Santiago (Santo76) and I are really proud of our collaboration, "Endless Forms Most Battleful", and I'm thrilled with the response so far. I've put together a brief, highly abridged summary of the process we went through, with a bit of background and details.

First, I've always been really into animal diversity and, more recently, evolutionary biology. The history of life on earth, the variety of living and extinct creatures, is to me the most incredible thing in the entire known universe.

And I watched a bit of Pokemon and played a bit of the games way back in Junior High. No big deal :)

So I had the idea of Charles Darwin as a Pokemon master, since Pokemon are known for "evolving" into a higher form after fighting a certain number of battles and "leveling up".

I had noticed Santiago working on a bit involving the evolution of the beard, and his style seemed fitting.


So, way back in August, I drew up these sketches and contacted Santiago with a bit of background and details for a concept.



Santiago is interested in the project, and a little while later, he floors me with this incredible sketch:


We decide to go for a sort of antiqued, sepia toned portrait style


I compile a list of specimens, references, details, and other elements I'd like to see, and Santiago expertly assembles them into the composition below:



Santiago creates an incredible wallpaper (based on Darwin's actual study), and the final piece begins to form.

A few e-mails later, and we have this project nearly complete:



A couple minor changes and final additions, and we agree it's time to submit!


We are very proud of the final result. Please take a moment to score and comment on our design.


Some specifics: Find them in the picture!

-Darwin's original sketch of the way in which organisms are related to one another in the tree of life.
-The HMS Beagle
-Darwin's microscope
-Charles Lyell's "Principles of Geology", an influential book to Darwin which documented the great age of the earth, allowing for plenty of time for natural selection to act.
-"Systema Naturae", by Carolus Linnaeus, which introduced the binomial nomenclature system for naming all the plants and animals of the world.
-2 of Darwin's famous books, slightly modified.

-and a bunch of bizarre creatures which modern science is only just beginning to comprehend!

The title is based on the final sentence of "The Origin of Species":

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."


Enjoy!

Pallet Town, England, 1831 - A young naturalist named Charles Darwin sets sail on a five year voyage of discovery to lands great and unknown. Always a keen observer and ardent collector, Darwin delighted at the strange, wonderful, and pugnacious creatures he discovered. As his collections grew, he noticed that certain creatures bore marked similarities to certain others, and he began wondering how such new creatures came into existence. Upon his return, Darwin spent decades writing, researching, and collecting; expanding his ideas into a theory which he finally presented to the Cerulean Zoological Society and published in the momentous and influential manuscript: On the Origin of Species of Small Fighting Monster by Means of Repeated Combat, or the Acquisition of Novel Forms in the Struggle to Collect them All.
The world was forever changed.

This year we celebrate the 200th birthday of the world’s greatest naturalist, and on November 24th, the 150th anniversary of his greatest work.

Not only did he catch them all, but he discovered the process by which they came to be.



A portrait of a master by Santo76 and Bio-bot 9000

P.S. Check out the process by which this all came together!

Hint: He busts myths.

The Mayans were slightly off!


PREPARE YOURSELF!

That's what I woke up to this morning.

Blaaaaaaaarp! Brooooooooooooop! Breeeeeeeeeeeaaap! Bwonk! repeat.


I guess it's my fault for sleeping in past 9.

Tonight.


I'm seeing them.





!!!

The Great White Hunter!



Yeah!!

It's not finished. I sketched and inked it on paper, than scanned and colored it in MS Paint!

Consider this a preliminary design. If someone would like to collaborate with me on a shirt design based on this, get in touch!

i decided what I want to be for halloween:

either: an evil banana, or a diabolical hot dog. basically, some kind of food with an eye patch.

now to get it done!

"Oobie doo, I wanna be like you -ou -ou..."


I'm sort of surprised this hasn't been more publicized: in June of this year, a paper came out that provides morphological evidence to support the hypothesis that orangutans, not chimpanzees, are humankind's closest living relative. This flies in the face of the current 'conventional wisdom' of a human-chimp connection that's been commonly taught and popularly accepted.

Basically, it's a conflict over molecules versus morphology. The evidence linking humans to chimps is based on very strong evidence from DNA sequences, while the orangutan hypothesis looks at skeletal, physiological, behavioral, and other traits, which some people think may be more rapidly changeable and thus not reflective of evolutionary relationships.

So, just thought I'd throw this out there.


Humans More Related To Orangutans Than Chimps, Study Suggests

Note: this debate does not cast doubt on the fact that humans are one of the great apes, and share common ancestry with all primates. It just highlights an interesting conflict of evidence, which is part of the process and philosophy of science. Scientific consensus at any point in time simply reflects the best available evidence.

your thoughts?

Seriously. I think it's been like at least 2 months for me. I don't know why.