Oracular Oriole (Patreon)

Hello everybody!

Over the weekend I worked every hour to finish the new artwork inspired by the next Ubuntu 24.10 release. I wanted to be able to show you at the end of September what I have been working on for almost two months.

It all started with a different idea I clung to for ten days, heavy on the architectural side.

You would see an interior dome from a frog perspective looking like a bird's eye. The wings would have been the windows. The oriole therefore would have been painted with opened and closed wings simultaneously. I liked the concept and idea but in the end, the bird was in the way and unfortunately didn't fit in.

The character in the Ubuntu artworks is significant, and I couldn't simply paint a bird's eye. Also, I did something similar with the Saucy Salamander in 2016 and painted an oracle with a fortune teller ball and tarot cards in 2023, Mantic Minotaur.

I love to try out new ideas like an oracle bird reading prophecies from matcha tea (milk foam in the shape of an open eye) with the inscriptions on the cup " Know thyself ".

New ideas often come with more work.

For Oracular Oriole I worked with Blender and Krita. I enjoyed putting the concept together and learned new skills, like rendering a wireframe image to paint over. While it is easy I never took the time to experiment with it.

It was the same amount of work painting over the rendered image as in the Knight of Coins tarot card but this time in wallpaper size.

Birds are difficult to paint if you want to get the feathers right.

I also liked using orange (for Ubuntu) and green (for Ubuntu Mint & Mate). It is matcha tea but it still matches well. A pumpkin spice drink wouldn't have created this same color balance. Since autumn is here it fits well, with the weather and nature.

A cozy feeling was intended. Later I added a bit of "electricity" in the background and around the main character to emphasize the magic and skills of the Oracular Oriole.

Thank you for being part of this journey and supporting these artworks. <3 I am very grateful.

I am wishing you a great start to the week. May it be cozy and bring you lots of joy. The next artwork will be a tarot card again. :) It is time to take a short break and drink some tea.