It's so hard to think of something exotic, what's exotic to me is dead normal to someone else.
In the end I decided orchids are exotic to me, and I always want to try and draw one.. so there :)

I love the expression on his face :)

The Utrecht painter Johannes Moreelse worked for a few years in Rome, where he was influenced by the paintings of Caravaggio. He painted scenes in the style of Caravaggio, with unidealised half-length figures and big contrasts between light and dark.

The grinning man in this painting represents Democritus, the laughing philosopher. He is laughing at the vanity of mankind and the transience of the world. Democritus forms a pair with Heraclitus, the weeping philosopher. Moreelse made several versions of the two philosophers.

Museum info:
https://www.mauritshuis.nl/en/our-collection/artworks/705-democritus-the-laughing-philosopher/

Thought I’d try to make a map.
It’s a lot more work than I anticipated :)

I don't have a lot of time, or skill.
So unfortunately this is as good as you can expect from me :)

But I'll try to stick with it.

Prompt: 2d illustration, low angle, A girl holding up an umbrella, wearing rain boots, looking at the camera with wide surprised eyes, around her hundreds of frogs are falling from the sky, it’s raining frogs in a storm --ar 4:3 --v 6.1

Theme

Oh no, the gods are real and they are pissed!
Every single god that has ever existed has suddenly decided to take action and is busy with smiting and casting plagues for whatever petty reason they can think of.
This week's challenge is for you to create your own vision of whatever mean, silly or ironic punishment a god might inflict on the world below.
Choose a god (or make up one of your own) and decide on a fitting form of divine punishment for whatever reason you can think of. From the classical swarms of locusts, to the weirdly specific finding-mice-in-your-mustache-if-your-name-is-Alan kind of curses.
Gods are petty and pretty much take offense to anything :)

Format

This challenge will follow a slightly different format. Everyone can submit their image to this post. At the end of the week all images will be collected and shared in a new voting post wherein people can vote on their favorite image. This will be up for at least 24 hours before a winner is made.
There are no extra points to be earned, OP will decide on a winner in case of a tie.

I hope this format will give everyone the opportunity to take their time and have an equal chance at earning votes.
It can be a one-off if this turns out to be too time consuming or impractical.

Rules

• Follow the community’s rules above all else
• One comment and image per user
• Embed image directly in the post (no external link)
• Workflow/Prompt sharing encouraged but not required (we’re all here for fun and learning)
• OP will declare winner in case of a tie
• The challenge runs for at least 7 days from now on
• Down votes will not be counted
• Voting and final scoring will be done in a separate post.

Scores

At the end of the challenge the image with the most votes, wins!
It's that simple this time :)

The winner gets to pick the next theme. As always, have fun everyone!
Previous entries

I wanted to ask what you think of a possible change to the scoring of the weekly challenges.
Right now most of the scoring is based on who gets the most upvotes. It works well for keeping things impartial, but those who post early will get more views and more chances at being upvoted than those who post later.
We already try to make things fairer by awarding bonus points to the last two images and a penalty for posting within the first 24 hours.
That last one got some feedback with some valid points, so I would like to suggest something different.

I want to see if having a separate submission and scoring post might work for the next challenge. Everyone can submit their images for at least 7 days and then I put them all together in a new post with separate replies to let people vote for at least 24 hours. Maybe even wait with posting until the weekend to get the most out of it?
I'd be happy to hear your input on this. It's a bit more work, but I don't mind doing it if it makes things more fair. And I hope I can automate the tedious stuff.

Nothing much changes on your end, but it might make the whole experience more fun and less of a race :)

edit

Thank you so much for your input and appreciation. I've heard some great arguments and will keep these in mind.
I'm going to give this a try for the coming challenge. But to whoever wins next, feel free to ignore all of this and try something different for the challenge after this.
Just know I'm always happy to help out in whatever way possible.

Prompt: A 80's style Hollywood movie poster, of a man with a mullet, wearing a white tunic, holding up a laser pistol, a black robot with spherical head stands behind him, in the background is a generic space fighter, the title "Star Battles" is written in bold yellow letters --ar 2:3 --stylize 75 --v 6.1

Featuring: Rex Hardbody as Lance Star-Rider

Prompt: a penguin wearing a pilot helmet, screaming in terror, in the cockpit of a retro style rocket, flying through the air at high speed, the text "Flight school" is written on the side of the rocket in red cursive letters, motion blur, cinematic lighting --no teeth --ar 3:2 --v 6.1

Prompt: fantasy movie, a snail dressed in knight's armor, holding a lance, facing a gigantic spider in the background, shot on 35mm film, cinematic lighting --ar 4:3 --v 6.1