New Challenges

This year, the Aquarium of the Pacific opened a new exhibit about steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Because I don't know a lot about steelhead, I had a lot of research to do, which mostly involved a lot of google searching. However, in this case, I had the privilege of working with the actual fisheries scientists from USFW and regional fisheries scientists, which meant I also was able to supplement my photo reference with images and input from the scientists.

One of the things I was tasked with was creating an image for the steelhead life cycle, which is exceedingly complex because all steelhead start as eggs in a freshwater stream and as they grow older they can choose to stay in the freshwater and become what we call rainbow trout or they can can transition—in a process called smoltification—into the ocean-going form known as steelhead trout. To make things even more complicated, steelhead trout transition in freshwater to rainbow trout colors, but don't become rainbow trout. And they can return to the stream year after year to spawn unlike salmon. So yes, the big takeaway is that rainbow trout and steelhead trout are the same species.

This process started out with a sketch from Rosi Dagit from RCDSMM (Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains).

The initial Illustrator/Photoshop image based off Rosi Dagit's design:

The initial design looked too complicated on reflection, so we simplified it.
Another part of the process was to send out an image of all the trout life stages to the scientists for their review. Here you can see the various notes that were given on an initial version of the illustrations and a later version of the illustrations after I'd made the changes.

Here's an image that shows a rough progress.
The first image is a rough sketch, in this case of the steelhead (ocean-going form of the rainbow trout). For the ease of changing the outlines and scale of the various stages of the trout, I did all the "inking" digitally. These are vector images drawn in Adobe Illustrator and colored in Photoshop. It's hard to see the difference between the first outline and the second, but there were minor changes in the mouth shape and a general slimming down of the overall shape, since steelhead tend to be more streamlined than rainbow trout.

Here, you can see the final image, where includes a change in the title and a more pared down look. The background of the image reflects the exhibit so I made minor modifications there as well.

Next post is a little glimpse of what it takes to create a composite photo, without it looking too Photoshopped. Visit the Aquarium of the Pacific to see the new Steelhead Trout exhibit and the new signage in person!

Giant Siphonophore

A giant siphonophore (Praya dubia) is a colonial Cnidarian like the Porteguese man-o-war. It can get up to 130 feet long and can be found at up to 1000 feet deep. Each of the small animals are connected together and have different functions like feeding, swimming, and reproducing. The "head" or swimming bell is the nectosome and the long "tail" is the siphosome. These guys can bioluminesce a blue color to attract their prey. The giant siphonophore is part of the Aquarium of the Pacific's new exhibit on Ocean Exploration called Wonders of the Deep. Since the images of these animals of their full length are mostly low-resolution ROV video captures and since the original designs called for a 40 ft image, I decided to illustrate the animal instead of going through the frustration of Photoshopping, cloning, and blowing up itty bitty pixels. Illustration gave me the flexibility to play around with the size of the image to fit the context and also to blur or clarify the parts of the image that overlapped or went behind other Photoshopped photos. This first image is the final image as it went to pre-press, with the images from the different sections and two walls put together. The illustration was built at 1/8" size.

Here's a close-up of the front of the siphophore, with the nectosome and some of the siphosome showing.

And here is the image in the context of the Wonders of the Deep Gallery. The projections above it show animals that live in the abyssal plains, 13,000 ft down. The siphophore isn't one of those animals, it's more an element to tie together the different panels. Sorry for the poor quality of the photo. It's an appropriately dark exhibit.

If you find yourself in Long Beach, come check out the new Ocean Exploration exhibit at the Aquarium of the Pacific!