Reptile Fight Club - Reptile Fight Club fights w/ Adeline Robinson about Art.

Episode Date: January 14, 2022

In this episode, Justin and Chuck tackle the topic of art w/ Adeline Robinson.Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comFollow Chuck Poland  on IG @ChuckNorriswinsFollow MPR Network on:FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQMore ways to support the shows.Swag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

Welcome to the MDR Network. All right, welcome to Reptile Fight Club. How are you doing, Chuck? I'm doing well. How are you, Justin? I'm doing good. I guess I've forgotten how to do this. It's been a little while. It has been a little while. It's a little holiday break. It was a good holiday break. I feel like I've been away for long enough that I'm ready to start doing these podcasts again. Yeah, we've got a good one today too so that should be we do

yep i uh i'm a little uh worn out i took took the girls up uh for got my daily dose of vitamin ski and went up nice to hit the hit the uh the slopes a little bit but um it's a little icy up there was raining in the mountains for crying out loud in the early part. It does. It will do that. It will. It usually doesn't around here. So it was a little surprising, but nice and icy, but they did have some groomed trails that were all right.

But yeah. So did you shred some snake six now? Oh yeah. For an old guy. I'm afraid. I'm going to break. I know, but you can't say it like that because then i get this this like mental image of justin in some like cross

country skis just skiing through the skiing through the woods or something i don't know it's all downhill man okay yeah well at your age it sure is yeah it's all downhill oh that was good i'm sorry i'm sorry oh anything going on good you're um yeah just you know stay staying busy with geckos uh just i got some um those viper geckos i just picked up late eggs so now i have eggs from the viper geck. So, um, yeah, things, things are good here. Just, uh, did some cage cleaning today and you know, the, the standard upkeep and maintenance. Um, nice. So yeah. How about you? Yeah. Things are good. A little slow with a cool down. So that's been nice. Nice little break, quiet time over here. So yeah. I'm enjoying that a little bit yeah I did a little cleaning earlier today yeah you uh you have anything that looks uh promising your your blackheads uh doing much or

they they look promising but they also look promising last year and then do right I mean they're on schedule for I I've gotten what three or four clutches out of them over the last several years and i just haven't even been able to hatch them out so that's the key yeah i need to revamp the cage a little bit for egg laying season i'm gonna try out uh to kind of uh give them like a false burrow system type thing so they're like like down into the substrate or like in like a have like a fake cave type thing you know so they can go down into it but it's like subterranean hide type thing within the cage so they're not the best at um wrapping their eggs at least my female isn't she's terrible so yeah you're just gonna

stuff them down in a hole and be like you have no choice but to wrap up your eggs exactly well then at least they'll have some kind of relative humidity or something down in there maybe. Yeah. I don't know. Keep them from desiccating too quickly if she doesn't wrap them. But, yeah, we'll see if that helps. I don't know. So are you going to let them just –

Oh, no. I'll take them. Okay. Yeah. I almost got some last time she laid, so that was – I got close. They died, you know know just a couple weeks from hatching so that was kind of a bummer to see him kind of fully formed and yeah but so hopefully this is my year for blackheads that would be nice yep and i need to produce more

inlands this year too that'd be cool nice my my uh my albino variegata are looking pretty good so they may they may go nice. Yeah. I think I'm going to pair mine up too. I, I drew them together for a bit and the female like bit the male. She was thinking it was time to eat or something. Are yours evil?

The females. Yeah. I mean, they're, they'd like to eat, so I don't like handle them too often, but they, they seem to be ready to strike.

So I got my pair from Todd and Carrie. Well, there's your problem. Anything that comes from Carrie. They are Satan incarnate, dude. I don't know what Todd's doing to those poor snakes. You just touch them and they just flip out and they're like striking out. Oh, man. It is aggressive.

Yeah, they're not that bad. I can usually get them out and they'll settle down a bit. Yeah. I mean, I've had scrub pythons that are 10 times calmer than these things. So I've had nervous scrub pythons that are calmer than these things. So, yeah. So these things. So yeah. So good times, fun stuff. Yeah.

Well, I, uh, I was listening to the, the different holiday shows. Man, all the neck or the network or the podcasts on the network seem to be doing holiday shows. So maybe we need to get one together next year or something. I don't know if there's enough of those. We'll do like a groundhog's day show or something, but, um, but we like reptile Grinch club or I think so. Something like that. I don't know, but I, I, I neglected to, uh, acknowledge, um, Darren Boswell for his idea for last, last week's podcast. So shout out to Darren. Thanks man.

Credit where credit is due. Thank you, Darren. Yeah. He also sent in a, I, the, the picture quality wasn't the best, but it's a really cool picture of this Flinders ranges, carpet Python under the water, like in ambush position for the book. So that's pretty sweet. I'm pretty excited about that. So, and we're getting really close, uh, got most of the layouts done, getting them back from Russ now and going through the layouts with the photos. So it's taking form. So you have all the chapters in or?

Pretty much. I think just a small, well, we're just waiting on, I think Nick has Warren's section. So I think we're done. Yeah. So it's basically just the stuff that Warren had to finish up and. Yep. And now we got to do the layouts and proof them and stuff. And then, yeah, time to get it printed.

Nice, dude. I'm stoked. Well done, sir. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. I mean, it's been kind of a road. Yeah. And then on to the next project.

So we've got another book in the wings that we're starting to. Are you? Yeah. Should be fun. Okay. It should be a little shorter. There's only a couple species in this genus. We've got another book in the wings that we're starting to. Are you? Yeah. It should be fun. Okay. It should be a little shorter. There's only a couple species in this genus, so we'll see how it goes. But let's see if we can get a decent-sized book out of it.

Yep. I guess I'll talk about that at a later time. Yeah. Are you doing that by yourself, or is that a joint project? It's actually a big group comparatively. Oh, nice. So there's four of us working on it so yeah all right folks there you go there's your teaser i'm in the dark you're in the dark everybody's in the dark but there's something coming sorry why did i even

bring that up right um but no i was it was kind of like um somebody i i got a call and they said hey are you i was thinking about writing this book and I said, Hey, funny thing, me and Nick, we're going to write the same book. And then, and then so it became a joint project and we joined forces. So it should be fun. Not going to tell us any more than that. So thanks. I think that's it. You might have to guess. Thanks for nothing. All right. Well, enough, enough of this.

Moving on. Let's let's get our wonderful guest on here. So we have with us Adeline Robinson and we're going to talk about art. Why don't you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself, how you fit into herpetoculture? Hey there. Thank you so much for having me, first off. It's always really funny. I feel like explaining what i do to most people um i am a wildlife artist that specializes in reptiles and exotics i've been working in the animal industry for a very long time and um you know kind of through working with them just kind of it

continued to develop my passion for them and a couple years ago I decided to pick up artwork again and it kind of snowballed from there so I'm really happy to be involved with um you know not only working with different breeders different species but being able to work on different projects with uh publications or like scientific illustrations with them and conservation fundraisers so it's really fun to be able to tie all of that together so my you know my bread and butter for the most part is doing high detail realism commissions of different species and then doing logos and graphic design for different breeders and businesses as well yeah i just saw the one you did for uh christian

and cold-blooded science yeah that was a fun one that was cool that was cool yeah well thank you yeah it was when he brought the idea to me i was like i i absolutely have to do this it sounds it just sounded like such a fun idea to do so i had a blast yeah i guess i've seen several that you've done um yeah so that's that's really cool you. You're getting your name out there and seeing a lot of good work from you. So that's really cool. Yeah. So you've obviously been doing art for a long time.

