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Description
Here is my fifth complete Odyssey diorama. Some of the plaster is still wet, so maybe I'll get new pictures tomorrow when it's dry. For now...

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Feeding Habits of the Archersnake (excerpt)

Their white and black snow camouflage normally makes them tricky to spot (and avoid), but there was no mistaking the writhing mass of serpents we encountered about two miles from camp. Left in the wake of a wooly starrus herd, the fallen animal was covered in the things, each with its thorn-for-a-face buried to the hilt in the beast’s flesh. After just over an hour, engorged snakes began to dislodge themselves and by the second hour, only a hairy, liquidy mess remained.

- Alex O'Hearn

Coping Strategies

I don’t understand Alex’s odd fascination (dare I say obsession) with the thorn-faced creatures and their ilk. To be honest, I don’t want to have anything to do with them. Of all the majestic life to be found on this beautiful chunk of rock (and there is plenty of it), he has to poke and prod the things that have caused, oh-let-me-count, two injuries and one death? Maybe I’m just biased, being in that lucky group and all, though Yuzo’s a bit more forgiving than I am. When he called us up to ask us what to do about the live archersnake sticking out of his thigh, the first thing he wanted to know was if he should bring the specimen back intact. The snake, intact! I wanted him intact, for god’s sake. The snake could go to hell.

Caroline was out to sea that day, so it was up to me to play medic. I had him cut and drain the venom sac first. That stuff dissolves flesh if you leave it in too long, like in the case when your friend has just died of a similar injury and you’ve got to carry him back to camp, pain be damned. Anyway, Yuzo’s doing just fine now with little more than a large puncture wound and no sign of infection or necrosis.

As for Alex, I guess studying the horrible things is just his weird way of coping, of moving on. Is it forgiveness, or revenge?

- Erin Carellos

They have way more reason to fear these guys than I do, but if they do, they don’t show any sign of it. I suppose you’d have to be a little bit brave to be here at all, and if I couldn’t handle the creepy-crawlies, I’d be sticking with the geologists. Rocks and ice are harmless enough. But there gets to be a point where bravery can’t account for it, can’t explain why Alex looks so…composed…when he cuts into a dead snake and sticks his pins into the exposed tissue. He didn’t have quite the same look in his eyes when he was tinkering with his vines in the ship’s greenhouse.

- Grant Irwin
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Materials are: plaster, floor finish, gesso, super glue, acrylic paints, super sculpey, plants, air-dry clay, and wire mounted on a 6"x8" wood panel. See the base by itself: [link]

For the deadly creature encounter they allude to, see [link]
More on archersnakes: [link]
More on the wooly starrus [link]
Read Odyssey here [link]

Description
Here is my fifth complete Odyssey diorama. Some of the plaster is still wet, so maybe I'll get new pictures tomorrow when it's dry. For now...

_____________________________________________
Feeding Habits of the Archersnake (excerpt)

Their white and black snow camouflage normally makes them tricky to spot (and avoid), but there was no mistaking the writhing mass of serpents we encountered about two miles from camp. Left in the wake of a wooly starrus herd, the fallen animal was covered in the things, each with its thorn-for-a-face buried to the hilt in the beast’s flesh. After just over an hour, engorged snakes began to dislodge themselves and by the second hour, only a hairy, liquidy mess remained.

- Alex O'Hearn

Coping Strategies

I don’t understand Alex’s odd fascination (dare I say obsession) with the thorn-faced creatures and their ilk. To be honest, I don’t want to have anything to do with them. Of all the majestic life to be found on this beautiful chunk of rock (and there is plenty of it), he has to poke and prod the things that have caused, oh-let-me-count, two injuries and one death? Maybe I’m just biased, being in that lucky group and all, though Yuzo’s a bit more forgiving than I am. When he called us up to ask us what to do about the live archersnake sticking out of his thigh, the first thing he wanted to know was if he should bring the specimen back intact. The snake, intact! I wanted him intact, for god’s sake. The snake could go to hell.

Caroline was out to sea that day, so it was up to me to play medic. I had him cut and drain the venom sac first. That stuff dissolves flesh if you leave it in too long, like in the case when your friend has just died of a similar injury and you’ve got to carry him back to camp, pain be damned. Anyway, Yuzo’s doing just fine now with little more than a large puncture wound and no sign of infection or necrosis.

As for Alex, I guess studying the horrible things is just his weird way of coping, of moving on. Is it forgiveness, or revenge?

- Erin Carellos

They have way more reason to fear these guys than I do, but if they do, they don’t show any sign of it. I suppose you’d have to be a little bit brave to be here at all, and if I couldn’t handle the creepy-crawlies, I’d be sticking with the geologists. Rocks and ice are harmless enough. But there gets to be a point where bravery can’t account for it, can’t explain why Alex looks so…composed…when he cuts into a dead snake and sticks his pins into the exposed tissue. He didn’t have quite the same look in his eyes when he was tinkering with his vines in the ship’s greenhouse.

- Grant Irwin
_______________________________________________

Materials are: plaster, floor finish, gesso, super glue, acrylic paints, super sculpey, plants, air-dry clay, and wire mounted on a 6"x8" wood panel. See the base by itself: [link]

For the deadly creature encounter they allude to, see [link]
More on archersnakes: [link]
More on the wooly starrus [link]
Read Odyssey here [link]