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The Art of Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D.
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Art inspired by biology, created by a biologist

The Art of Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D.
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From the Blog

Aug 12

Soccer Ball

LaughingMantis3D Digital Art2D Digital Art, 3D, computer animation, Maya

soccer, originally uploaded by Irradiatus.

created in Maya

Feb 27

“Brown Shapes,” Daniel D. Brown, 2007

LaughingMantis3D Digital Art3D, art, CGI, computer, digital

Weird

"Brown Shapes" — “Brown Shapes”

Feb 21

Cell – Test

LaughingMantis15 Comments3D Computer Animation3D, animation, biology, cell, computer, science

Test animation. My first attempt at using particles and hair. Cell obviously not realistic and organelles not to scale. Just practice.

Nov 01

DNA Holliday Junction

LaughingMantis3D Computer Animation3D, animation, biology, computer, DNA, Holliday junction, Maya, science

Resolution of a DNA Holliday Junction. Made for Dr. Jeff Sekelsky at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This was only my second animation ever back in 2006.

Nov 01

Melting Wine Glass

LaughingMantis3D Computer Animation3D, animation, art, computer, Maya, melting, wine * glass

One of my very first tutorial animations. Just playing around with Blendshapes and Caustics in Maya 7

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You can see my frequently-updated works-in-progress by following @laughingmantisstudio

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Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D. | Senior Research Scientist | Breast Cancer Research | Pittsburgh, PA.
No commissions/sales

I designed this as a T-shirt for myself for shits

I designed this as a T-shirt for myself for shits and giggles. It’s based on a much simpler design I made a decade ago as custom yoga pants for @tam_a_ryn. lol. In the unlikely event that anyone is like ”ooh that’s rad I want one”, the Zazzle link is currently in my stories. Or just DM and I’ll send a link. Yes I will make like $4 or something. But I obviously didn’t design it to sell.
No AI!
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#birdnerd #tshirt #birds #birdart

This is a moth called “Stiria brava” (a member

This is a moth called “Stiria brava” (a member of the owlet moth family, Noctuidae), which was discovered around the Rio Grande in Texas, and first described in the science literature by my friend Dr. Kevin Keegan*. Kevin is the Manager of Invertebrate Zoology Collections at Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH), and he played a big role in the whole “first known zebra swallowtail reproduction in PGH in almost a century” thing that unexpectedly happened in our backyard last summer (he had pulled the last known specimen from 1937 in the CMNH collection). Because of this, and because of the constant entertainment he provides in our local naturalist chat group, and because he’s just a genuinely good dude, I decided to take on this very rare commission.
This piece took literally 6 months to finish from design to build mostly due to real job responsibilities and lack of shop time. I took some artistic liberties to keep it within my goal of being a completely all natural wood color intarsia. But I think it turned out pretty nice, and he seemed to love it.
Built from: Yellowheart (Euxylophora paraensis; 2 trees: normal and spalted), Black walnut (Juglans nigra; 2 trees with varied coloration), Elm (Ulmus sp.), Brazilian walnut (Ocotea porosa), American holly (Ilex opaca; 2 trees: regular and spalted), white ash (Fraxinus americana), wenge (Millettia laurentii), lauan plywood (Shorea sp.), and tulip tree plywood (Liriodendron tulipifera).

*A Preliminary Molecular Phylogeny for Stiria (Noctuidae, Stiriinae) and Description of a New Species from Texas. Kevin L. Keegan, David L. Wagner. The J. of the Lepidopterists’ Society, 76(3):175-182 (2022).
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#woodworking #scrollsaw #moth #lepidoptera

There’s a little crabapple tree basically in the

There’s a little crabapple tree basically in the ditch on our street. Every few years it has a mast year. I decided to brew up a tiny batch of simple mulled cider, which I’ve done from this tree before. I added a handful of our American beautyberries I grabbed on a whim as I walked by them, boiled, mashed, strained through a cheesecloth, added a little maple syrup, and some sticks of cinnamon. Very slightly more astringent than last time - they could have ripened a bit more. And I don’t feel like de-stemming a few hundred tiny crabapples, which I’m sure added some tannins. Still delicious! @tam_a_ryn loved it, so good enough for me!