And you've been doing, seems like you've been doing reptiles for a long time. Was there one that came first in your life? Or were you pretty much doing both of those things? So they were started off at the same time, separated for a bit. And actually, I went a very long year without doing or long year. I went several years, quite a long time of not doing any art. So as a small kid, I grew up in a household with snakes and I, you know, had a beardy and fish tanks and a bunch of animals at home and have pretty much just been drawing since I was little at the same time yeah um so I've always

had animals I've always been doing artwork and then in high school started picking up a lot doing a ton of art classes and getting really into it and then pretty much as soon as I graduated I kind of just spent all my focus on what I was doing and, you know, just working with animals for the most part. So I kind of kicked art to the side and didn't really do much with it. I did maybe like two or three pieces, little doodles for like a friend or something like per year uh because i was just so focused on you know i was working at a pet store at a wildlife center working with horses and a bunch of different stuff so i was kind of trying to build up my career with animals and um i ended up a few years ago getting a job offer to move out of state for an auction company i was picking up a lot of graphic design work and um once I moved out of

state I worked with them for a while and it just it was not very well managed and I had left everything that I loved and everything that I know or everything that I knew to be out there and it just wasn't working out and I really missed the community I really missed the hobby and being able to be surrounded by my friends you know at shows and whatnot so I started just doing some artwork for fun and uh kind of just started with like a little Instagram challenge with uh Inktober and then pretty much from there a few of my other friends that you know kept some really cool species were like hey you know I'd love to commission you to draw one of my snakes and I had just started I was like oh I'd be honored like I can't believe you would ask me to do that yeah yeah so pretty much from there I started a an art account and then just started

drawing more and more and then people were asking about logo work and I was like yeah I could do that sure you know I designed banners I was doing designing catalogs and flyers and stuff so I was already um a little bit well versed in that department and then it kind of kind of took off on its own I ended up um leaving that job to pursue reptile art full-time very cool and yeah and February it'll be my two years of doing it full time. Awesome. Nice. That's great.

I think those are such interesting stories where people have, you know, just, you know, kind of just passions that are kind of unrelated to each other, but they find their way into, you know, kind of being interrelated. And here you are kind of making a living at it. So I, I just, I don't know. I, I find that pretty interesting. And, and, uh, I did, you know, I, I kind of had a little similar of a story where I didn't do, I, I dropped, I drew a little as a kid, but once I got into high school, uh, became very interested in art and, um, did, did a lot of, uh, subtractive sculpture, um, ended up going to college as an art major, but, but I, and I just kind of stopped doing it after, uh, I left. So I, I, I, I, I flunked out my first year, like was not ready for college, partied, had a great time,

but it was not good. And, uh, when I, you know, when I left, I went into the service and I just stopped doing art. So yeah, it's, it's, I'm really glad to hear you got back into it and look at you now. So that's awesome. That's really awesome. Yeah. I didn't, didn't expect to actually pick it up again. Cause it was just, you know, every so often, every couple of years, I would do something really small. And then it was pretty much like literally at the end of like, I think it was like the beginning of 2019 is when I picked it up again. And I kind of started at that high school level that I stopped at, which, you know, I kind of was expecting. But one thing that I think was a bit interesting, though, was because I was a bit older and a bit wiser, I was able to kind of break down what I was drawing a little bit easier or I guess see it a little bit more subjectively. So I was able to critique my work more effectively than I was then.

And, you know, with just practicing and always trying to better my pieces, it's fun to see that grow. Yeah, for sure. That's very cool that's crazy because i i also grew up drawing and i i uh i i think it was what two or three years ago it was well i picked up i i was walking through a craft store with my wife and i i saw uh wood burning stuff and i'm like oh that looks kind of cool. Maybe I'll try that out. I started doing some wood burnings and I got a couple commissions. The Alice Springs Reptile Park bought a few of my pieces to hang up in their place. So it's been fun.

I need to start doing it again. We moved. I was just going to say, what happened to that? Because that was going good for you there for a minute. That is hard to do. I admire that. I have this Perenti piece that I did. That is gorgeous.

I got to show you something. It's like my favorite lizard. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. I just saw that. That's awesome. We've got matching Perentis. That is awesome

that's cool that is gorgeous it doesn't get much cooler than that folks yeah so and like my shirt i i made this out of a parentis this is more digital art but a parentis photo that i took in western australia and did like a little logo thing what's that are you selling shirts yeah i've got a few yeah if. What's that? Are you selling shirts? Yeah. I've got a few. Yeah. If you want one, I'll send you one. Yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. It's awesome. But so there, yeah, I think, I think we've got some common interests here. This is kind of fun. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. So what I, I, I can't help but ask more questions,

but I know this isn't like an interview style show, but what like, do you prefer to, what like do you prefer to what medium do you prefer to do you like like paper with um pencils and stuff or do you like uh do it digitally or what all of it um I like to dabble in just about anything that I can um like throughout high school I did a lot of work in oil a lot of work in acrylics pastels and stuff but lately for the last couple years I've been primarily focusing on fine art markers so I don't know if you're familiar with them but they're alcohol based so they blend really nicely together and like say you take two colors and kind of mix them together you can get an alcohol blender like a blender marker to make it even more more of a gradient i guess yeah so that's kind of what i'm mostly been working in uh i just

pick up some new paints um i hadn't worked in acrylic in over a year and then worked on that parent piece so now i'm like oh yeah painting's fun. Why don't I paint? So I'll probably try to pick that up again. But most of the work, the high detail realism stuff I do is in the COVID markers and the drawing pads. Okay. I've got a bunch of stuff behind me. So whenever I kind of have a whim, I've got like some wood pieces here, too, that I drew on and that we cut out that I'm hoping to paint soon. So kind of all over the board. Yeah.

Yeah. I guess that's how, that's the beauty of art is there's a lot of different media to keep you interested. I just ordered one of the like pens that goes along. I saw something online, like a YouTube video of this program on iPad that you could, you know, draw and it looked pretty cool. Oh, appropriate? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's mostly what I use. It is amazing. It is so worth

the $10 it is. If you've got an iPad, if you have an Apple pencil, it's pretty amazing because you know how when you have a graphite pencil and you tilt it to the side, the graphite will kind of make that wider stroke area. It'll do the same thing.

Oh, cool. And so it's really cool because you can just pick whatever medium you want digitally and play with it. And that's where I do a lot of my, you know, graphic design work. Very cool. Yeah, I saw somebody that did some illustrations and they looked really cool. So I'm like, I want to try that. So yeah. And like every style too, with all those brushes and you can get like, yeah. Cool. We'll have to pick your brain once it gets here.

