Spiny starfish

Apologies if you have been  following this blog and wondered where my posts have been for the last couple of weeks. I was working at the zoo but sorry to say I actually never got round to putting a post up.

I had been working on the spiny starfish illustration (Marthasterias glacialis).

The reference pictures I had were mainly from the internet; as despite numerous visits to the underwater area of Seal and Penguin where their tank is situated, I could never time it when the starfish were out in good view... they were always hidden down amongst the rocks in their tank.

So I decided to base the position of the starfish on the image in the top right of the ref pictures. 

Despite the starfish hiding from me I knew that their colouring was different to any of the starfish on my ref pictures... there is a lot of variation, but I wanted the illustration to relate to our animals more... so I popped back down after I had drawn the basic shape to get a long look at the animals. Typically one was out in full view... and I didn't have the camera!! So after dashing back to the studio to grab the camera I managed to get a few shots of the starfish before it disappeared back down into the crevices between the rocks.

These would be no good for positioning and the drawing I had done would fit nicely into the box shape available for the illustration on the ID format for fish, so there's no need to change that. But these would be good for details such as the placement and spacing of the nodules on its arms and the colouration.

The illustration itself was done over two days... this is the finished illustration before I corrected the black background to 'pure' black on the computer.

The matt black I paint as the background when scanned in never comes out as 'pure' black so I have to alter this in Photoshop before adding to the ID document. Although this particular fish display does not have a lightbox to display the ID sign I correct the black just in case in the future it is moved to a tank that does have a lightbox. If I did not change the black to '100% black' it would show up greyish on the lightbox and we want the illustration background to join seamlessly with the black of the rest of the ID sign. 

To do this I first choose the brush tool and set the size of the brush to a large diameter to cover a large area of the image in one stroke. I then use the magic wand to select the background and then invert this so that when I brush over the image it will only affect the background area. I then choose a bright colour (in this case red) and brush over the illustration until all of the background is covered.  Then I change the brush size to a much smaller diameter and change the colour of the brush stroke to 100% black. I then cover the red area in close to the starfish. I get as close as I can but not right up to the edge of the painting. 

So the image then looks like the above. Next I change the brush size to an even smaller diameter and zoom right in on the image.

I change the softness of the brush stroke edge from 100% hard to around 50% had so that the colour left by the brush stroke fades out slightly. By doing this I soften the effect on the illustration and it doesn't look 'cut out' of harsh. I take the brush strokes right up to the edge of the painting and in this case it took a long time because of all the fiddly little spines on the bottom of each arm. Until it looks like the pic below all the way around the painting. 

I take this opportunity to 'tidy' up any overlaps or bits of the painting that I don't really want there. 

The illustration just needs one final 'tweek'... I adjust the colour that was slightly lost in the scanning process.

Giant Squid

Yesterday afternoon I received some extra text documents from the Education Section; these came from two new staff editions, Dan and Ben, who had been given  the task of producing text for two bird IDs that currently have no text. this was a great idea as it not only gave them the experience/practise of doing text for ID signs but also filled a couple of gaps on Bird IDs. So this morning I transferred the text to the ID documents and later in the morning I was able to replace the two species IDs with new ones with some lovely new text.

Before lunch I popped up to Bug World to take some photo's of the giant squid mural. This is so that I have a record of what has been painted just in case during the renovations the panels on which it is painted are damaged and not re-useable. If I have to repaint the whole body and front part of tentacles I may be able to project the image and trace around saving me a lot of time and hard work trying to redraw it again.

This mural is based on the size of the largest known specimen and measures over 100 feet from tail tip to end of the two main tentacles. This creature also has the world's largest eye of any creature.. amazing isn't it.. that it is an invertebrate that has the biggest eye on the planet!

After taking a number of photo's of the area of the mural that will be affected, as well as getting a few detail shots of shading effects etc, I wandered from the marine area into the arid area. A new beetle has arrived.

