lily of the valley2 papercut - horizontal scalpel for scale - Kay Vincent - LaserSister

Lockdown Papercutting Project Day 63: Lily of the Valley2

Lily of the Valley2 #630

This “Lily of the Valley2” design is from the ongoing papercutting challenge that I’ve been doing. (Basically I’m trying to work my way through all of the designs in the “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” book by Dover Books.)

Today’s design is number 630 in the book.

lily of the valley2 papercut - vertical scalpel for scale - Kay Vincent - LaserSister

Closer up:

lily of the valley2 papercut close up - Kay Vincent - LaserSister

The strange thing about this one is that my eyes don’t find it anywhere near as offensive as Day 62’s Lily of the Valley design. And yet they share so many features. Theoretically this one should give me the same feeling, if it was the combination of the thick and thin elements that bothered me. But to my eye this version has more ‘balance’ to it, somehow.

In terms of cutting skills, this one was also more challenging. It was harder to adapt as a papercutting design, and had even more thin lines, and those little round buds were surprisingly difficult to cut.


Meanwhile…

In the background I’ve been listening to another audiobook; The Blacksmith Queen, by G.A. Aiken. I love a good fantasy book, me. But I’m having multiple problems with this one. It turns out that I have an issue with centaurs. One of my main problems is: What do they eat? If they eat grass, then why are their teeth configured like humans’ teeth and not horses’ teeth? And how the hecky peck do they reach the grass? But if they’re omnivores, then what do their digestive tracts look like, and what kind of poos do they do? And in either case, how much would they have to eat in order to keep those great big bodies fed?

Worse still…

But even worse for me in this case is that the ones in the book are shapeshifting centaurs. How can that possibly work? If they’re in human form and suddenly shift into centaur form, then where does all of that extra bulk of their bodies come from? Where do all of the bones and flesh and horsehair go while the centaurs are in their human form? OR, if their natural form is a centaur and they are just magically projecting some kind of glamour that makes people see them as human, then (1) how many of them could fit into a normal-sized room (because their invisible rest-of-body is presumably still there, but just can’t be seen because of the glamour), and (2) wouldn’t their heads still be 5-ish feet above normal human height, and so the glamour would have to not only take their shape into account but also their position? Oh yes, and (3) if they go through a door then they must have to duck their heads right down…so surely that means they have to maintain two completely different bodies at the same time – one is their real (centaur) body, and the other is their human-image body.

I’ve thought of another one as well. (4) If their real form is centaur and the human-form is a glamour image, what happens if someone expects the human to ride a horse?

(Etc…)


Can you give a plausible explanation of how shapeshifting centaurs work? If so, please chip in via the comments page, or Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.

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