See how to use it. But yeah, that's cool. All right. Well, are you ready to fight? I am. Let's get something going here. So we're going to talk about since, you know, with the art as the theme, we're going to talk about, you know, is does art still have a place in in herpetoculture or herpetology or, you know, the reptile um area in general um or you know it's like digital photography so easy and so you know you can get such great pictures these days is that a better way to to get things going so we'll kind of debate that back and forth so first off we'll flip the coin to see who you get a debate today chuck you want to call it sure all right here we go see if your luck changed over the break here it is tails ah look at that yeah so would you like to debate adeline or no i'm gonna let you debate and i'm just gonna moderate and probably ask questions because i feel like i have like so

many questions i could ask like i i feel like this is a great like interview for, you're right, like you said, it's not an interview style podcast, but I just have so many great questions that I feel like hopefully we kind of touch into these topics, but I would like to be free to be able to just, can I jump in here with a question?

All right, sounds good. Yeah. All right, now you. Yeah. All right. Now you get to call the next one, Adeline, Adeline to see who, which side of the topic you get. So go ahead and call it. I'll go ahead. And it's heads. Whoa, two in a row. This is unheard of. I don't know how much you've listened to the podcast, but I am notorious for losing almost all of the coin tosses. So the fact that Justin lost two in a row is a celebratory thing for me. Sorry. Cheers.

A very rare event, but I'll take the loss. That's all right. You gave me the opportunity to debate. That's fair. That's fair. Well, I don't want to- Take that Australian Herpetoculture podcast. They suggested that our coin tosses were rigged.

What? Can you believe that garbage? What if they think that there's no possibility my luck could be that bad right those Aussies taking their shots on their holiday show I just I don't know all right well how dare they question your your uh incredulous uh uh you know demeanor and. And, uh, I don't know. I just questioned my honesty. It just hurts. I can't, I, I, I know you too well. I know you too well. Anyway, I digress. I need to get to know those Australian herpetoculture guys, Jason and Luke, and you know, they just need to know what an upstanding, honest guy I am, I guess.

All right. Well, since you won the coin toss toss which side would you like to take um take the pro side yeah probably pro i mean yeah i feel like it's i hear a lot of um yeah yeah you probably have all that you've probably heard all the con side, haven't you? Yeah. All right. Well, um, yeah, this will be a little bit of a tricky, uh, tricky spot for me to be in to try to debate the con. Cause I, you know, I, I feel like, you know, there is a, there is a good spot, but anyway, um, since you won the coin toss, you also get to go first or defer to me to go first if you'd rather. So would you like to go first? I'll let you defer.

So I'm interested to see what questions you have. I'm interested too, yeah, to see which direction I go in the intro, you know, digital cameras and have kind of made it very easy for us to get really good quality shots without having too much knowledge or without having to be professional photographers. Now, I mean, obviously, there's there is a big difference between a professional photographer and a and a novice like myself. But I can still get, you know, a decent shot to illustrate different things. And, you know, I'm, I'm putting a plenty of pictures in the book that I've taken just cause I'm, you know, I, uh, I think, uh, there's the, the technology is such that, you know, you really don't have to know a ton about photography. If you have kind of maybe an artistic mind, you

can, uh, stage things well enough and get, get a compelling shot, you know, that kind of thing. Um, also for, you know, maybe, uh, scientific literature, you can get in really close, get, you know, scales and, uh, get the fine details of the, the subject that you're, uh, photographing. Um, so I think, you know, in a lot of ways that, uh, and, and, you know, every time I go back and I, I mean, I like the old prints, you know, from like the 1800s for kind of maybe more campy value. Cause they're all there. You know, sometimes it's hard to tell what exactly their subject was, you know, you're like, were you really looking at the animal or did you just keep it in memory or something? Because they're sometimes they're a little off. Yeah. They're pretty entertaining sometimes. Well, you know, others are pretty

good, but so, you know, are we going to look back in another hundred years and go, oh man, what, you know, these are, these are terrible. They should have just taken more pictures so i'd start out with uh that argument i guess all right well there definitely is a wonderful place for photography um i mean it it's pretty amazing all the different things you can capture with it you know from habitats to specific scalation patterns and snakes, different colors, being able to tell differences. Some of the things that might be a little bit difficult, though, especially with animals that look very close to each other, it can be very difficult. I know from my boyfriend is a photographer and we did some photography for a while, is trying to get your subjects to sit still

or in the same positions. If you're trying to illustrate a difference in, you know, scalation and facial plates on one species versus another, and they won't stop moving, or you want to be able to set them side by side. So that way the viewer can accurately tell them apart. It could be a little bit difficult just getting photographs of it.

So sometimes artwork can step in and kind of help illustrate the differences. I've done some illustrations where it was a diagram of the head scales, different names of them, color coded, and then differences in different species, and being able to accurately identify different parts of the animals as well, that you wouldn't necessarily be able to see in a photo, especially medical with medical photography or medical illustration. You know, if you open up the inside of a snake, probably going to look like a lot of guts.

And you may not really be able to tell everything apart, even if it's got a little line with a name with what it is. So a lot of times illustration will kind of help separate that and make it a little bit easier for us to understand, you know, what X, Y, and Z is. And to be able to kind of create stuff that doesn't necessarily exist in another realm. And you see that with like a lot of, you know, paleo art and whatnot, but being able to put an animal in one setting or in a certain pose or try to do something with it that photography may not be able to capture.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, obviously those are some really good points. And that was kind of, like I said earlier, what drew me to try this digital art was seeing some illustrations, you know, side by side, different snake. They were different species, but they were all in the same pose. It was probably the same basic shape or whatever. And then, you know, the scale or coloration differences made in. So yeah, obviously that's a, that's a really useful thing, especially if you've ever tried to get little Antaresia, you know, children's Python group babies to sit still for a photograph. It's almost impossible sometimes just forget about it. But so I appreciate that. But I, I think you know, in, like you said, in addition to, you know, when, even if you take a good photograph, you still sometimes have to overlay it with lines or, you know, to show where different things are, because like you said, it might be hard to, to tell the difference. Um, so the other, I guess another point I would make is, uh, the time, um, you know,

a digital photograph can, you know, as long as you can get the animal to sit still and get a, get the pose you want. Um, you know, it's, it's instantly done and ready. You might have to do a little post, uh, snapshot, uh, processing or something to bump up your values or whatever you need to do to make the photograph look like you like, like it looks in reality. But you know, for artwork that can take a lot of time. And some, some of those pieces can take a really long time. That might be a little different with, you know, the digital media, watching people, I was watching some demonstrations, and they seem to do it pretty quickly. But yeah, it still took depends on the piece yeah but definitely um there's a lot more tools in digital artwork than you know we have you could

always press the backspace button on procreate which has saved me a million times um but yeah i mean definitely yeah so so you know the the time that it would take to i uh i i was hearing uh i follow a paleo artist on on uh one of the social media sites and and hearing all the projects he's got going he can't really talk about him you know because he's working on the and and you know all the art takes quite a bit of time i guess guess they're writing it. So that takes some time to writing books can take an inordinate amount of time sometimes. But so, you know, but the, the time that it takes can be maybe a downfall for, for art sometimes. I don't know, man, the time it's been taking you guys to collect all those pictures for

the carpet book seems to be not a small, not a small amount of time sorry yeah i mean it's what 600 page book it's gonna take a little bit hopefully it's worth the wait i had to get mine in there sorry yeah he's always taking pot shots of course that's what the moderator does right isn't that what i'm i didn't think that was part of your job description all right yeah so what do you think in regards to like time and stuff like that it can be both a hindrance and a wonderful thing at the same time um i mean there's so many different methods and like you said with digital art you can get things done a lot more quickly that way but at the same time you could also suck yourself into it i've got a tree monitor head that i've been working on that i'm like maybe 23 hours into and all i have it's just a head portrait up to the neck all i have done is from the nose to like maybe behind the eye the jaw and the whole neck i still have to do because with with the the wonders of technology i can zoom into every scale and make it you know the size of

my head and make you know me being me i wanted to try to see how far i could take it in detail. And so with each scale being, you know, pristinely colored and shaded, that's taken a million years. But I mean, I think that's part of the appeal though. What I noticed whenever I recorded any of my pieces, people then realized how much time it took and how much, you know, skill it can take to be able to produce some of these works.

