Waiting in my email 'inbox' this morning was the text from Rose, Education Officer, for the admendments to the Mountain Chicken ID. Some spelling mistakes had been spotted and some information about this endangered frog needed to be updated.
The ID file for the Mountain chicken frog wasin an old 'Freehand' document so once I had transferred the name details and map onto a new 'Illustrator' document, I copied and pasted the text from Rose onto the sign. Unfortunately I had to ask her to do some more adjustments on it as the amount of text she had prepared was just a little too long for the given space on the sign.
After trying unsucessfully to get in contact with Jonny from the Aquarium (to get the lionhead cichlid checked) I went back to the unfinished illustration of the Antilles pink-toed spider. In my appraisal it was suggested that I attempted the colour match of the metallic green thorax without waiting to see the spider. So I went back onto the internet and found about 6 images that combined could give me a better idea of the metallic colouration variations!
Painting the spider's thorax took me until after lunchtime. Trying to get the right greens and blues was one thing but then trying to make it look shiny and metallic ??? I had a little 'fight' with the beastie but finally stood back knowing I could do no more. I contacted Mark in Bug World and luckily the timing with him was better and I was able to pop up straightaway to get the thorax colours checked. It was a relief and a surprise when Mark said I had got it practically spot on. However I just needed to tone the leg hair colours down to a paler pinky colour and he'd be happy with that. So all I had to do to finally finish it was put the hairs on the leg that overlapped the thorax and tone down the rest of the leg hairs and that was it finished.
Whislt I was there he showed me a new species they had just got in - Horse-headed grasshopper. Now we have had this species before and I have done the illustration for it, BUT.... this new animal is a different subspecies so the scientific name will need to be changed. Add to that the illustration really needs to be adjusted slightly as the it shows the female as being green, whereas the sub species we now have - the females are mottled brown! He took me to the rockpool exhibit to show me the changes there (one species of seaweed has done some major growing) and as we passed the European lobster ID he asked if I could adjust that one too as the text refers to Mr Snappy - the name that was given to the male lobster we had until recently. Now we have a female, called Lola, so the text now need to read referring to her.
On my way back to the studio I walked through Monkey Jungle the main primate exhibits. I just happened to notice that the yellow armadillo had been put back into the howler enclosure, but there was no sign up and I hadn't been notified that an ID would be needed.
So back in the studio I quickly dug out one armadillo ID sign that I had in my filing cabinet and went back to the exhibit to put it up. Then back to the studio to make the adjustments to the two invertebrate ID's - the grasshopper and lobster. Once done I printed them ready for me to trim and laminate tomorrow.
I quickly finished the final adjustments to the spider illustration and as I was scanning that into the computer I got a call from Jonny to say he had a few mins free so could he pop up and check the fish illustration, as he knew I had been trying to get hold of him earlier to do so.
The fish was given the all clear but he had noticed on the ID that I had put the wrong scientific name in. So whilst he was there I opened the document on the computer and changed it to the correct name.
The rest of the afternoon was spent working on the scanned in image of the fish changing the background to 100% black by drawing round the outside of the fish and forming a mask to easily change the colour.
It was a day of lots of little bits being tied up and finished so it felt like a good productive day. Hopefully I can post images of the finished fish and spider illustrations tomorrow.
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