Lionhead completion

Apart from popping across to the Central Office to share some birthday cakes of Ginny, a work colleague I have known for the last 16 years, and having a quick chat with Katy, a freelance illustrator doing some volunteer work at the zoo, all I did today was paint the lionhead.

I carried on from yesterday building up the body and head with form and colour  before mapping the scale pattern in and then adding some refinements in colour to them.

Next came the fins. It was a straightforward fish to do - no complicated colour patterning but laying the scale pattern took time and a lot of concentration to get right again.

I finished the fish just before the end of the work day and had a little time left over to start looking for reference pictures for the next species... another fish...  a bristle-nosed catfish. The lionhead just needs to be checked by Jonny next week and if ok'd I can then reset the background to pure black as I have described in previous posts and add it to the ID file. The bristle-nose is in the same tank as the lionhead cichlid so I won't print the revised ID until  that fish is also done.

So end of another week.

Lionhead re-run

When I looked at my drawing that I did yesterday I knew I had more questions to ask Jonny in the Aquarium. So after contacting him on the radio, I went across to the offshow fish rooms where he was working. The male/female question was playing on my mind and it would help to know which the fish was so that I knew where I was with the reference. On showing Jonny the pictures I had gathered he also concluded that it was most likely female as the fish was over four years old and so therefore should have developed a good lump on its head by now. He said there would be no reason to suppose that its lump was less because it was not with another fish. The confusion arises because the fish arrived at the zoo as part of a pair of which it was assumed to be the male.I suggested that I could give the illustration more of a hump than the fish we have, so that it represented the species generically, rather than specifically being the zoo fish.
Looking at the photo's I could also get Jonny to confirm the colouration of a relaxed happy fish from the selection of colour variations my pictures held, which is a stell blue colour. Many of the pictures I had found were of pale coloured fish - possibly unhappy stressed fish at the time of the photo.  I also asked about the slimline body profile and Jonny said it was skinny. He was interested to see the pictures I had taken of the fish as being the shy reclusive being it is, Jonny rarely gets a good look at it and he could see now that it could do with a bit more feeding up.
Once all my queries were answered I left Jonny to doing his water changes and headed back to the studio via the Central Office to pick up the mail. leaving there I walked past the agile gibbon enclosure, they were both indoors enjoying some warm sunshine through the window. As I stood there the male, Samuel, reached out to the glass as if to touch me. He looked inquisitively into my eyes and then hung on the rope so that he was just inches from me behind the glass. This was the first time I had gotten a reaction from him in the years I have passed by and stopped. It was a lovely feeling to be noticed by them like that. The keepers went by and one said "Are they saying hello?" It was pretty cool.

Back in the studio I set about redrawing the lionhead - making the body shape more barrel shaped than torpedo and emphasing the lump on the head a little more. Once that was done I traced it onto the black background and started mixing colours.

During the afternoon I had my half year appraisal with Phil, which went well.

Then as the afternoon drew to an end I started painting the fish, blocking in colour first then moulding the body with some dark and light tones before starting to concentrate detail on the head.

Lionheads and dinosaurs

There were no ID requests in this morning's email check from the last four days, so I could get straight on with the next illustration job. On my 'to do' list the next species is the Lionhead cichlid - Steatocranus casuarius. This species also has other common names such as blockhead cichlid, lumphead cichlid and buffalo cichlid.

I had already got some photo's of this fish from a few months back. It is a very difficult fish to see in the display tank  as it is quite shy and likes to hide and stay at the bottom of the tank. For a couple of months I tried to get pictures of it in situ but it just didn't want to show itself and on the few rare occasions it came out of its hidey hole in the rocks (bribery offerings from Aquarium staff did the trick) it dashed out and back in again. Hence my success was poor and limited. 

Assuring me that the fish would not suffer from undue stress, Jonny - Assistant Curator of Aquarium, arranged for Sam (Keeper) to catch the fish up in a net and put it in an empty tank for me to photograph. This was done with some difficulty as the fish was less than willing to go along with their plan. But the mission was accomplished and I got some photos. 