This is the Indian six spot beetle  - Anthia sexguttata and measures 4 cms long (1.5 inches) a carnivorous beetle from Asia. Carmen, from the Ectotherm section, was watching them so when I was unable to get any good reference shots through the window she was able to take me around into the keeper area and get one of the beetles out under a good light source for me to photo closely. I had to wear eye protection goggles as if they get annoyed or upset they can squirt a nasty liquid. I was careful to not get too close and to keep my movements slow and easy so not to make it feel threatened at all. It sat very nicely on the 'log' Carmen had taken out of its enclosure whilst I took some photo's.

After lunch I met up with Eddie from Maintenance again to continue with the Christmas Animal Shape Lights. There isn't a lot we can now do to the lights that need struts repositioned or altered before Christmas so they will have to be sorted out after and made ready for next Christmas. Eddie got the last of the cable tie-ing done on the penguins and the alterations to the elephant and giraffes can hopefully be done next week after the electrician has finished doing the work he needs to do on them.

So back to the studio to sort out the photo's I took this morning of the giant squid. I upload them to the computer and them weedle out the ones I don't need or want. Then open them in Photoshop and save. Then I looked to my illustrations 'to do' board to see what species was next. Another fish.. the short-snouted seahorse - Hippocampus hippocampus. I had a few photo's I had taken previously of this species but again like the pipefish they weren't great. So I turned to an internet search and pulled a few images that may be useful. These again were opened and saved through Photoshop and filed in a folder. Then I studied the collection of images in this folder picking out the ones that would serve me best as reference. These were then placed onto an Illustrator file to print out. I found a file I had made previously of ref images for the spiny starfish - Marthasterias glacialis so printed that out too, as I then thought with the time hastening towards Christmas and my last day at work being the 18th, the starfish might be quicker to get done.

Lastly before the end of the day I mixed up some black and painted a piece of 300grm watercolour paper ready for the illustration.

I have tomorrow off to work at home on the gorilla commission that I will soon do a post about on my other blog.

Checked out

Missed Wednesday's post last week - got the pipefish painting checked by Sam from the Aquarium and  he picked up on the tail section. I had found it very hard to get any reference either from the live animal or from any photo's that I took myself or found on the internet. Sam pointed out that the fish was more sectioned and square rather than round as I had done it. So I looked again at the live animals trying to work out what was happening. It has differing 'planes' to its body that change as it passes the dorsal fin. So I tried again, and again.. finally think I got it on the fourth try at the tail from the dorsal fin back.

So took it back to the Aquarium today for Jonny to see and check. Thankfully I had managed to get it right this time...

Scanned it to the computer and blacked out the background in Photoshop and then dropped the finished picture document into the ID document and printed, then laminated and trimmed it and put it up next to the tank the fish are in in the underwater area of the Seal and Penguin Coasts exhibit. This is how the illustration looks like as the ID sign.

I also managed to get the red-bellied lemur illustration checked and ok'd and also printed off three copies of that ID - one to put up now and two more to go up in the Lemur Walkway when it reopens for the school half term at the beginning of February. 

Emily from the Mammal Section checked the illustration for me whilst we stood by the indoor area of the ring-tailed lemurs. The young ring-tail, a female called Dizzy, was bouncing around the wooden poles and other adults like a looney. Her name certainly suits. I recalled how, a few months ago, I watched her pogo-ing the distance of several feet between two adults (one of whom was her Mother) during her early forays and adventures off her Mum.  

I also had a meeting today with Ben who works with Projects. They are planning some alterations in Bug World and this means moving interior walls to accommodate new tanks and make the keeper's areas bigger for better husbandry and access. Unfortunately in the area there is to be a lot of work one of my life size murals will be affected. The giant squid covers the walls and in some parts the ceiling so there will be a lot of repainting of said squid... if we keep it. So the meeting was to discuss what was involved and any other ideas.