2024-08-02 - How Eggs Are Made

So full disclosure I colored most of these in about 2018 during a class called Graphic Communication but which was actually about Solidworks (a CAD program) and at which i was bored as fuck bc CAD is really easy. So they reflect my interests at the time.

I realized pretty early into coloring these that it's actually really hard to come up with 35 unique designs off the top of your head without falling into your usual design pitfalls (and I failed even still -- there's a LOT of blue and green here). So I came up with a couple meta factors -- I knew I wanted several yellow eggs because I had the idea for Rhuman's prompt very early -- grouped them -- then kinda said fuck it for the rest lol.

The theme colors of some OCs: (7 total) 001, 015, 020, 026, 030, 031, 035
The Southwest road trip my family took in 2018: (5 total) 002, 022, 023, 024, 025
The Horizon Zero Dawn tribes: (7 total) 004, 008, 013, 018, 019, 021, 027
Just fuckin' around with brushes and effects: (3 total) 003, 006, 011
Holidays!!: (6 total) 005, 010, 012, 028, 029, 033
I ran out of ideas and used NASA imagery, didn't even color it legitimately, I'm a hack: (7 total) 007, 009, 014, 016, 017, 032, 034

001: OC pile. She cooks, therefore, flan. Also unironically meant to attract Brandytusk and it's worked twice, so, success?? The whitish highlights on the caramel drizzle is meant to evoke egg 031.
002: Roadtrip egg! This is based on the vibe of seeing petrified wood. I tried to make it look 3D -- because it feels that way in person, these raised ridges where the wood grain was.
003: Just doodling egg. Cell02 is easily my favorite brush in GIMP and this egg is a subtle gradient between a pea green and drab teal with a big teal stamp of Cell02 over it. My love letter to Cell02, oh what can't you do.
004: Horizon tribe egg -- the Oseram. They're smiths and tinkerers, so I tried to depict the impact of a forge hammer -- but deliberately made it look like an exploding volcano, too.
005: Holiday egg! This is Valentine's Day. I had a really good time "scratching" out the two tone colors, i felt like I needed to put some elbow grease into this egg but keep the colors simple.
006: Shapes and colors -- this was made with some combination of posterize and weird layer modes. I think my initial idea was scales, but then i hit on this pinecone/owl look and I liked it a lot.
007: This is of course the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula. I chose to focus on the void between the dust clouds: after all, your eggs carve out the space for themselves just as the young stars ablate the dust.
008: Based on the Carja tribe of the Horizon Zero Dawn world. The Carja are one of the more technologically advanced tribes and they have a fascination with armor and the sun. I wanted it to look like grating!
009: The Butterfly Nebula! It's beauty and complexity come from highly unstable jetting from the stellar remnant.
010: An egg representing a holiday. This one is the New Year -- kind of gray and wintery, but hopeful too. The two distinct colors separated by gray is the new year spreading over the old.

011: I think the shape on the side came from a map-making brush pack! The colors were inspired by Sprite, but like, the experience and memory of Sprite, not the actual beverage.
012: Holiday egg -- this one is Mardi Gras! Fun fact, the dev name for this egg is "Nausea." Obvs the colors are from the Mardi Gras palette and the composition is meant to be... you know.
013: Horizon tribe -- well, not really a tribe. The Ancients are of course near-future us, but their areas are characterized by these pink and purple lights. I love the crisscross light effect I did here.
014: Helix Nebula through UV and infrared. In other light spectra it can look like an eye or a lens, but I loved the red.
015: Another OC -- this one was born in space, thus black. I used their name for a gold dragon once, thus gold. They're associated with standing stones.
016: The Red Square Nebula! Cuz it's a square lmao. Nobody really knows why it's so dang square, but one idea is that it's two cones kissing as seen from the side, so it kind of has an X vibe.
017: The Orion Nebula! This is such an odd spectra to depict it in, I wonder if I recolored it. The Orion Nebula is notable for being visible to the unaided eye.
018: This egg represents the Tenakth tribe. We know a lot more about that tribe now with Forbidden West out, but this egg is similar to the face paint style used by the one Tenakth in HZD.
019: Horizon egg: the Nora. The Nora are kind of deliberately a bit boring -- they're like your bog-standard backwater tribe. They do blue, Celt-inspired facepaint, hence the knot mark.
020: An OC egg inspired by a character who lived in a tree. It's meant to look like trees from above, or a tree-trunk with moss on it. Connected of course to egg 030.

021: A Horizon tribes egg. This one represents the Utaru, but moreso is just me having fun with patterns. I didn't have enough eggs that weren't naturalistic. The Utaru are agriculturalists.
022: What it feels like to look at Vegas from Red Rocks. This is an egg that I wish I had taken more time on because it feels too literal, but I still like it. I like the colors I used for the lights of the city.
023: Roadtrips egg! This is blatantly referenced off my pictures of the Painted Desert.
024: Another roadtrip egg! In the Carlsbad Caverns, there is a side cave called the Boneyard. This is what my memory of this feels like.
025: Another very direct road trips egg -- this one is based on a sample of sandstone I bought as a souvenir. It had layers of sandstone interposed with must harder thread of another rock, forming this strange shape. I think I depicted that well.
026: One of my favorite eggs -- an OC egg. Meant to evoke rising smoke or an explosion -- the OC was associated with natural disaster in that way.
027: The Banuk tribe from Horizon Zero Dawn. They live in a very harsh, wintery area, but they prioritize color and communication and nature -- the bit at the bottom is meant to look like a scar or crack and the colors are referenced from Yellowstone's Morning Glory pool.
028: A holiday egg -- midsummer solstice! Hey, I needed more yellow eggs and what's more yellow than the sun? I adore this egg and had a great time making it.
029: Another holiday egg, I think this one is easy to guess -- It's Christmas. I couldn't resist adding holly berries even though it's supposed to be fir tree colors.
030: OC egg. It evokes 020 in a more mature form, with vining flowers -- or is it water on a parched landscape?

031: OC egg. Meant to resemble a star sapphire! I wanted to play with implied shading, plus this OC would get a huge kick out of being a gem.
032: The Crab Nebula! One of the most recognizable nebulae in my opinion and rightly so. The diaphanous structures of gas are just -- wow.
033: A holiday egg meant to evoke autumn and particularly Halloween 😀 The internal name for this egg is "Spoop" haha. It's one of my favorites because it makes me laugh.
034: The Soccerball Nebula! The full image looks much more like a soccer ball, but I chose this more intimate view because it felt more... intriguing. I'm proud of the composition on this one.
035: An OC egg meant to evoke 031! The brown/orange pieces represent him succumbing to darkness... Honestly, the butterfly wing interpretation is much more wholesome haha.