Bouquet pod-mamillt-hornet honey-LOL encyclopedia

 Continuing pages for the Life of Lewa encyclopedia. The following pages show more objects mentioned in Life of Lewa chapter 10 "Lewa's First Date". 

The bouquet flower pod and mamillt were mentioned in the episode; hornet honey on the other hand is an extra faux product which hasn't yet been mentioned in any episode, but I hope to include its name at some point.

I do enjoy inventing objects which don't exist, it gives me a sense of enchantment to be able to bring out imagery and description onto a page displaying objects of fantasy and faux reality.

It's like I'm walking through the world in my head and recording the little things that have been observed. That's essentially why my MOC is Pearllight, because that's what she does; explores, observes, catalogs.

The bouquet sketch itself is based off the prop bouquet miniature used in the picture "Lewa's First Date"

 Bouquet Pod

 From Life of Lewa chapter 10 “Lewa’s First Date”. The bouquet which Lewa purchased
 had an odd water pod over the cut flower ends of the bouquet.

This pod held water to keep the flowers alive. It’s bottom is firm and tear drop shaped,
able to hold large amounts of water and sustain itself during travel.
             
These flower pods are commonly bread for two uses, one for slipping on bouquet ends,
the other for using as small water bottles or drink holders of medicine and fruit juice. 

The pods grow on a certain plant, their sole purpose for holding water which the plant uses
 during times of drought. These water holding pods have been found helpful for the uses
 listed above, and locals of Aquabosphera started using them for practical purposes.

Each pod is like a flower, a very firm, smooth flower with a hard base and rippled top that
opens and closes to capture rain. The soft rippled top is strong, but flexible, and when used
as a water bottle or bouquet pod, as it's commonly called, it's simply shut with a piece of
thread or ribbon.

Mamillt 

Mamillt is a type of Glatorian grain made into a hot cereal.

It has the texture of oatmeal and grits, and can be cooked in either hot water, or for richer flavor, hot milk.

The mamillt grain grows in large fields like any long grain such as wheat. It's then processed and the grain is bagged and used for hot cereals, muffins, and breads.

Some like mamillt savory, usually mixed with sausage and fried egg. Most prefer mamillt as a sweet hot cereal, mixed with choices of jelly, syrups, or hornet honey.

Mamillt is normally stored in a twine shut paper bag with a label that has the grain image on it, name, and listings of grit grade. The grit grade determines whether it's good for making bread, or better for cooking as hot cereal. The finer grain is the one used for cereal, and is occasionally mixed with larger grain grit for a combination texture. 

Hornet Honey

 

Hornet honey is obtained from a special honey hornet that hive on the edges of jungles or forests. As their name implies, these hornets are special because they make more honey than they need, and their honey has a certain tang to it which is well liked over bee honey.

A special armor with a metal under mesh must be worn while collecting the honey from these hornets. They have farms in jungle regions where they raise these hornets for their honey, and surrounding these farms are warning signs so people don't disturb the hives and pay the price.

The special armor is found to be the only safe way to collect the honey seeing like any hornet, they have no limitation in stinging, and they also have pinching mouth parts.

Once the honey has been collected, it's put into glass jars with a simple label on the front, capped with a leather lid and secured with waxed twine.

Candy Slugs-LOL encyclopedia

 This is a relative of candied fruit slugs from Life of Lewa, mentioned in previous post.

As stated near the end of last post, this second product based off of and very similar to candied fruit slugs was to be included in the encyclopedia.

The following encyclopedia page below describes the sugar candy version of the candied fruit slugs. For full detail on this faux product, scroll down. As last time, I've included the encyclopedia page details directly below the image.

Candy slugs

Candy slugs are a look alike product of true candied fruit slugs. This product is an actual novelty candy for those who don't like the texture or thought of eating the actual candied slugs of the Junti region.

Each candy slug is a molded sweet that looks like the real thing, but is made entirely from sugary products. The centers contain marshmallow, coated with a layer of caramel, then encased with a raspberry orange jelly candy, and then dipped in chocolate.

Tourists and visitors like these candies over the real thing, and some buy them as a pleasant joke, letting some believe they're about to eat a real slug, just to find it's candy.

The main difference between these candies and the real candied slugs is the packaging. The label is different so you can tell the real thing from the novelty sweet.

Note, it says Candy slugs, not candied fruit slugs. And the bottom specifically states they are chocolate coated slug shaped candy.

Candied Fruit Slugs-LOL Encyclopedia

 Candied Fruit Slugs. A faux product mentioned in the Life of Lewa series, specifically in chapter 10, "Lewa's First Date".

The box art above was especially fun to make, and shows the product all leaf wrapped and secured with a whimsical sticker label of the fruit slug and its foods, described in Matoran font. Whether or not a Junti product would be written in Matoran is unknown, but I figure Matoran is easier to understand and was kept as the base writing language. (Not to mention Glatorian font was never made known in all of the Bionicle series).

 I love giving details and visual images on what goes through my head, this is why I've decided to start work on what will eventually become an entire Life of Lewa encyclopedia of faux LOL products, character details, concepts, and more.

It's basically a side project which I hope to continue, but there's no saying how many pages I'll actually make. My hope is to make PDF file sections when I have enough, so the pages can be looked at for extra details during story reading.

I assembled the image page above just to display all the pictures from the encyclopedia pages on fruit slugs. Plus I added translation for what the candy label says.

Below are the assembled encyclopedia pages, all details about this product are listed, but for faster reading sake, I've included the details from these pages at the bottom of this post.

