At least you know what you don't know.
Lots of folks never even consider that.
I look back at some of my old refs, especially those I uploaded for others' use in the WetCanvas Reference Image Library, and I used any old thing as backdrop or ground, and *I* always knew when I worked it, painted it, I would just ignore the huge mark where I'd yanked tape off the piece of foam core backdrop, or that the faded light blue towel covering the wood of the dining table would become a lighter, cooler off-white ground, or that the dark vertical line made where two pieces of foam core were leaned up together to make a longer backdrop would not exist in the final work- but I was gobsmacked at how many people downloaded one of my refs and painted it absolutely faithfully- just open-mouthed unbelieving.
So far here, I've only had a few set-ups that pass even that level of muster- but those that have are corkers!
PS: That rattle is actually the loudest buzz you've ever heard and you hear it down to your toes and you FREEZE. It's why there's a golf club by the door- we can teach them to fly if they come too close. We're very careful of not encouraging the damned things; the Mojave Green is the fastest killing venomous snake on this continent. I'm well aware you live in an area of venomous nearly everything. Have you read any Sir Terry Pratchett?
"Both the flora and fauna of the continent is extremely dangerous, as
Death's Library attests. A book series known as
"Dangerous Mammals, Reptiles, Amphibians, Birds, Fish, Jellyfish, Insects, Spiders, Crustaceans, Grasses, Trees, Mosses and Lichens of Terror Incognita" extends at least into
"Volume 29c Part Three", while a list of the harmless ones contains only "Some of the sheep." There are few poisonous snakes in XXXX, but the explanation for this is that "most of them have been eaten by the spiders".
Good intro to THIS work if you don't know his work:
https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/Fourecks
He's a marvelous philosopher. Pity he died of a rare form of early onset Alzheimer's.
