So one was behind me and I was keen to do more. Here though I encountered a problem - what to do next. I am truly terrible at coming up with ideas myself, which carried over from school. Give me an assignment on something specific and I'll go for it at pace, but say it's my choice of topic and I'm all over the place (unintentional rhyme). Luckily the solution showed itself immediately: a friend congratulated me on the Dragon Head, so naturally I asked them what I should do next. This solved the problem of choice and also created a precedent of asking others for inspiration, which I was to follow for most (but not all) of my designs.
The animal suggested was a rabbit, but it was time to do the whole body rather than just a (rather abstract) head. So out came Google Maps, out comes MS Paint and the pen tool and the designing began. To be honest, "designing" is a strong word at this stage, but hey it was still early days. Here was the chosen location, mainly picked because it was close to home:
The whole body was there and it was recognisable as a rabbit (well, more a hare) but it was only an outline. No eyes, one ear, very two-dimensional. The first two were fixable, but it took another run after this one to solve the third (and that's another story 😉). The eye was easy and added to the fun of designing: you don't need to use tracked paths. On an open area like a sports oval you can run any shape you like. In this case I just circled the oval, as proportions and accuracy weren't priorities at this early stage.
"You don't need to use tracked paths"
The ears were the tricky part, because the split of the ears was smack-bang in the middle of Tunks Park bridge, and it's rather difficult to run at 90° from the centre of a bridge 50-odd metres high. Here I learned that three-dimensionality is a necessity with these runs. Tunnels and bridges are everywhere and need to be accounted for. In this case the solution was to run directly underneath the side of the bridge that I had run across earlier (hoping the GPS picked up the route accurately) follow the bridge to the centre and then make the 90° turn. Worked like a charm!
I ran a little too far under the bridge, but it's little things like that which give the designs individuality. The proportions were getting there but the design required a bit more finesse and detail (not to mention that with Biology as my uni degree and being a bit of a perfectionist more detail was basically required). The next run ticked both those boxes, and I'll just leave you with that...
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