So it was to these I now looked to start sorting out which ones would be useful for reference. Because it stayed sat on the bottom of the tank the only decent reference the pictures gave me were of its head, dorsal fin and general body shape. I then did an extensive internet search looking for other useful images. I was looking specifically for pectoral, pelvic and anal fin details, caudal fin (tail) shape, colouration (as the fish when put into an empty tank lightened in colour and showed pale spotting due to its less than happy mood.). 

What I also had to assertain was the differences between the male and female of this species. Males were bigger and as their various names suggest they also sport a lump on their heads which in the males is more pronounced. They also have longer finage. Looking at the reference before me and comparing various images to the zoo fish I needed to contact Jonny to check on the sex of our fish. He said it was thought to be male, but I wonder from the images whether it might be female due to the small size of the lump on its head. There again it could be a young fish and maybe less developed or perhaps, as it is kept on its own, it has not developed a pronounced lump due to lack of hormonal impetus from having a female or another male nearby.

Once I had about 16 images set aside I printed them off and set about drawing it. It was a fairly easy fish to draw, not really intricate or complicated in any way. For the drawing I used a combination of nine of the images I had - taking different bits of detail from each one or using two to compare things such as pectoral and pelvic fin length in comparision to each other.

Once drawn up I cut a fresh piece of waterclour paper and painted the black background on. I left this to dry and went out for a walk around the zoo - we have new residents!

Today the dinosaurs arrived. Twelve animatronic beasts to reside in the zoo for the summer and one that you can sit on for photograhs to be taken. The sites where they were to be positioned had already been prepared over the last few weeks and now the models were being positioned after arriving today.

Only one is life size and that is of course T-Rex. He looks absolutely awesome and is sure to excite the kids greatly. As I wandered around looking for them all I felt a bit like a kid myself, it was great fun and they are not all set-up yet. All will move in some way, some roar and one spits water at passerbys... so it should be an interesting and exciting added attraction at the zoo. Can't wait to see them all moving and doing their thing!

Metallic spider and cricket silhouette

This morning I arranged with Mark, Assistant Curator of Invertebrates, to go across to Bug World to see the Antilles pink toed spider, after the section's morning tea-break. So prior to that I started looking at prepping for the next animal on my list - the Madagascan blue stick insect. Going through my reference photos I picked out the ones most useful to me for close ups on detail, overall colour, leg positioning etc. This species is sexually dimorphic, that is to say that the male and female look different to each other. In the case of this species the females are much bigger than the males and a uniform mottly brown. Whereas the flambouyant males have an incredible blue green body. At the time I took the photo's they were newly emerged adults and the female wasn't yet ready to be put with a male so I had to photo them seperately. Because they are sexually dimorphic I need to illustrate both. I did an internet search looking for photo's of the male and female side by side so I could get an idea of the actual size comparison.
Once I had a selection of about 10 photographs I printed them off ready to start the drawing, which happened just before the pre-arranged time with Mark. So I grabbed my paints and unfinished illustration of the spider and headed across to Bug World. Because the thorax of this spider is a metallic green the photo reference I have from my own photo's and off the internet all gave varying colours of white, green and blue. I needed to see the animal's colour in real life to get a better match for the illustration.

Sadly the spider was tucked up in her piece of cork, sat snuggly in a horseshoe shape wrap. As moving things about in her vivarium so that I could see her thorax clearly would be a little stressful for her Mark, quite rightly, didn't want to do that. And I wouldn't ask him to do anything that would be detrimental to the animal just for an illustration. So the plan was that if he saw her sitting out in good view over the next few weeks he would call me, so I could rush over to try and catch that vital looksie at her. Otherwise I would just have to paint on pure guesswork using what I had on my reference pictures and hope that I get somewhere near. If I don't, then it'll just have to wait for the spider to show herself.