 

Candied Fruit Slugs

Candied Fruit Slugs, a traditional Junti candy which at one time was considered a bit taboo beyond the jungle regions.

                      These candied fruit slugs are specially bread in the jungle regions at fruit slug farms where the special fruit eating slug is fed different kinds of fruit for different flavors of meat.

They're fed two kinds of main fruit, a type of raspberry, and a type of orange. Some are fed a single fruit, others are fed both raspberry and orange for a double fruit flavor.

The slugs tend to be the colors of the fruits they eat, they're main tone pink with orange and purple speckles. Slugs vary in size and are split up accordingly.

The smaller to medium sized slugs are commonly used for the candies; larger ones which reach a foot in length, are more commonly sold as dessert slugs for Junti dishes served with sweet breads and or cakes, sometimes fruit salads.

The slugs are collected and painlessly killed with an herb, then put into a large dehydrator where they're dried for the next 48 hours. They're so moist it takes two days for them to shrivel, yet they retain their moist centers even after being dried, resulting in a crunchy outer shell, with a soft gooey middle the texture of fresh caramel.

The slugs are so sugary from their diet that they weep a sweet, sweaty substance as they dry. This substance saturates their outer skin and evenly coats the slug, resulting in a sweet, tangy outer shell that tastes like fruit, and is semi crunchy after it's fully dry, resulting in a natural candied coating.

Once the slugs are dried, they're processed, some of them kept plain, and others dipped in chocolate. Most prefer the chocolate coated slugs as candies

When all is done the slugs are boxed in different containers lined with yellow paper or satin. The classic candied slug label is then added over a traditional leaf wrapping which keeps moisture in, and is held on with either a twine wrap or sticker label.

The flavor of these odd sweets is the combination of zesty fruit, marshmallows, and chocolate in every bite.

The centers are still rather gooey even after they've been boxed, and the slugs retain their natural slime to some degree. It's an either love or hate kind of sweet.

Some final notes on this faux product. I may make another page for the actual candy version of these sweet slugs. Since most don't like the texture of true candied slugs, they make an actual candy version which consists of a marshmallow center, caramel layer, gummy fruit candy layer, then a coating of chocolate. Further details are for the future.

Lewa's First Date

 Oh the beauty of this picture. Something about it that makes me want to jump in and stand on the tree house porch too.

From Life of Lewa chapter 10 "Lewa's First Date". This scene depicts Lewa clumsily sharing a bouquet to Venimbus on the porch of her private tree home. He wasn't suppose to follow her, but he did. Yay for him. :D

 Close up shot for fun, stuffing that bouquet in her face without meaning to.

Because extra shots and bloopers are always fun. Lewa says, "I brought you some flowers".

The Making of 

This projects was fun. Late at night I rushed to get the photo shoot done, using basic techniques as usual.

How did I do it? Used my favorite cardboard props which served as Venimbus's tree house, hid the background with my black foam board, hung my fake plants over the sides of the building and backdrop, and my favorite part; lined the wall, made a door, and created a porch platform by using a bamboo place mat and sushi roll mats. This worked surprisingly well for the jungle theme, and made me love the scene when it was completed.

That bouquet in Lewa's hands was assembled with small fake flowers and a green pipe cleaner that held the bunch together, and made it so Lewa
could hold it.


Seeing Lewa has a travel bag, and I didn't have one that fit properly, I used a mini leather bag that has a pink and purple shell on it. To hide that detail, I kept the bag's blank side towards the camera to give the illusion that Lewa had a plain leather travel satchel.

The rest of my work was done in PSE where I cut out the background and replaced it with a tweaked desktop image of some jungle trees. I also replaced the wall color on Venimbus's home with a dusty teal tone, and with some cut and paste tricks, added a roof to the image.

Final tweaks were all about light and level adjustments, and I was enchanted when the work was completed.

A final note, the joke flower image of Lewa holding the bouquet out to you is the same scene tweaked to look different. I'd say he's in more of a backyard setting in that scene.

2014 Bionicle Accessory Designs

 2014, it was a pretty big year, especially because of my continuous designing spree. I forgot to mention about all the Bionicle accessory stuff I did to this Bionicle blog (face palm), so here they are.

This post is dedicated to 2014 and another year gone by with more results and fun projects. Each of these pictures has their own links to main posts for each of them if you want to know more about the designs.

The above Bionicle Element Jewelry was my first set of Bionicle themed jewelry designs and they were rather liked, much to my surprise, especially the clasp bracelets. I was shocked to find my name mentioned on G+ by someone who was thinking about trying to make a solid plastic printed rendition of some of these designs.

 I went on to carry the theme from the main element jewelry sets, continuing the use of the element symbols and compiled these Bionicle Belt designs.

 And if earrings, bracelets, and belts aren't enough, I continued the theme and designed these Bionicle Element Headbands.

 After all the basic elements, some wanted to see the opposing elements of shadow and light, hence came the Light and Shadow TnM Bionicle Jewelry set. Who knew Bionicle could make cool cameos.

 Then came the Mata Nui Virtue Necklace. This is one of my favorite pieces, really would like to make it an actual novelty necklace.

And finally, a piece inspired from a more recent Bionicle RP that started near the end of summer, I made a Le Koro journal/gift box design. Basic accessories of a Maori leaf charm, with a matching box and journal that display the air element symbol.

That's a wrap for 2014 accessory designs themed around Bionicle. Now onto 2015 and the urge to continue on with my projects and hopefully more designing.