Angel-Fish

Angel-Fish, 9" x 9" Acrylic and metal foil.

Anyone following this blog has probably noticed a bit of an obsession with fish. It started out innocently enough with a small demo painting of a fat fish for a class I was teaching and has since morphed into a series of progressively goofier fish since then. To date I have painted over a half dozen of these critters and I am sure there are more to come. Click the links below to see some of the others in this crazy fish family.

Cat-Fish
Dog-Fish
Angler Fish
Devil-Fish

Angler Fish Goes Green- Color

Angler Fish Goes Green- 7" x 6" digital

A while ago I posted a drawing from my sketchbook of this eco-conscious angler fish. My initial intention was to paint it traditionally like my Cat-Fish and Dog-Fish pieces, but I decided to paint it in Photoshop instead. I give myself projects to create digitally in order for me to continue to improve and increase my digital skills. I learned something very helpful from my friend and fellow illustrator Will Terry about how to mimic my painting textures digitally. He coached me through creating a texture using the Define Pattern tool  under the Edit tab in Photoshop.

I know there are probably a few people out there saying "how in the world did you not know that?", but it was an important revelation for me and I think it will change the look of my digital work for the better. It allows me to use digital versions of my own painting textures to give my illustrations a more random and organic look. I'm pretty excited about it. If enough people are interested, I'll do a little step by step sometime to show you what I have learned. I'll be using this as a self promotional piece.

Angler Fish Goes Green

Angler Fish Goes Green

7" x 6" - Prismacolor with Photoshop highlights

See the finished color version here

I Just delivered my first European project yesterday to a London based design firm for Toyota UK. I uploaded a high res file of my painting directly to their server, something I never could have done a few years back. the digital age has certainly opened up whole new markets to illustrators and I am doing my best to stay only slightly behind the curve as far as reaching them goes. I had a little time between projects so I worked up a new fish to paint. Deep sea fish are just so weird, I love them. Someday I'll have enough of these critters to do a calendar or maybe a book.