Bumbling Along - Beekeeping Is Like Sweet, Sweet Honey

I've finally discovered an outlet for my beekeeping cravings. My townhome is within a complex so we can't actually keep beeboxes (besides the hanging bee houses for mason bees), so now I have a new-harmless-to-my-neighbors way of owning and breeding bees. What I've dreamed of keeping since I first played Skyrim are honeybees! 

Honey is literally my life. People ask me, "What do you want for your birthday?", "What do you want for Christmas?", "I'd like to get you something to repay you. What would you like?"

This is easy, guys. Get me honey! But, please, don't buy your grocery store honey in a plastic bear. I'm not sorry to say I won't appreciate that. I just want honey from local sources! Any type- exciting types maybe you wouldn't try. I've tried all sorts of honey, from the typical clover honey, to sunflower honey, blackberry, buckwheat, orange blossom, spicy chili pepper, and sourwood. I've also had hybrid honeys where two varieties are mixed together to create something else beautiful. You could say at this point that what runs in my veins is actually honey. I'm just that sweet. 

Back to these virtual bees. I play a game called Starbound with a friend of mine. He recently mentioned "Oh, they have beekeeping in this game. Do you want to make a bee farm or something bee related?" I nearly lost my mind. OF COURSE I WANT TO KEEP BEES.

So, I made a floating bee...area! (Starbound is pretty awesome if you've never played it. It's a building-quest-mission-farming-exploring-galaxy-spaceship-planets-animal husbandry game. It's got something for everyone.)

Here are some images of my bee creation during nighttime and day time.
(Just ignore the "ACTIVATE WINDOWS NOW!" Give me a break. I just built my PC and I'm on WinTrial)

So, yep, bees. I can breed different bees by combining different species of queen and drone. Within the bee boxes, you can add certain frames to protect against mites, or increase production, or other bonuses. I'll get materials like honeycomb, pure honey, honey string, special flower seeds, and more bees. MORE BEES!

I love bees.

Another Day, Another Masterpiece

Hi!

It's been a long time since I created a piece of art that I actually like, let alone it being traditional! So at Ubisoft, we're moving into a new building soon and HR decided to host an art contest so that the new office's walls would have some decorations that truly channel the essence of Uuuubiiiisooofffttt. There were only two requirements for the piece:
1. Must be relatable to Ubisoft in some fashion
2. Must use little, some, or a lot of the giveaway game disks

Since we didn't need to keep the disks in tact, I took a mallet to mine.

Rubber mallets don't work by the way. I looked up alternate ways to break disks and there were some cool videos that talked about soaking the disks in boiling water for 10 minutes to "soften them up" so that you can remove the secondary layer. I tried this. I've come to the conclusion that game disks do not have the secondary layer (the film). Must be just CDs? It does not become detached no matter what you soak it in.

Round three, I took a hammer to it. Wrapped 1 disk and 1 pile of chopped bits I'd already labored over in a small towel, then outside I slapped the hammer down a few times. The hammer head piece broke off.

Round four. After returning from Lowe's with two hammers, just in case, I repeated the process only this time the disk was surely obliterated. The same can also be said for the towel I used and the pavement on my porch.

That's my disk journey. Let me explain a bit about the painting. The character is Princess Aurora from Child Of Light . It's a puzzle game with lots of lore, well developed characters, inventive artistry, and a eerily wonderful soundtrack. This game was released by Ubisoft in 2014. I had never heard of it until I started working at Ubi and instantly I was hooked. The scene depicts the Princess falling between the realm she once knew and the realm she will now know. I wanted to invoke a sense of stillness, as if falling in a dream.
Art Piece Details: 
-24 in x 30 in canvas
-10 hrs of research
-31 hours sketching, painting, crafting 3D elements
-Undetermined amt of time going back and forth to the craft store...
-Multimedia: Acrylics (med-heavy weight), Pearl Ex Pigments Powder, game disks, faux pearl and crystal twigs, 0.1 galvanized steel for crown tie downs

Without further adieu, I present to you the piece! (I'll get better pics once it's on a wall.)