Solution to Gralhix OSINT Exercise #23
Sophia has graced us with another interesting OSINT challenge suitable for beginners. Instead of a typical geolocation task, this exercise requires a sharp set of eyes and basic internet search know-how to identify a piece of artwork on a desktop screen. Let’s dive in!
The following information is from Sophia’s blog post.
Task briefing:
Sometimes online footage contains more information than meets the eye. In October 2023, I uploaded a video to my YouTube channel where, for a split second between minutes 3 and 4, my desktop wallpaper is partially visible.
Your task is to:
a) Find the title of the illustration, as given by the artist.
b) Find how much it would cost for the artist to create a similar piece, in size and detail.
The task seemed easy enough, so I went straight to Sophia’s channel to find the only video uploaded in October 2023. Starting from the 3-minute mark, I watched the video with eyes wide-open so as not to miss the desktop wallpaper. Around the 3:38 mark, the wallpaper blipped on the screen so quickly that a badly-timed blink would have caused me to miss it entirely. In order to capture the wallpaper, I slowed the video playback speed to its lowest setting, 0.25. Even that wasn’t enough for me to get a good capture, so starting at 3:35, I rapidly tapped the space bar, pausing and unpausing, as not to miss a single frame until I paused the video at the exact moment that the illustration below became fully visible.
With the video paused on this very frame, I made a screenshot, cropped it, and fed it through a Reverse Image Search. One of the first results was a link to a Reddit page (r/ImaginarySliceOfLife) featuring the illustration.
Right there above the picture we see the title of this work, Involuntary Rat Queen. One question down, one more to go. To find the solution to the second task, I started off by clicking on the the artist’s Reddit handle (highlighted in a white rectangle) which took me to me to his Reddit page .
As you can see on the left-hand side of the screenshot above, our guy Adam Scythe has links to his other pages. I decided to check out his DeviantArt page, hoping to find out how much he would charge for a commission similiar to Sophia’s wallpaper. A quick scroll down the DA link brings us to our solution for the latter task.
Item #4 in his journal entry is about art commissions and rates. Based on the description above, it would cost $190 to produce a work similar to Involtuntary Rat Queen as it would include a full body character and a background.
It was that easy. Thanks for reading!
