break!
@iamscicomm
Throughout the thread you'll see me moving the animals often. I like to keep the images compact, not a lot of dead space between each one. With crabs, this means limb management. How far in/out should the legs bend? Will they bump into their neighbors?
the same crab poster but with the animals shuffled around
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@IAmSciComm - On a Break!
@iamscicomm
This stage is crucial in setting the composition. With these posters, it's impossible to do all the animals to scale, but I like to maintain their relative sizes correctly. Imagine if you see a poster of mammals where the rat is bigger than the elephant, that'd be awkward.
still a copy-pasted compilation of crabs, but now with their sizes in millimeter written under each one
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@IAmSciComm - On a Break!
@iamscicomm
I've done many posters in the past. When doing this kind of project, the first question to ask is always: Which species do we feature? Ideally, they should fit the following criteria: - Visually interesting - Has a cool backstory - Taxonomically stable, won't change name soon
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@IAmSciComm - On a Break!
@iamscicomm
Birdsite is breaking, employees are quitting, and I'm tweeting crabs for one last hurrah. Today I'm sharing images showing the process behind this poster containing 14 crabs, which have never seen the light elsewhere.
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franz
@franzanth
Behold, crabs. In the past few months, @JaviPaleobio and @jopabinia have been helping me reconstruct 14 fossil crabs - many of which have been illustrated in full color. 7 true crabs, 7 false crabs. But can you tell which one's which?
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@IAmSciComm - On a Break!
@iamscicomm
If I'm not in the mood to engage in-depth, I'd say things like "I illustrate guidebooks to help illiterate communities understand farming techniques" (which I've actually done). This is infinitely more practical and easier to grasp than "I draw sharks found in a marine reserve"
a visual guide on how to graft a plant
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@IAmSciComm - On a Break!
@iamscicomm
Scientific illustration is hard to explain here. If I told people "I draw animals for a living" people would just ask why. Unlike many English-speaking countries, which are familiar with birdwatching, spotting & identifying wild animals for fun isn't really "a thing" here.
a poster showing 80 different kinds of freshwater fishes
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@IAmSciComm - On a Break!
@iamscicomm
Later on, I'd realize that this specific format of cataloging nature was established by Europeans, so naturally, they were the earliest to publish the books. But that's a big topic I'm not going to touch now. Instead, I'm going to cover how locals are catching up in the field!
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