MM25 - plant list and the prep process
To accompany the core prompt list and to fit the theme this year, I spent hours searching for different types of plants for inspiration. I was initially thinking to offer something like the “mutation ideas” I’ve done in the past, but then decided to keep it as a plain text list. I’ll leave that at the end of this blog post. Thanks to my friend Rowyn of Team Manticore for creating a wheel to help randomize plant suggestions.
Reading up on the natural world is a facet of Mutation March that I routinely underestimate how much time I put into it. My go-to starting point is Wikipedia, which is of course a jackpot of rabbit holes to explore. I love clicking through the taxonomy trees to see how life is all connected. When curating the animal prompts, I’ve gotten more discerning with it over the years. I’d like to share my masterlist of all the prompts over the years. Apologies in advance, it’s a bit of an eyesore.
It is not at all scientific, as ultimately I create these lists based on what inspires me. But after seeing how mammal-heavy the first couple years were, I made an effort to diversify. One of my longtime reference books is Animal: The Definitive Visual Guide to the World's Wildlife, which offers a good overview of animals, though it does suffer from some mammalian favoritism (while the entirety of invertebrates gets the smallest section of the book!).
Once I have my animal list finalized, it’s time to learn even more and seek out media to study. Besides general image searches, YouTube has come in handy, so here are some of my favorite channels:
Animalogic - Nice, tidy videos on all sorts of animals, paired with timelapse drawings of said animals! On the same channel is “Floralogic” which covers plant life.
Bizarre Beasts - The name alone is a perfect companion to Mutation March, it also features various animals (with matching merchandise each video).
MBARI - Wonderful footage of oceanic life, especially the very alien invertebrates.
True Facts by Ze Frank - Comically absurd videos packed with strange facts and great collection of clips.
Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t - Tying in to the botanical theme this year, this channel casually covers different plants with some colorful language.
Before even getting to the main series of drawings, I spend time doing quick studies of the animals based off of the photos and videos I find online. (If you’d like see this process, you can join my Patreon). I like to hop around between getting the basic shape of an animal and then zooming in on specific parts. One browser tab turns into many, as I’ll have the Wikipedia page open, plus a general image search, plus searches for “[animal] teeth/feet/baby/skeleton/mummified/running/flying/etc.” My two-monitor set up has been quite useful this year as now I also have tabs open of plants to add to the mix.
After all of the studies comes the mutation brainstorm phase. With the knowledge I now have of a given prompt, how can I make it different? What are the rules that I can break? What would be the “opposite” of the animal’s features? And simply, what if…?
And though I do my best to get a head start on all these preparations before March 1, I’ve yet to fully account for all prompts before diving into the finalized art. Midway through March, things usually start to get extra frenetic for me. Researching and rooting around for ideas always takes up more time than I anticipate. There’s just so much cool stuff to learn about our world!
Thanks for tuning in. I’m thinking next week to highlight some of my favorite mutations from previous years? Some of those I’ve turned into stickers.
Cheers!
-Teresa
PLANT SUGGESTIONS
1. liverwort
2. moss
3. fern
4. hydnora
5. ghost pipe
6. cape sundew
7. pitcher plant
8. venus flytrap
9. kudzu
10. lotus
11. batflower
12. sunflower
13. dandelion
14. monstera
15. baobab
16. giant hogweed
17. orchid
18. titan arum
19. allium
20. palm tree
21. rafflesia “stinking corpse lily”
22. welwitschia
23. dragon’s blood tree
24. strangler fig
25. water caltrop
26. saguaro
27. prickly pear
28. jaboticaba tree
29. maple
30. pine (monkey puzzle tree, redwood)
31. bromeliad
32. euphorbia
33. rose
34. mangrove
35. ginkgo
36. weeping willow
37. cycad
38. bamboo
39. Actaea pachypoda “doll’s eyes”
40. grass (wheat, cheat grass, maize)
41. datura
42. clover
43. honey locust
44. water lily
45. wisteria
46. air plant
47. thistle
48. bird of paradise
49. agave
50. philodendron
51. oak
