Monday feels: Mary Jane the baby sloth, born at our National Zoo in 1964.
Zoo staff, who hand-reared Mary Jane, named the two-toed sloth long before it was determined that the baby was a male. He’s seen snuggling at 9 months old in this Smithsonian Institution Archives photo.
Here’s some of the works I’ve done that I’ve weirdly never shown. There’s a crap ton more too where this came from, Thank you to all the ridiculously awesome people who I worked with on these <3
The final Sloth of the Olympic Sloths Series! (At least for now…) I had a heckuva time deciding what sport to go for here - I knew it had to be a winter olympic sport, but I’d already done all the ones with unique costumes/uniforms. I was left with Bobsleigh, Luge, Skeleton, Speed Skating, and the Various Skiings (Alpine, Slalom, Cross Country and Jump). Most of those all wear variations on the same outfit - Skintight lycra - and most of them also have a head- and face-obscuring helmet and visor/goggles.
I sketched and sketched and sketched and could never quite get the iconic poses for most of them down. Ski Jump was one of the first I tried and rejected. I narrowed it down to Alpine Skiing, Crosscountry Skiing and Speed Skating. I asked around and showed some folks the sketches. Crosscountry skiing was in the lead, until my sister went “what about ski jump?” So, to humour her, I gave Ski Jump another go.
I should honestly know by now that my sister is always right.
Allow me a moment to be immensely proud of that freakin’ football. I have never drawn a football better, and I suspect I never shall again. Bask in the glory.
Meanwhile, if there’s a football team who’s jersey you’d like to see this sloth wearing let me know, and I’ll see about doing alternate versions.
This could also be just called ‘Figure Skating Sloth’, but I was specifically looking at Ice Dance costumes when I was getting my references.
I also discovered that the representative from Slothdonia is probably at a helluva disadvantage in the judging, because, uh, most of the moves that require legs in the air and so forth just, um, just don’t work when you’re shaped like a potato with very short legs…