Whilst there I talked to Mark about the next species I planned to do - the 'Mad blues' - and he told me he had no adults on show at the moment and wouldn't have for about 6 months. There were other species waiting who were on show, namely the Goliath stick insect.. so that was moved up a notch on my 'to do list' and the 'Mad blues' put on hold. Also he mentioned that he would be putting cave crickets into the nocturnal house in the next few days, so they would need a different sign to the type used in Bug World. He had pre-warned me of this move some time ago and I had the text already put on the sign. All it needed to complete it was a silhouette of the beastie.

So back in the studio I got the illustration that was done some years ago of this species and scanned it into the computer.

 

In Photoshop I changed the image to greyscale and tried the way I normally do a 'mask' with the colour range option so that I could make the shape of the cricket a solid black. But because there were so many fiddly little protuberances and thin lines, such as the long antennae, I couldn't get a good line around the shape. So in the end I resorted to using the pen tool and drawing around manually. I zoomed in very close so that I could see one pixel and worked my way around the legs and body carefully. 

 

 

 Once I had done that I then blocked in the shape with black and then using the colour range option selected the black area and inverted it (making the black areas protected) so that I could sweep across the image with white to clean up the background.

 

Ending up with this.

Then I opened the document with the text and, making the white area transparent, I placed the silhouette onto the sign. As the white background of the image was transparent and the sign background was black this meant the insect was 'invisible'. To adjust this I then had to change the colour of the image from black to white - with the insect shape being the only black in the image this now became white and visible on the sign. Tah dah! Just like magic. 

To create this silhouette took me from 11.30am until 3pm (with an hours lunch in the middle). Once printed I then needed to track down some black insulation tape. The sign was a backlit one and was to be sandwiched between two perspex sheets mounted on the fake cave wall in the noturnal house. The tape was to put round the outer edge of the perspex to stop light showing. It took me over half an hour to track down some black tape. The electrician had some but he had gone home, taking his workbox with him. The Maintenance Department had other colours but I needed black so that it wasn't noticeable in the low light of the underground area of the noturnal house. In the end Kiri, the animal technician for the Learning Department, came to my rescue with some good strong black duct tape.

Now I had the tape I could put the sign up. All went smoothly and quite easily which was a relief. Just as I had finished Mark arrived with the tank to be put in the empty hole of the display. Perfect timing.

As I had been edging the perspex with tape I noticed the large tank in the recess had changed. It used to house a catfish but now there were two bags floating at the surface with lots of baby blind cave fish in and a pair of hands submerged placing the last of the tank decor. Then the fish were released and swimming in their new home. Just a week or so ago I had re-done the text sign for this tank, now it looks like it would need to be changed.

Jonny, Assistant Curator of Aquarium, appeared just moments later and explained that the adult blind cave fish were moving from their present tank, which was just to one side of us, to this lovely big tank, to join the babies later. The tailless whip scorpions were going in the space that the adult blind cave fish currently occupy. Time was pressing on and I knew I had to get back to the studio quickly so that I could get the sign done for the cave fish to replace the one about the catfish (Predator in the Dark) if I was to get it up on the wall before I go home this evening.

Back at my computer I opened up the old blind cave fish sign and copy and pasted the text across to the 'Predator in the Dark' sign shape. I had a few problems getting the scientific name to 'skew' so that it looked italic, (Scientific names have to either be in italics or underlined when put alongside the common name) but eventually figured it out. It was definitely a case of more haste less speed there for a few frustrating minutes.  The software that is used for the signs in the underground area are still in old Freehand format, I haven't yet got round to changing the templates over to the Illustrator software, and as I don't use it all that often it can be a pain when I forget how to do a particular action.

When it was done, printed and laminated I rushed across to the noturnal house hoping I would get there before the keepers locked it up at 5pm. I got there in the nick of time! As I walked through to the underground area, the keeper went by on her way to locking the doors. It took just a minute or so to stick the sign into place and I was let out through the keepers access area as I left.

And so ended another day at the zoo.

Birds, lemurs and otters

Yesterday was May Day Bank Holiday here in the UK, so that meant a day off work at the zoo.