Because unless you see the amount of time and work and blood, sweat and tears that goes into it, not everybody always understands, I guess, kind of the value of it. So it almost kind of raises the value of the piece, in my opinion, because usually the longer I take, the more detailed I'm trying to get, the more I'm trying to hone my skills and produce a really good piece of artwork. And at the end of the day, humans are, we've always been attracted to music and the arts and being able to see the things that we love done in different mediums and styles. And just being able to pay homage to the things that we enjoy is something that is, is always going to be around,

whether it's going to be valued correctly or not is one thing, but it's, it will always be enjoyed. Yeah. I mean, do you kind of feel like that, that, that time that it takes to create that unique one-off piece of art actually kind of ties into, you it's it's ultimate value over time and um you know it's it's it's one of a kindness i think so um i try to record a time lapse of pretty much any of the pieces that i do now so people can see and usually

whenever i post a piece i try to go you know, hey, this piece took 12 hours or this piece took 15 hours. And that's consecutive. That's without breaks. That's without planning it out and sketching it or compiling the photos that I'm using for reference or the ideas. So a lot of hard work goes into it. And I think when people realize that they really appreciate what went into it rather than, you know, thinking that I just, I grabbed a photograph and put a filter on it and just cut it out. So I've had a, actually quite a few people at shows seem a bit confused that it was artwork. And so I actually, I started drawing at the show so people can see, you know, this is something that I'm working on. This takes a lot of time. What did they say? What were time. What did they think?

What were they? I don't know. Okay. All right. I wish I had something recording the amount of times I've been asked, is this artwork? Is this your artwork? Are these hand-drawn?

While I've even been drawing. So I'll be, like, drawing something, and someone goes, is that hand-drawn while I've even been drawing. So I'll be like drawing something and someone goes, is that hand-drawn? And I remember just looking up at them and I've got my hand. No, this is a robotic arm. It's drawing for me. Yes. Everything here is hand-drawn and, you know, I have a lot of fun taking the time lapse videos and sharing the process with

folks and, you know, I have a lot of fun taking the time lapse videos and sharing the process with folks and, you know, just showing point A to point B what it takes to get there. Yeah, it was always one of my favorite with the NARBC shows. They'd always have Tel Hicks there painting and his art is pretty wonderful. It's amazing. Yeah. He's a huge inspiration. I've got one of his prints right over my shoulder. Yeah, we went to Bob Ashley's place this last uh october and that was dangerous because he's got a ton of cool prints and books and yeah i want to make it out there so much yeah we all spent a lot

a lot more money than we probably should have at his shop but yeah yeah, it was, it was cool. And, uh, Bob's a, he's a great guy. So, but yeah, that's, uh, that's, um, but like you said, I mean, the time takes, you know, that's, it can be a good thing too, because, um, seeing the detail and the time that it would take it, you know, he's, he's doing it in real time and you're just like, oh man, I don't know if I have the patience, you know, that's usually my fault is I'm too impatient. So I'm like, what? Either one. Yeah.

And I don't get easier. Yeah, I think I think the other kind of argument from, you know, being and I'm sure you guys have this to some extent as artists is is a lot of times you'll see somebody else's work and you're just like, oh, that doesn't do it for me. You know, I'd rather see a photograph than, than that picture. And sometimes you look at these books with illustrations and you're like, oh man, they should have got a better artist to do this. You know, that, that lizard's head's wonky or, you know, it's a little off or something. Well, I mean, obviously most are pretty good, but there's some that you look at and you're just like,

I don't know. Like I said, those old, you know know 1800s ones are kind of wonky too but they're they're uh i guess kind of hold the place in the heart because they're they're uh camping or something but i try to think about it too is the resources that people had at the time when you look at um especially for me because i'm i'm in into horses and equines and until they were able to figure out um basically how to record their movement nobody really knew how to paint their movement and so you know it's really neat looking at those old pieces of you know all their legs are kind of flailing in the air they knew they were running they just didn't know how to draw them running yeah so you couldn't stop it in time and look at it yeah there's no

photographs right yeah there's no way to be able to tell and i feel like you see that with some of the the old crocodilian pieces too like this is probably some dude sitting like at a riverbank trying to trying to peek at these animals that are moving around and come up with their idea of what it looks like so that that's kind of the, the thing that I think makes like all pieces, I guess, a bit charismatic for me is like, what was that person thinking at the time? And you know, what resources did they have? And everybody's got their own style and skill level and I try to appreciate it

for what it is, even if it's hilarious because there's yeah i forgot what it was what species some type of lizard was laying eggs and the expression on its face was just like i'll have to find it and send it over to you but it looks so fed up with life it was really funny that's pretty good maybe that was its actual expression maybe it really was could be yeah laying 50 years was like perfect yeah nailed it yep and so i i could see that being a con if you hire the wrong artist if they're not hiring adeline you know robinson to do their artwork it might not look so great. And so, you know, if they spent all this time and effort waiting for these, for the artwork, and then they get it,

and they're like, ah, we're gonna go in a different direction, you know, that could spoil things pretty bad, too. But everybody specializes in something differently, too. You know, especially when you're familiar with animals and anatomy you can't unsee it um and so you know very frequently you know especially with like a lot of tattoo art of snakes i'm sure you guys have seen oh yeah some of those yeah you know so everybody's got their their own thing that they're into and um you know some some jobs are better for some folks rather than others like ask me to draw a cat i cannot i'll draw you the worst looking cat you've ever seen yeah that's i i've that's the reason i won't get a tattoo is because i've seen so many where i'm

like oh man and if if they did it wrong or didn't do it to my life can't be like then i have to live with this on my arm for the rest of my life or something. And you know, Justin, though, I will say that that's why artists have portfolios and that's why tattoo artists have portfolios so that you can look at their work so that when you commission them to put art on your body or art on canvas or any type of art, you already have an idea of what their forte is and what they're they're going to be doing because yeah god forbid you you know have them do all this work and then you're like oh no that wasn't what i want like yeah no way i mean i would be pissed if i was the artist i'd be like you waste my fucking time yeah like yeah i don't think i could do a realistic like i'd have to do some

kind of symbol or something rather than a realism, you know, realistic tattoo. Depends on, yeah, your taste and whatever. Like, could you imagine if Tell Hicks was a tattoo artist, for example? You would know his portfolio already. That would be awesome. He could sit and work on you at the reptile shows and stuff. Tell Hicks in his booth just grinding on somebody's back. Like, I want to see that.

