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.