Back to normal today, and on checking my emails I had a few changes to do with some bird ID's. One species, Asian glossy starlings had been moved from one aviary to another and one species removed to an off show area.

I had already prepared and printed the Asian glossy starling ID's a while back (3 of them).. all I had to do was trim them to size, laminate, hole punch and bang eyelets into them before putting them on display - the last part I did after lunch.

However I had to first go across to the aviary in which they are kept as I needed to check on the layout of the 'book' of ID's that they will be presented in. Was it a left or right hand page.. the difference was important as when I laminate I have to leave a strip of laminate free, either to the left or right, in which to place the holes for the eyelets. Once checked I headed back to the studio to get the ID's ready. I noticed on my way back that another aviary had its ID removed and it was empty of not only a bird but of all 'dressing' such as branches, food bowls and substrate. This was a different aviary to the one the email had said but both housed the same species and the ID was still on the aviary I had been told about - was there a mix up on the email? I needed to speak to the Bird Section. I contacted Nigel, Curator of Birds and he explained that the two birds (of the same species - Sulawesi quail doves) were moved from their respective aviaries to an off show holding area to be paired up.

This would mean that I now needed to put up four 'blank' ID's to fill the holes left by the signs of the birds that were moved; two for the Sulawesi's and two for the starlings. I had only two blanks on file so I had to make a few more of them also.

I got the blanks up and removed the unwanted IDs for these two species before lunch. Doesn't seem much for a morning's work, does it!

In the afternoon I headed over to the indoor aviary that now houses the Asian glossy starlings and put the ID pages in the three seperate books. The process is quite fiddley removing nuts from the U-bolts holding the ID's in place on a wooden board, which means me working by the sense of touch in a narrow gap on the underside of this board - often full of cobwebs! However, such unpleasantness is balanced by all the beautiful birds that I get to see as I work. It was lovely in there today, with the sun streaming through the roof windows it was bright and very toasty, temperature-wise. The two sunbitterns were down in the little stream that runs through the walkthrough aviary... these birds are so elegant and fragile looking with beautifully marked plumage of dark and light mottled browns - hiding the huge 'eyespots' on its wings that it shows to warn off would be attackers.

As I put the last starling ID in the last book I noticed that one of the other IDs in it was damaged and water had got in under the laminate. It would need replacing; I checked all the IDs in the three books and luckily no others were in need of replacing.

Also on my way back to the studio I saw some keepers wading out to one of the lake islands (one that had been without any animals on it for a while). They were carrying across a couple of pet carriers. I stopped and had a chat. They had a new male ring-tail lemur in with the group housed in the lemur walk through and had removed two of the older males previously in the group so the new male could settle in with his new ladies without encountering opposition from the 'old boys'. It was these old boys that were now going to live on the island. Sometime ago, I had removed the ID holder from the post in front of this island. Now it needed to go back up and a new sign made for the lemurs.

Back in the studio I printed off IDs for the black hornbill for the indoor aviary and one for the lemurs. These were laminated (the hornbill had to also have eyelets put in ) and then I was back out to first screw in the ID holder mounted on a T-bar back on the post (with Anna's help to make sure it was in straight.) and then to replace the hornbill ID.

The lemurs would probably be kept in to settle to their new home until Thursday, so at first I didn't put their ID up. But as a keeper pointed out the public are able to see them through their 'hut' window so I popped back out to put it in.

Passing by the otter enclosure I stopped to watch them, they are quite often more active late in the afternoon and today was no exception; they were having a 'relaxed' game of chase by the looks of it. The keepers and garden staff had recently revamped their enclosure, giving it a bit of a make over. It looks so much better as it had got a little tired and overgrown. Now the otters have different substrates to run over and new plantings to investigate and run around. They seemed to be having great fun.

Maybe tomorrow I can get back to that spider I've almost finished.

Hairy time

Continuing with the spider this morning, I added the hairs to more legs and onto the abdomen; also going back over the other legs already done, adding a bit more colour and highlight as I go to make the spider stand out and to boost the colour of that reddish pink. 