Yeah. Sign me up. Sign me up. I don't know. Yeah. No, I haven't seen some good ones, but yeah. Yeah, his portfolio. You would know, you know, what he's capable of.

Sure. Yeah. But, you know, there's always the chance that you mess up and i guess you can kind of cover up stuff and you know when you're working with a media like skin or you know something i i like to do uh watercolors and those were not forgiving for mistakes you know so you really had to oh yeah yeah and i will say i will say i've seen some tattoo artists that took some horrible tattoos and turned them into yeah like you wouldn't like like how like like a giant black just ugly tattoo and then they did this tattoo over it where you just can't even see and it looks fantastic so you know i you know shop your artists for sure for

sure yeah but i you know that that can be guess, the downside of ours if you get an artist that's a little, you know, off or doesn't know what they're doing. But, yeah. Yeah, you definitely want to look at portfolios and chat about what your projects are and what you're looking to have done. And they'll, you know, for the most part, they should tell you whether that's something they're capable of or not you know i'm more than happy to be honest with folks and go hey i'm sorry i'm not going to be able to i can't draw your grandma with her you know with her cat lizard or her dog or her cat like i can't i'm not capable of that i'd be more than happy to recommend another artist that is um but that's why that's why it's it's great having

friends too that do different things because i've you know i get commissions all the time for you know cats or dogs or or you know different different types of animals and i've got artist friends that specialize in that and i go hey you know here's my friend check out their work and we kind of help each other out oh that's nice to be able to have that as a resource. Yeah. One, one thing I was curious of, and this could be, you know, kind of the downside is that a lot of reptile people like to, um, buy the animals instead of spend money on other things like artwork. Has that been a hindrance? Is that, or, or do you find that reptile people like to, to buy the artwork? They like to buy artwork of what they have or what they're really into. And so a lot of the shows that I've been at, I actually started making a list at each one of the shows.

So I would get so many requests for certain species that were popular in that area. So as I started traveling and going to more and more shows that were farther away um for example i'm from the chicagoland area we've got maybe some russian tortoises some red foots or yellow foots nothing too crazy yeah well here i go to florida with no tortoise or turtle artwork for the most part and then I get down there and realize everybody's keeping these things outside they have the sunshine they've got the heat they've got the warmth they've got the resources to be to be able to keep more turtles down here than you know up in Illinois because it's it's cold you can't keep things outside and it's just not the right climate for it uh and so I got so many requests for turtle artwork.

I felt terrible because I was like, I'm sorry, I don't have any. I don't know what to tell you. So I've kind of been learning with like each one of the shows where I go, where I'm going or where I've gone to what people are looking for. So usually people really enjoy what they keep or, you know kind of popular state animals like in florida i was asked for alligator artwork and i didn't have any alligator artwork the first time i went down there um because they're they're so popular in florida so definitely regionally is different and um a lot of people they they prefer to have the animals that they are really into so yeah and i think having a variety probably helps a lot too yeah that's my uh we we were at the like the county fair with my kids and

there was this booth that and you know the artwork was like okay at best you know it was like kind of but they were busy because they had like a hundred different prints that you could buy and they were small and affordable. And so like my kids spent probably 30 bucks at their table, just, you know, five or six or seven different, uh, drawings or paintings that they did. And I'm like, man, that's, that's pretty awesome. Yeah. I mean the, the artwork wasn't that great, but they had a large variety. And so I think people could find what they were interested in or what they liked at the table. So I could, I guess I could see even, you just took Ross McGibbon. I ordered some of his calendars and I took one of the calendars apart and laminated it and put it up on my reptile room because his photographs are phenomenal. He's got this inland carpet picture that's just gorgeous. Like one of the best pictures I've ever seen.

Yeah, it is artwork. I mean, that's, you know, with a, with a camera, but I have, you know, so I kind of cheated instead of buying prints from him. I bought his calendar. So one of these days I'll have to get the same prints and get them and get, you know, big size, put them on metal or something and put them up in the room. But, um, that, that can be, yeah, difficult to get the right shot. And like you said, posing them and getting the right lighting and things like that can be a challenge. But once you get it right, it's pretty incredible.

Yeah, it's always very satisfying. Do you have animals that, Adeline, do you have animals that you like to draw and do you find sometimes that what is popular may not necessarily be what your avenue of interest is? Do you find yourself working outside of like what you enjoy working with? A hundred percent. Oh, absolutely. Yes. For me personally, I love monitors. I can talk monitors all day. I won't shut up about them. It's bad. And so I keep tree monitors and they have just kind of been my love for like the last five years or so. species really random weird looking obscure species that i'll find random photographs of online that's kind of what interests me the most um i don't know if it's because i've worked with a lot of the most commonly cut species for a long time that not that they don't have a magic to them because they yeah i think every animal does yeah but they don't quite do it for me like you know the random it's just not where you're at

yeah yeah random anole from south america that's super brightly colored like looks really weird so that's usually kind of what i'm more attracted to so when i first started i didn't have any ball pythons no leopard geckos like nothing that anybody kept um and so after getting like a bunch of requests you know over and over you know like six months in i was like okay like i gotta do i have to at least do something that people mostly keep because that's what they're looking for it's what they want in their homes um and so i'm kind of i'm working off of a couple lists lists um a personal list of different species that i'd like to work on and then i'm also working on kind of more of a pet list of frequent requests that I'm hopefully going to be working my way

down some more this summer but yeah it all takes time oh for sure chugging along yeah but yeah there's definitely things I prefer to draw. What species of tree monitors do you keep? Currently, I have Macraeae and Bacari. Nice. So I had some Cordos and I had some Racinas, but I ended up moving and kind of downsizing the amount of space that I had. And I kind of wanted to be able to devote more time to less animals. Yeah, yeah. As difficult as that was to do so luckily i've got a lot of really wonderful friends that a lot of my some of my animals went to so i still kind of get to keep

track of them and keep tabs on them um but yeah i mean if if i had more space i'd probably have more do you have a favorite between bakari and uh bakari um i'm loving I mean the blues are just so bright yeah that yeah it's ridiculous it's really pretty it's eye-catching living art they really are I mean that's what inspires me to do what I do is I just I love them so much I want to try to kind of do right by them in the artwork. And so it's, it's a little bit difficult because I've had the female Bakari the longest out of all the monitors I've had, I've had her,

I got her first and she's super skittish and just very nervous. She's just a nervous animal. And so initially like the macri were always just kind of my solid favorites i've got a very outgoing male and then ended up getting a male bakari for the female and he is just so outgoing too both of the boys are just like always checking everything out you know i'll have my hand out and they're they're coming over and looking at it so it's it's definitely a hard pick like probably that's the macri eye but the car is growing on me a lot yeah okay sorry just just curious i i like i like tree monitors i think they're the coolest i i really like bakari i uh so i was just curious

what you thought so yeah it's hard the The Cordensis have wonderful personalities too. And that's the fun thing about them is they're all so different. Yeah. My Cordos were very, very outgoing. Like jump on your arm the second you open the cage door. They're just fun. That's cool. For sure.

I still have this memory just burned into my retinas. We were walking down a gorge in Karajini in Western Australia. And it was like this red, like rock, kind of almost like a sidewalk, right? It was just the floor of the gorge was just this red rock. And then all of a sudden we hear this noise. My wife and I were walking down and we look back and see this big yellow spot monitor panoptes walking along, you know, just kind of cruising along the thing.

