At IFC (which ended today, August 11), I got this badge drawn by Glowsheep, a.k.a. , who was there in the Artists' Alley. My reaction involved a lot of squeeing and OMGing, as you might imagine. Is this not adorable? This is done with inks and markers.

Despite my recent scanner calibration, there's nothing I can do to capture the vibrancy of the pink in the original. That bothers me a bit, because I went through all that calibration stuff to make sure my scanner was reproducing colors as accurately as possible, so I want to know why. Stand back: I'm going to try science!

My hypothesis: At least some of the markers Glowsheep used contain fluorescent ink (also called "day-glow"). Fluorescence is a property that some materials have that cause them to absorb some ultraviolet, which is otherwise not visible to the eye, and re-emit some of that energy as visible light, in addition to the light they normally reflect. This results in colors that appear to be brighter than would otherwise be possible. I am looking at it under compact fluorescent lights, which give out a considerable amount of near ultraviolet. My scanner uses LEDs and not fluorescent light, so it can't capture that effect.

Testing this hypothesis: I looked at the badge under a "black light," which emits very little visible light but a lot of ultraviolet. The badge lights up brightly almost everywhere! There's nowhere for all that light to come from other than fluorescence.

Anyway, this badge is adorable and eye-catchingly bright. In short, I wuvs it. Yay Glowsheep and thankoo!

Jennie character is me.
Art is © .