I am working from photographs that I took of an adult female here at the zoo and the colour has been flattened a lot, so I am referring also to my memory of her colour and some other photo's that I found on an internet search. The thorax (bit of the main body that the eyes sit on and the legs are joined to) of the adult spider is a metallic green. This has also not transferred well through the photographs coming out either almost white (due to light reflections) or a blue colour. So I have contacted Mark, Assistant Curator of Invertebrates, to see if I can have another look at the female to get a better idea of that green before I start painting that part of it.

In the latter part of the morning I did some more scanning in of more photographs for Phil, my boss - Graphic Design Manager, this handily filled the time whilst I wait to see the spider.

So, as of lunchtime, this is as far as I had got with the hairy one...

 

During the course of the afternoon I managed to get all the remaining legs done apart from the segment that overlapped the thorax on the leg that sits middle front of the image. Mark was on his own on section today so being as I never heard from him I guess he was a wee bit busy. Hopefully next week I can get a look at the spider so that I can finish this illustration.

I had a call from Simon, a Senior Keeper, requesting a permanent ID sign for the two Linne's two toed sloths now housed in the nocturnal house. We already have this species in there but these are two new animals and are in a seperate enclosure for a while (presumably for quarantine reasons). So I printed off the ID sign that was already on file in the computer, laminated it and took it up to the section to stick onto the board in front of the enclosure.

On my way back I stopped to chat to Charlotte, a Keeper, who was washing down the windows of the Asiatic lion enclosure. Shiva, the adult female, and her two strapping youngsters (now aged 16months)  were sat lounging peacefully watching her. I got a blink greeting from Shiva (cats blink as a sign of non aggression), which I was very pleased to have got. After leaving them I stopped by the meerkat enclosure to see the new babies, just about a week or two old. All I could see was the back end of two wriggly pups sticking out from the protective crouch of the female as she nursed them. In all there are four pups; one had apparently been taken down into the den and the other was also in the protective crouch of one of the other adults. They are shut in their indoor area at the moment as it is very wet  and rather chilly outside - not ideal weather for delicate little pups. There were a number of visitors enjoying watching the antics of the adults and the wriggly pups. I love the noises they make to each other, constantly keeping up a communication.

Antilles pink toed spider

Due to being ill yesterday I was not at work so nothing to report for Monday.


Today I am back in the studio at the zoo and back to painting the spider illustration.  Last week when I had started this illustration I had in mind a background but then I changed my mind during Wednesday. Today I am continuing with the change of plan but I had already painted the spider in a black base colour onto my paper. I wanted to paint tree bark under it and with the technique I use this would mean the spider would get painted over. So, (and I don't know why I have never thought of this before!), I placed magic tape (a softer kind of sellotape) over the spider and after rubbing it down carefully, to get a good 'stick' and seal, I cut round the spider shape with my scalpel. I wasn't sure this would work but it might protect the spider enough so that I wouldn't have to paint it in again as a base coat.


I then mixed a range of browns and painted the area for the bark over with the darkest tone and then using a dry brush stroke technique I applied the other colours in layers (dark to light) allowing each one to dry before painting over it. I then went back in with a dark tone to add a little definition to texture. This is a quick way to get something that resembles bark. The backgrounds do not need to be accurate on the illustrations I do. They are just needed to 'place' the animal - it can be a plain colour or simply imply an environment. 

Once dried I carefully lifted off the magic tape and was relieved that it not only came away without lifting the spider base coat but that it had sealed nicely around it, protecting it successfully from the paint I had just put on.

 

I tidied up a few gaps around the legs and added a shadow under the spider before starting on the beastie itself. Working on the legs at the back I started laying in the hairs using a small brush splaying the bristles to create thin multiple hair lines with each brush stroke.

  

Apart from scanning in a couple of old zoo photo's for Phil, I was working only on the spider today; still feeling under the weather  slowed my progress. Hoping to have this beastie finished tomorrow if all goes well.