And then he goes under a rock and he starts scratching his back on the rock, like raising his back and scratching back and forth on the rock. I'm like, that is so cool. I got it on video, but I didn't, I didn't get any pictures of, you know, like still frame pictures. That is so cool. I got it on video, but I didn't, I didn't get any pictures out, you know, like still frame pictures. That is so cool. You got to post that. It's on, it's on YouTube on reptiles of Karajini, I think is the name of the video that I posted that on, but it was just, I just love their personalities. Yeah. It just, you know, he,

he obviously knew you were there. I'm sure. He walked right past us didn't pay us any mind yeah gotta scratch his back uh-huh he had the the swagger for sure man those those guys know they're the the king of the roost out there but it was a big one or um he was kind of a more medium size but yeah they're they're pretty they can get pretty good sized out there they're pretty intimidating animals They have huge like biceps too. Like they do a lot of digging. Yeah.

Their forearms are huge, but man, it was just seeing them out in the wild. It was just really cool. I think I remember your last panopty story and I believe the way you described the animal was jacked. Yeah. Yeah. That was the one Steve grabbed by the tail and he's like, grab it, grab it by the the tail he's like grab it grab it by the neck i'm like you grab it by the neck that thing's huge gonna take my arm off yeah yeah they're fun

monitors are so cool that's that's a dream of mine is to get out there and go go check on that go see their house there's there's not much better than seeing them in the wild it's a lot of fun but you're you're talking to the right person to get you motivated to go out there, Justin. I can't wait to get back. Another one where it's like I probably should draw a picture of it because I tried to grab it before I took a picture of it. It was this striped tail monitor out in, again, in Western Australia, a little further South than the other one, but it was just this beautiful, just perfectly posed on this, uh, trunk of a tree. And like, I'm like, you know, my wife is with me again. I'm like, wait, stop. You know, I got it. And it looked just like I could just reach out and grab it. And I thought, Oh, this is easy. You know, I'll just,

I'll sneak behind the tree and grab it real quick. And yeah, I totally missed and it ran away and I don't have any documentation of the thing. And I was like, dang it. But yeah, it was pretty crazy. Yeah. I guess there are, there are some good reasons to, to get some artwork done, but so that's, I guess maybe that's another, you, you kind of brought this up a little bit, but you know, maybe a downside of being a reptile artist is at least, you know, early in your career. Can we say that, you know, that you, you need to draw what's popular rather than what you really want to be working on maybe. Um, and you know, I imagine you probably, um, feel some of the intermediate times with,

uh, stuff you want to do. But that was always my thing is like, I'd always just draw stuff I wanted to do or did the, you know, wood burnings of what I wanted to do. And then, you know, I'd try to maybe sell them if, if I wanted to move them on or something. And everybody's like, I don't care about that species. I don't want to have that. So, you know, does it take, does it take a while to get to the point where no matter what you put out there, somebody is going to buy it regardless of what it is just because it's an, you know, it's an Adeline original. So far I've done fairly well when it comes to doing like random obscure species pieces. Um, but I do retire old pieces as i do more so like i did um like anolis proboscis

like the pinocchio anole with the long nose was like one piece that i did that like a lot of people had no idea what it was or were just like what what is this thing like what'd you draw um and i did sell like quite a few prints of it surprisingly even though people didn't know what it was they just thought it looked cool and so you know i i did have him for a while and um some other species but i think i mean it it kind of just takes balance and it's something i've kind of had to learn a lot last year was um it's very easy to get burnt out on work when you're not doing anything for yourself. Yeah. And that's kind of the reason I got back into it.

And so I, there were quite a few periods of time where I just didn't feel like drawing because I was just working on so many projects, you know, quote unquote for work that I wasn't getting any personal art and, and it definitely, it took a toll on me. And so I was like, okay, I need to find a way to schedule this. So like every other piece, you know, will be a personal piece versus a fan favorite. And, you know, trying to get myself to kind of not necessarily fall in love with the animal again. Because I, you know, I find them all fascinating and really cool, but just try to remember like why the animal looks like it does, what it's had to do to adapt to be able to live the way it does.

You know, obviously how it looks like ties into that directly and, you know, what the animal needs to do to survive and just kind of get more information about them themselves. And that kind of helps get me back into the swing of you know recapturing the excitement of them yeah so it definitely is is interesting playing and learning like i said i'm i'm new at this i've only been doing it for almost two years now and i'm learning a lot of you know what's too much what's not enough um do i only want to do know, stuff that people are looking for and then abandon my own stuff versus, you know. Adeline, do you feel like, like, like, like creating, and I have a friend who does music and, and he, he and his brother both did music and they had to stop for a period of time and stop making music. Cause he said, you know, it was just, we were making so much music. It burnt me out. I, I, it's exhaustive. And that, that creative, you know, that creative process and

that creative energy takes its toll on you. It, would you feel like you feel kind of, it sounds, it kind of sounds like that's what you're saying basically. And, and, and so, so is, is it the balance or is it just not working too much or what do you, would you say the the secret to not burning out or not exhausting your creative you know energy is I think well what I'm trying now because I've been honestly dealing with it a lot for the last couple years because you know I've been trying to learn a balance of, you know, what's too much. And the hard thing, too, is when you're working for yourself, and when you're trying to build a business up, you know, from scratch. And for a person like myself that can't stop thinking about that, I don't necessarily know how to relax yeah and so it's something I'm still struggling with is like the second I lay down in bed my mind is racing of like okay I need to get these posts out I need to get these pieces done I've got you know a few extra projects that I need to get finished up my brain's kind of like that all the time and um since the beginning I I would take on a lot of

work that um you know for friends or I would want to do some really fun pieces as like donations. And I kind of got to the point where I just kind of overloaded myself and had a difficult time with being able to manage the stress just from having a lot of projects being at once. So that was just overwhelming. And then once I was able to like make a list, work my way down, space things out a overwhelming and then once I was able to like make a list work my way down space things out a little bit easier I was like oh this isn't that bad I'm you know I'm really enjoying this again and so what I'm doing actually with you know starting this year is I'm spacing my commissions out a little bit farther apart and I'm doing time slots for my logos and for my graphic design work so you know I have one

week dedicated to this piece I've got another week dedicated to that rather than let's have 10 projects at once yeah yeah smart so I would say for like anybody new getting into it you know it's so important to take your own time in between to be able to breathe, to be able to catch up, to be able to get away from it for a minute. Because if you go hard at it and you don't stop and you don't take care of yourself, you just crash. Yeah, I've had that a few times. And so it's something that I definitely have been learning and I'll still be working on. But it definitely helps to, to have less projects. I feel like cooking at once. Cause it's so nice not having to worry about a million things.

