#philippine eagle
Philippine Eagles are critically endangered, and every chick is precious. When necessary, the Philippine Eagle Foundation uses a puppet to hand-feed captive bred chicks. They needed a new puppet and I’m honored that they asked me to make it! Video demo: https://youtu.be/YwB0mdNMvDU
Hand-feeding with puppets is not ideal, but aims to imprint the baby chick onto its own species, instead of humans. I am so thankful to organizations like the PEF that work hard to save wildlife via thoughtful cooperation and respect, with habitat restoration and stewardship. I crafted this puppet for ease of use and cleaning as it will be used to feed an eagle chick raw meat. To this end it’s not finished the same way my masks are. Built from scratch using a wire armature, foam, worbla, faux fur, and a food safe waterproof finish on the beak so that it can be washed.
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Thinking about how Klingons have the “Bird-of-Prey” warship and Romulans have “Falcon class” ships as well as the “Warbird” model and it just got me thinking that Star Trek aliens might be as obsessed with their raptors as we are with ours. So I made this weird niche comparison to various raptor species and now I can’t see crested caracaras the same way
WIP: Philippine Eagle
Currently working on an illustration that I hope to finish before the term ends, which is tomorrow by the way. This symbolic animal is only one of the many elements I intend to make today, but as you can see, it’s a torture. I feel like I’m solving a level 100 puzzle with these intricate feathers of the Eagle! Hopefully though, that will not serve as an excuse for me to postpone, or worse, cram this artwork.
More coffee please! Someone has to do an all-nighter.
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