If you are looking for my methodology, click here!!

✤ ABOUT ✤

Melena Orleans is a fourth-year Illustration BA (Hons) student at the Edinburgh College of Art.In her spare time, she loves making and playing tabletop games, rollerskating, dirty chai lattes, and writing stupid Letterboxd entries.

✤ CONTACT ME ✤

If you'd like to chat about your next creative project, feel free to reach out by email or message me through Instagram.

✤ EDITORIAL ✤

✤ TOYS, GAMES, and PUPPETS ✤

✤ Methodology ✤

My Metholodology booklet, digital-style. Not done, but getting there.

✤ Year of the Horse ✤

A four-colour, A5 riso print celebrating the 2026 Lunar New Year.Selected as a featured work to promote the Edinburgh College of Art's 2026 Degree Show, and featured in Riso Pop's "Year of the Fire Horse" exhibition.

✤ Wolfson Gallery, St. Cecilia's Hall ✤

Two-colour, A3 riso poster made from 170+ drawings cataloging the Wolfson Gallery in St. Cecilia's Hall.Featured in "Learning to See" at the Andrew Grant Gallery.

✤ Pin-up Petals ✤

The Pin-up Petals are in full bloom and ready to put on a show!
This blind box art toy design pitch features two four-colour riso prints, packaging design, and merchandise mockups.

✤ Picture This ✤

Created in partnership with researchers from Maastricht University, Elias Weber em Bach and Jessica Schwartz, for their paper "Different disciplines, different global citizens? A bottom-up study of students’ conceptualisations, critiques and norms of global citizenship across UM faculties".

✤ The Oban Trilogy ✤

Three zines collecting drawings across three years of visiting Oban, Scotland.
Single-colour A3 riso.

✤ 2024 Bookmarks Bumperzine ✤

A 2024 Bookmarks publication, this Bumperzine is a collaboration between Katie Ravenscraig of Riso Soup and ECA Illustration.Working with the theme "Renaissance," we were tasked with taking old, discarded misprints from a printmaking workshop and breathing new life into them, transforming them into something new.

✤ Digital Deer ✤

Two-colour A4 riso print in teal and violet.
Created based off of Anh Tran's interview for Lee's Toy Review (June 2004).

✤ "ERI" by Olivia Begbie ✤

Illustration for Olivia Begbie's poem "ERI." Read it here.
Featured in "Words from the Wards" at Edinburgh Bookfest 2025.

✤ The Grimmoiserie of Melena Orleans ✤

Inspired by a musical anthology and Shakespeare's "severn ages of man," The Grimmoiserie of Melena Orleans imagines a witch's spellbook detailing her life story through rituals and reflections. This book features hand-carved rubber stamps, linocut, and pochoir techniques on a risograph-printed booklet. It is hand-bound and the cover is letterpressed, as well as the invitation included in the interior.

✤ Polly Heart: Mall Mop! ✤

Created for Queer Joy Jam 2024, Polly Heart: Mall Mop! is a game that explores gender euphoria, shoplifting, cyborgs, kitschy girls' flash games from the early 2000s, and Paul Blart.As part of CYBRJOY Studios, I designed and created 70+ character customization assets as well as the game's logo, variations of the logo for social media, and physical merchandise. In the development process, I also led color direction and provided map concept art.Featured in District Arcade 2025.

Character customization mock-ups:

You can play Polly Heart: Mall Mop! now on itch.io!

✤ Galatea: or, The Modern Pygmalion ✤

Galatea is a solo role-playing game about the divine nature of creation and our ridiculous aspirations. Play as a Bookmaker attempting to make the Perfect Book, journey through the process of making, and contemplate what it means to create.

Read Galatea's full text and play it yourself on itch.io!

✤ Go Bananas! ✤

A set of cartoons compiled into an A6 sticker sheet.

✤ Nightbitch (2024) ✤

Editorial for a review of the film Nightbitch (2024) in The Student newspaper.
Read it here.

✤ Megalopolis (2024)✤

Editorial for a review of the film Megalopolis (2024) in The Student newspaper.
Read it here.

✤ "The Ivory Tower of Academia" ✤

Digitally coloured woodcut print for "The Ivory Tower of Academia" in The Student newspaper.
Read it here.

✤ Bartholomew ✤

Bartholomew is an old, poetic pervert who's decided to compete on a Big Brother-esque gameshow to try to make some new friends so that he has people to fawn over how intelligent he is.Bartholomew is one of the puppets made for the FLEHM Collective. You can watch FLEHM's first film and see him in action here or visit our website.

✤ Will Power ✤

Will Power is the charismatic host of The Variety Variety Variety Show and the tragic victim of a mysterious disappearance. He's known for being self-obsessed and fabulously dressed.Will Power is one of the puppets made for the FLEHM Collective. You can watch the trailer for FLEHM's second film and see him in action here or visit our website.

✤ The Crow That Never Lies ✤

The Crow That Never Lies is the fact-checker on The Variety Variety Variety Show. She'll tell it to you straight 'cause she literally can't do otherwise! Or can she...The Crow That Never Lies is one of the puppets made for the FLEHM Collective. You can watch the trailer for FLEHM's second film and see her in action here or visit our website.

✤ Jane Goddard: Socialite to the Stars! ✤

Jane Goddard is a runaway socialite who took to space to try to escape her responsibilities. She spends her time cruising the cosmos, galavanting at galas, and perhaps pickpocketing a few inattentive aliens.Jane's face was 3D-sculpted and printed in resin. The body is hand-sculpted out of polymer clay and painted with acrylic and coloured pencil.

✤ SKETCHBOOK ✤