Well, and I, I don't think, you know, I mean, I don't want to speak for people who are, who aren't artistic or don't, don't create art or whatever, but I, I don't think the average person really can interface with that idea of how taxing uh you know how i mean how your how your brain just it kind of consumes you uh with the creative process and and you know thinking about it and worrying about it and all that so um thank you that was that was an interesting perspective it's really like weirdly exhausting too yeah um because i've i've worked you know plenty of 12 hour days at the pet store the wildlife center or whatever and i'd be tired at the end of the day you know because i worked

all day and i feel like that same feeling i'll sometimes get after spending like eight hours on a piece it's not quite the same amount of time, but I feel like the amount of mental effort and concentration and work that goes into it is almost like content. Yes. Yeah. So after pretty much almost after like every piece that I do, because usually I try to do it either all in one chunk or between like two days. I try to get them knocked out. I'm dead. I'm so tired at the end of them. Like they, they take all of my energy. And you know, if, if there's too many that are done back to back,

it definitely gets to be just like really draining. And so like got to take a couple of days to rest in between and then I'll, I'll start back at it again. Yeah. It's, it can be a lot, especially with, you know, detail work and scales. I feel that way. I feel that way about reptiles too. So, I mean, here you, here you are doing reptiles and doing art and it's, you know, so I definitely feel you on it being such a tricky balance and especially for you. I mean, so, um, yeah, it's, uh, it's tough. It's, it is tough.

Yeah. I have a hard time putting it down, you know, like when you start something, if it's going really well, and then all of a sudden I realize my back is all cramped up because I'm hunched over. Oh, I feel like a shrimp. Yeah, exactly. And I go like, I got to stand up and move around. My eyes are all bugging out, you know, focusing so hard. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to catch you up there. oh no it definitely is um it's a total similarity though with keeping and with reptiles as well as you know when you're getting overloaded with a really big collection and if you're the only person managing it and you're just trying to keep up it can kind of they can sap you and take that that passion away at times i've seen seen a lot of friends go through it i've gone through it

where sometimes you just you need help or downsizing time or you need to go get away for a minute yeah yeah yeah i i think that's probably something that if you're at all serious into reptiles you you experience that at one point in time where you're like ah there's just so many cool animals i want to own everything and then you get so far into it to at a certain point you're just like oh crap i fucked up like so yeah it's uh it to at a certain point, you're just like, oh, crap, I fucked up. Like, so, yeah, it's it's definitely a balance. Definitely. Yeah.

And I guess that's in any aspect of life. Like you're saying, you need to stop and take a break and give yourself a chance to recuperate before you start the next piece. And, yeah, you can definitely work yourself into a bad place sometimes or no matter what you're doing, I guess. Well, I don't know, man. Sometimes I ask, sometimes I ask my non-reptile friends like, oh, what'd you do this weekend or whatever? It sounds like they had a pretty chill weekend. Didn't have a whole lot going on. I was busy all weekend though. So, you know, sometimes I do, I do feel like us reptile folks end up working uh a little few more hours than some of our non-reptile friends yeah well and i think that's you know

a good point of learning what what your limits are where it becomes where your balance is not enjoyable where you can keep it as a fun hobby or i mean if it's a business you got to put in the work regardless you know yeah that's kind of that same argument you know doing the if you're making reptiles a business you got to do what's popular for the a lot of you know the stuff you breed you might have a couple pet projects that keep it interesting for yourself but for the most part you got to keep the staples and you got to you know yeah because everybody comes in the store looking for a boa or a ball python or the same things you know it's hard to get people out of that

out of that mindset you know i i keep stuff i like because i have a day job and i can afford to work with stuff that's not as popular or mainstream or whatever and so i spend most my time at reptile shows just educating people about anteresia or you know the and and i think you know what a great tie-in you know adeline is creating art and obviously maybe somebody hasn't seen that that animal in that piece of art but maybe that's a way it draws them in just like you writing books or you into stuff and and are trying to teach people about it i i think you kind of have to uh you have to be the one out there expanding people's horizons. So it's true. Um, it's a good service. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. A hundred

percent. So, yeah, well, I can't think of anything else to throw at you. I've kind of run out of, uh, ideas about, uh, maybe cons to artwork in the reptile lobby so good job yeah you beat up on me pretty good here so fierce well it's definitely fun discussing it and talking about it though i mean i i mean i i guess another thing that could be said that i've heard a lot is um i not i've heard for me personally but other artists that have been told like, oh, man, it's a shame you can't make a living off of that or it's a shame you can't actually make a life. And I feel like that starving artist stereotype, you know, from back in the day before we had

social media and ways to market ourselves is definitely still out there and a lot of people love that mindset not realizing um how important artwork is not only in you know looking at it for fun but just for shirts for signs for logos for you know any type of design everything that's been designed it's been designed by somebody yeah So there's just so many aspects of it. Yeah. It makes life interesting. I mean, life without art would not be very enjoyable, I think. Yeah. Well, yeah. I think people take for granted how interwoven art is with,

with culture. And, and I think it's easy to take an artist for granted. And, and I think that's part of where that, well, and I think that's like our parents stereotype kind of thing. Like, what are you going to do with your life? Cause you can't make any money being an artist. You got to be a doctor, lawyer, you know, the big four or whatever. Yeah. Have you been, have you been on Instagram?

There are people making a living off of Instagram. Like, get the heck out of there. They're just taking pictures of themselves. Like, get the heck out of here. Yeah, we're in a strange place right now. I see all these YouTube guys that are building these giant zoos and stuff like that. I'm like, oh, man, maybe I should have just made a video every day for the last 10 years and then i could be building a giant zoo or whatever but yeah i don't know what you is

that what you want to do justin is build a giant hey what what reptile person hasn't thought of having a zoo at one time or another am i right like i feel like i do have a zoo i got yeah cattle dogs a family a bunch of reptiles it's a freaking zoo around you don't have a line outside your house with people paying you to look at your says metal dogs business idea yeah there you go uh but yeah i you know that or a pet store i think most reptile people think oh that would be cool to own a pet store or own a zoo. But yeah. Yeah. I feel, I feel like, I feel like it's, it's cool on its surface. Like it's like, you're like, this would be awesome.

But when you get down into it, it would be really hard. It would be really hard. I used to have that dream with, with both and with having a equine, like a boarding facility for horses too but after working so closely with pet you know in pet stores and working so closely at a wildlife center which was a small private zoo and at boarding facilities i'm like nah it's a lot of work i'll enjoy it i'll go visit my friends stores um yeah you know there's one store out here that i used to work at that i still work very closely with um because the the owner that owns it now we both used to work there you know before he the older owners retired and like it's a ton of work it has just been insane and some some weeks

are just so stressful so i'm like i i don't envy it I admire it and I appreciate it I don't think I'd be able to do it I'm excited to go see Ty Park Zoo that looks amazing fantastic job with that I'm hoping to go down and visit as well just seeing the hosts and the updates are super cool

there's so many fun places that's another thing that I love about what I'm able to do now is being able to go check out other people's collections and zoos and still be still be involved you know but at the same time not quite with the responsibility part of it is that has so has your um i guess art career required a lot more travel than than you were before like are you doing i never did yeah i i've been going to reptile shows for about 10 years now but they were always local so like the nrbc friendly park show sewer fest in wisconsin like those were my staple shows that i had gone

for so long because i never had a you know i was always working for somebody so taking time off was always kind of a pain and i never road tripped or really had a reason to go out of state and so now you know now that I've got a van to be able to travel and you know we're able to kind of pick up and go I you know had never driven to Florida before you know we've been to Florida twice we've been going to Texas and it's been fun being able to go down you know check out different pet stores or facilities or you know zoos and be able to chat with people and network it's been a lot of fun even though I don't technically work with the animals quite as much anymore I still get to spend a lot of time seeing them you know working with my own animals at home and being able to check out other people's animals

and learning it's been a blast cool. See, I would be, that'd be a dream to just be able to travel from reptile show to reptile. I mean, some, you know, might get a little tedious after a while, but you know, that'd be a lot of cool,

especially if you can plan like a visit of a facility or, you know, go herping in different places. Yeah. That's. Yeah. That's, that's what I'm hoping to do more of for sure.

