*theme*
Hey, we are here in the future home of
the striped hyena diorama which is
currently being built
thanks to Indiegogo supporters and
fans of The Brainscoop
and the Field Museum, and we're here
with Aaron Delehanty.
That's right, yeah, my name IS Aaron
Delehanty and I'm an artist here on staff at the field museum.
I work in the replication shop and we
build a lot of components for the exhibitions here
and the occasional diorama, which, I
guess hasn't come up in a lot of- many decades
so it's pretty amazing that this is
happening and I'm thrilled and pretty honored to
be able to paint the mural for it.
*music*
So it's dusk, it's this beautiful area in
Somaliland where these hyenas were originally found
In terms of, like, time of day, like, is
this accurate
what direction are we pointing in, and
you have some stars and things
and how'd you come up with that configuration?
We sure- we sure do, yeah.
We look very closely at when these
hyenas were originally collected
back in, I think it was, 1896 and it was
during the dry season
so we, based on that information and
where they were in
Somaliland we chose August 6th, 1896
and we're doing 5:30 in the morning. A
civil twilight, they call it.
So, what about- but the star pattern,
that's not- that wasn't a trivial decision
as far as I understand it.
Because it's a night scene and we know
the place it was pretty easy for us to
decide on making sure
that the constellations in the sky
were totally accurate for this time in Somaliland.
Carl Akeley, if he were here today,
what do you think he would think about this?
Ah, he'd probably... snarl.
*laughing*
He was kind of a snarly man.
From what- from what I've heard he's
been very- he's very snarly.
But I know he'd be proud because he devoted
his entire existence to dioramas.
When you're talking about, like,
wanting to retain accuracy
and all of those things and we're
thinking about
Carl Akeley, and 'what would Carl
Akeley do?'
we have this huge land form in here
and we're- this- you didn't build this.
No, this was part of the original
taxidermy
and we're trying to preserve as much
of the original
Carl Akeley taxidermy as we can and
that includes this land form.
So, that's good, I'm glad that you guys
are keeping all of this
and keeping, obviously, like, detailed
notes capturing how
all of this is happening. I think that's
one of the most exciting things about this: the
exhibitions department has been
detailing literally every step of this
process.
They've got this timelapse of a GoPro
in here to paint the scene.
Yeah, the whole museum community
is very excited about this project
and a lot of people outside the
museum are really thrilled about this
project too, so we're trying to
document it in various ways to
to show off to people what their
contributions have done.
I'm pretty excited about it.
It's one of the coolest things I've been
a part of.
Me too, and it wouldn't have happened
without Brain Scoop
so I am thrilled for Emily and thrilled
for all of her fans
because this has been fantastic.
*music*
So, Aaron, can you just walk me
through what's happening in the landscape?
Sure. Our main feature is the Acacia
tree which we have here
and on top of the Acacia tree here
there are a couple vultures
who are waiting for the hyenas to
finish up so that they
can have their piece.
Then we have these boulders, the
locals call them extrusions
because they just kind of pop up
in this weird landscape. Locals also call
those plants they're their Sansevieria
but locals call them mother-in-law's
tongue oh because they're so sharp and
pointy and kind of dangerous looking
that's fabricated that one's fabricated
but that we got from Home Depot so don't
look at that that's the place that's
just a placeholder you're gonna make one
that's nicer than what Home Depot can
offer
yeah real Sansevieria they're much
sharper and they're thicker they're
they're not pretty
like that like the Home Depot version is
one of Carl akeleys photos very
beautiful there's the same lunch of aloe
so yeah and then it's just sort of
desert luckily it's the since it's 5:30
in the morning and it's the dry season
there won't be much dust in the air so
you get this very clear line-of-sight
all the way to the horizon
what's so what's this and what's this
tree over here yeah it's it's still half
painted people call a dragon's blood
tree because you're such a cool tree
it's got this red SAP so if you cut it
it looks like it's bleeding
blood like red blood so dragon's blood
it's pretty awesome [overlaps] you
gonna put a big splash in it and it'll
be oozing no no they don't know that'll
just be a nod to the botanist yeah yeah
Orion up there if you can see all the
way up towards the ceiling use a little
belt if you keep turning oh yeah
Ryan's belt Casper and Pollock the
Gemini twins even though they were close
to the horizon where you probably
shouldn't see them because it's so
bright and that's an artistic license
that bring Casper and Pollock I think
that's permissible, Thanks yeah and then that's
it we got our hyenas in the foreground
our bat eared Fox this is just the
standing this is the yep he's the
standard is right this isn't gonna be
the one that we put in here and I
probably left some things out because
it's a very complicated story here yeah
that's the gist of it that's pretty good
thanks yeah. So this was one of my
favorite things after the the campaign
closed and we got the green light we're
gonna go up and do it and I went into
your studio upstairs and you had this
yeah adorable model yeah this was our
first thing we did on day one was begin
construction on a on a 1/10 scale model
so this was great this gave us our
opportunities to start talking with the
botanists so that we can get the plants
right to start talking to the geologist
to make sure that we get the geology
correct to start talking to the
astronomer to get the stars correct and
then talk to the zoologist to make sure
that the animals are in their correct
environment doing something and they
would be doing in this space at this
time of day and then I painted it again
on this little guy and this one is this
one over here with so that I can get the
color yeah so the thing about this
painting is that you don't want to
reveal that it's a painting to people
you know does that that would just ruin
the whole effect people just want to get
lost into it you know so it has to be
seamless
yeah that sense and glare it can't have
any glare because that there's glare on
the wall it kind of reveals that it's
right so I end up making this formula
for there's all this beeswax
I had beeswax to pretty much all the oil
paint mm-hmm
so it kills any kind of Sheen whatsoever
to it I didn't put any beeswax in the
moon no because I wanted that though
oh yeah glitter a little bit that's a
pop yeah you should put some actual
glitter on it it's not a bad idea I
think Karl like would have approved oh
yeah but yeah he snarl in nice approving way
It has still brains on it.