Anyone who has worked in a lab will know that there are certain benches where all the equipment seems to end up. In my lab I tried to get a balance: as far as possible everyone had their own set of pipettes, dissecting kit, timer – things that you need all the time and/or are a personal preference. Everything else was communal and relied on mutual respect to make sure things were put back clean and in their right place after use. Of course it only takes one ignoramus to start neglecting this and the social fabric starts to snag. People start hiding things in drawers so only they know where they are and this creeps beyond their own stuff to the general equipment. Unfortunately, there are some people for whom this is the default behaviour, they won’t share their toys or play nicely with the other kids.
One fridge to cool them all
This drawing fell into the gap between a realistic image of Gollum and caricature. I have this problem a lot, my instinct is to go for realism, caricatures don’t come easily to me, I find I exaggerate the wrong features. I had fun adding in the Lord of the Rings references, one day it would be good to do a full colour version in a Tolkeinesque lab setting, whatever that may be. The series of lab personalities never went much further.
This design is available on mugs, cards and prints from my RedBubble store.