On a Research Quest: Engineer obsessed with nature. Writing fantasy to explore reality. Let s learn about sustainability together!
How close to circular production did I get? (The percentages in the table below are subjective estimates; think of them like star ratings. They are not based on modeling or calculations.) (I will continue to add details and sources to this post.) Aspect What I Did Preferred Approach Current score Feasibility What needs to happen Continue reading "Fire s Ally Printing: Circularity Report" The post…
I did a 10-day challenge of art studies of mammals. They re all drawn from reference pictures I took. You can see the photos and notes I made along the way here. I ve also linked the relevant posts to each picture. Here is my note from day 11 : Drawing a human being was interesting and encouraging, Continue reading "Mammal studies, Nov 2025" The post Mammal studies, Nov 2025 first appeared on D.…
A fantasy novel. Eleg lives in a beautiful village built into a network of cliffs by a river. Her people have used their magical perception abilities to understand natural processes and protect the continent, its wildlife, and the many nomadic peoples that criss-cross the land. But when an eerie, persistent wildfire starts claiming swathes of Continue reading "Fire s Ally" The post Fire’s Ally…
Regular edition, web version About this zine The post AerieQuest Zine Issue 1 first appeared on D. M. Kannapan .
Notes: This is an update to the Volunteering Guide I wrote in 2022. Also, I have a new website dedicated to LA environmental resources! Be sure to bookmark it if you’re in LA and itching to get into action 🙂 Welcome to the LA Climate Action Guide! Volunteering for environmental causes is a great way Continue reading "Los Angeles Climate Action Guide" The post Los Angeles Climate Action Guide…
(This is an annotated transcript of the TEDx talk I gave in April 2023. It’s 10 minutes long. I’d suggest watching it first and then coming here for supporting materials.) Does climate action feel impossible? When I was a kid, I was interested in everything. I’d need about 10 careers to do it all. So I Continue reading "The Climate Movement Needs Your Creativity, Not Your Guilt" The post The…
An art series I’m back with another 10(ish) day drawing challenge! Lately, I’ve been knee-deep in research and writing, both for work and my various personal projects. Deadline stress and minutiae make it hard to remember what I like about research. Noticing it made me kind of sad. I decided to lean on fantasy themes Continue reading "10 Days of Scholarly Hobbits" The post 10 Days of Scholarly…
The characteristics the successful ones had in common In the space of about a year, I set myself five personal creative challenges. You may have heard of popular challenges like Inktober and NaNoWriMo, where you aim to write or draw every day, or reach a certain word count in a month. I sensed the excitement around these challenges every Continue reading "What I Learned from Setting Myself Five…
I was still in the art mood after my last art series, so I thought I might as well teach myself something: to draw birds better! My goal was to be able to pose birds in action, for future semi-realistic cartoons basically, to reach a similar fluency with their anatomy as I have with Continue reading "Teaching Myself to Draw Birds!" The post Teaching Myself to Draw Birds! first appeared on D. M.…
A combined writing/drawing challenge may be just what you need. I’ve been working on a fantasy novel for a couple of years now, and I tend to work on it in sprints between other, shorter projects. In December 2022, I cleared my schedule to work on my novel for a month. I was on my second Continue reading "I Used Art to Unstick My Novel Project" The post I Used Art to Unstick My Novel Project first…