Usually after like, after being gone for about two weeks i definitely started getting a little antsy about wanting to get back to check on the animals but i mean it's a lot of fun for sure that's cool so do you have like a circuit set up of shows you visit now are you adding yeah looking to expand a little bit of both i'm'm hoping to be able to continue to expand. So right now I hit up all the NARBC shows. I've been doing Daytona, Florida. I just had the second one that I have ever done. So I haven't been doing that for super long.

And then some of the show me shows. I usually do the Janesville one and sometimes Sewer Fest in Wisconsin if I can. But I was actually hoping to make it out West. I know Pomona is coming up. I was going to try to see if I could make that happen, but it's, I've got a lot going on right now. And so I'm just trying to get things together as it is.

I'd like to make it out there at some point. So I've heard a lot of great things about it. I've never gone out West really before past, you know, the Arlington show. So I want to check that out. So now compared to the, like the shows and stuff,

how much business is online, like just from, you know, your website or how much posting and marketing I'm doing. To be honest, last year, I did not, I was not on top of my posting or marketing or social media.

I kind of let it drop for a bit. And so I didn't really get a whole lot of online orders in without people knowing, like, that there was stuff online. And so, you know, a big part of what I do is go into the shows. You know, tons of people are walking by and chatting with a lot of folks. What's a lot of fun too, is a lot of people that I've met or that have like commented or found me online, I'll get to meet in person. And so it's always really fun being able to say that the shows are really

big. And then doing like logo client work are kind of my two main things. But since I've been trying to pick up posting again and creating content, I've been getting more online orders. So I'm hoping to kind of keep that going too. So definitely it's a lot of like a lot of what they say, like pokers in the fire or whatever. Yeah, a lot of irons in the fire.

Yeah, a lot of irons in the fire. Yeah. So it's a lot to kind of handle at times. So I'm very lucky my boyfriend helps me with, you know, a lot of aspects of that as well so I can focus on drawing. Because that's the hard part. You know, talk about balance is trying to figure out how to create content and do, you know, videos and photos and editing and prints and shop as well as creating pieces that take a long amount of time so i see a lot of content creators that are shooting their animals or going places and shooting and i have to remind myself like i'm trying to create content then

create content in multiple layers so yeah it can be a lot at times but create content, then create content in multiple layers. So it can be a lot at times, but create content of your content. Exactly. Well, I feel like I'm starting to get my groove. Good, good, good to have somebody helping you. I, I'm such a fan of the, of the phrase teamwork, making the dream work. So, for sure. You know, yeah, I'm very, very grateful for that. Definitely helps a lot, especially with the photographing the prints and editing them and, you know, getting them onto prints and shipping.

Like it's, it's a lot, like there's a lot to it. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Um, do you ever see a time where you just, you know, have prints and not, not be creating new stuff or is that just not in your, in your wheelhouse? You just got to be. Never thought that far ahead. Yeah. Okay. So I guess it's not a goal to have like a certain number of pieces and then be like, okay, I'm good. Here we go. That's, this is my, my, my unofficial goal is to try to do like one of every species if I can which obviously is impossible because

how would you do such a thing yeah but you know I just I want to want to continue drawing things that inspire me things that I love I would like to be able to get to a point where I don't have to um I guess worry about how much I have to post and how frequently I'd love that I'd love to not have to worry about that so I can just kind of focus on creating. So we'll see hopefully maybe in the future. But my goal currently is we've got a sprinter van that we've converted to be able to sleep in and kind of camp out of. So with some of the trips that I've been going on, we've been going herping and trying to get photos and videos of some of the animals that we get to see and my my goal is to be able to like travel the country go herping take photos and do artwork

of the animals so it sounds very maybe like idealistic that's legit as shit though that's awesome you're you're dream right there you're getting out having an experience you know, getting to herp and creating a living memory of that. That's the coolest shit ever. That's what I'm hoping for. We went herping in Florida the last time we were at Daytona in August and Chris spotted a little baby pygmy, teeny little pygmy rattler going across the pass. And we got a bunch of photos of them and I'm like I need to draw this a little bit it's just so fun being able to have a story with each piece too and I try to do

that kind of with every piece that I do now I prefer to use reference photos from people that I know or not necessarily know in person but know online so like from different breeders or different keepers or just friends of mine that have full species i like to reach out to them as opposed to like hopping on google and trying to

find like a royalty-free photo it's it's nice to be able to have a story with the animal to be able to like not that i have a huge following but try to promote the breeder like whoever produced it or whoever whoever it's referenced from yeah so we can kind of like help each other out and you know i go like hey this is you know snuggles the so-and-so's feces or i don't know like give it a give it a story so it's more fun well and it's it's interesting when you look at like artists who kind of you know are are are taking you know modern social issues or things like that, and they're turning it into artists, kind of a social commentary. And that's kind of some of the role of artists. And I think it's really interesting that here you are, you know, going out, doing herp trips, doing, you know, some of the most interesting things in herpetoculture, and then turning that into art.

It really is kind of in you know lockstep with the the the what i feel like is the heart and soul of an artist you know so i i think that's pretty cool yeah well where can uh people find your art where can they learn more about you um if you go to adeline robinson art.com or adeline robinson or just adeline robinson.com or adeline robinson it'll take you to my website and i've got my social media info i've got my web store information listed on there so should cover everything um but yeah just adeline robinson cool awesome adeline robinson art yeah you've heard it and go check it out. She does some really fantastic work. I've really been, I mean, your, your artwork is the kind that I look at and go, okay, that's good. I don't have to go, Oh, that's a little off, you know?

Well, thank you. I appreciate it. I'm always, I'm always trying to get better. So hopefully, hopefully in the future, I can look back at my artwork now and be like, yeah, I've gotten a lot better since then. I'm always, always trying. Well, you're, you're, it's really great stuff.

Yeah. You do a good job. Yeah. We really appreciate you coming on. It's been a lot of fun talking to you. Yeah. This has been good. Likewise.

I like, I like these, you know, I mean, we can, you know, integrating art into, into reptile talk is what I,

what an awesome thing to do. So yeah. A lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah. Well, again, thanks for coming on and we appreciate our listeners out there and thanks for listening and go check out Morale Python's radio network. Check out all the shows they've got. I think we're also, there's, there's new new things we're contractually obligated to say. I can't remember what they are.

Do you recall, Chuck? I should have reviewed that before we launched into this, but I'll get it right next time. How's that? We are failing in our contractual obligations for this show. Our apologies, Podfather. Yeah, Morelli Pythons Network. is it morellapythons.com um anyway there's there's all the information you'll ever need there so we'll get it better next time eric sorry all right well thanks for listening to reptile fight club and we'll catch

you next week adeline just, and Chuck are out. Thank you. Outro Music Thank you.