I’ve been working on this work-in-progress moth

I’ve been working on this work-in-progress moth in short bursts for, I kid you not, 5 months. It’s been incredibly difficult to find shop time this year, largely because of real job responsibilities. I’ll share the full story of this piece in the final post. But it’s a cool moth. Mainly because the species (Stiria brava, a Texan native around the Rio Grande) was first described by fellow Pittsburgh naturalist Dr. Kevin Keegan, collection manager of invertebrate zoology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History, for whom I’m building this piece.
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PS If you’re wondering about all the Clutch @clutchofficial in my stories lately, I’ve been listening to them for like 2-3 weeks straight. They just seem to fit my mood lately. And they rock. I’ve been a fan for literally over 30 years, but it’s been a minute and I missed a couple of their later works. So I’ve been going back through their entire enormous catalogue. Still one of my all time faves.
#woodworking #scrollsaw #moth #lepidoptera

A little while back, my wife @tam_a_ryn bought me

A little while back, my wife @tam_a_ryn bought me this beautiful print of a monarch butterfly with a map of Pittsburgh on the right wing - designed by @mapsbykylie (who turned out to be a close neighbor!). I immediately decided it needed a custom frame, because why buy one for $10 or something when you have the technology and skills to spend hours milling expensive wood, building, sanding, and finishing one yourself? 😂😂
I actually threw this together from some cutoffs of mahogany, ash, walnut, and honey locust I had lying around from other projects. The alternating stripe pattern was initially a mistake when I was laying out the material for glue up, but when I noticed I was like “oh. That looks more interesting!” This is the way.
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#woodworking #pictureframe #diyhomedecor #monarch #butterfly #map #cartography

Earlier this year I built a wooden intarsia Monarc

Earlier this year I built a wooden intarsia Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) to look over our front garden. I decided that we needed a caterpillar peeking out as well, munching on the remains of a swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). Built from scrap scavenged woods, and cut on bandsaw, scrollsaw, angle grinder, Dremel, and Foredom. I wrote a whole spiel on monarchs in the captions of the previous piece, so I’ll refrain from going on about how amazing monarchs, Lepidoptera in general, and the entire biological world are. Plant natives! Kill your stupid worthless monoculture lawns! And for god’s sake, stop using pesticides unless you have a REALLY good reason.
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#monarch #butterfly #gardendecor #woodworking #woodcarving #homegrownnationalpark #backyardhabitat

Here’s the halfway point of this wooden monarch

Here’s the halfway point of this wooden monarch caterpillar eating swamp milkweed to go along with the monarch butterfly intarsia I made earlier this year. Carved from random lumber scraps.
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#monarch #caterpillars #conservation #woodworking #woodcarving #gardendecor

A while back, Dr. Wayne Stallaert (@wstallaert), a

One of my summer projects I haven’t posted in my

One of my summer projects I haven’t posted in my feed yet: a tiny solar-powered river bird bath.
The heat dome this summer was brutal. My little bird bath was empty by mid day every day and it was a pain to clean and fill daily. I’ve always wanted to relax out back to the sound of running water. So I sculpted this thing from polystyrene insulation board, terracotta pot trays, and plastic planters. My goal was to get it done fairly quickly, figuring I’d probably learn some things I’d do differently down the road. The main reason I went with the two tiered modular design is I wanted the main reservoir and water pump to be easily removable/cleanable, and modular enough to breakdown in winter. So many designs have the pump down beneath a bunch of stuff. With this design, I simply lift the single terracotta tray and have full access. The bird bath is removable from the river and the river is removable from the base.
This was a VERY experimental project and in the process I learned all the glues that will not stick to polystyrene. Which is almost all of them. But it ended up more or less as I envisioned - and it has provided so much ambience to our backyard. And water for all manner of critters. With the aeration and shade in the large reservoir, it remains relatively clean and full for several days in the heat.

One of the silly little projects I slapped togethe

One of the silly little projects I slapped together for our front yard in April. I had built 1 hobbit hole last year. Decided it needed a neighbor.
#scrollsaw #lordoftherings #hobbit #gardendecor

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