Monday, May 4, 2009

Here fishie, fishie!

I've already shown you some of my pencil/brush on paper work, now it's time to show something I've painted on the computer as well, especially since this image fits so well today.

About ten years a go I worked at a place where they had a small aquarium. This was before I got my own tank but I've always been drawn to aquariums and this was no exception. I was particularly found of some blue, marbled fishes.

Since one of my friends is very in to aquariums I tried to describe my favorites to her to see if she could help me find out which breed they were. Now this was when digital cameras still were considered exotic and very expensive and when cell phones were just PHONES (and scanners were crappy, see crappy scanned photo in a previous post) so the best way I could think of to show her how the fishes looked was to draw one (we didn't live in the same town so e-mail was a must)

I wasn't sitting near the aquarium so I had to go back and forth SEVERAL times to look at the fish and then draw from memory so it took me quite some time to get it right. Also the fish wash shy and hid most of the time I came to look it and every now and then I actually had to work as well. LOL





It's mouse drawn in Psp and while the perfectionist in me isn't completely satisfied with some of the details (the shape of the mouth isn't 100% correct and neither is the bodyshape or the curve of the feelers) I must admit that the likeness is still quite good and my friend had no problem to identify it as an Opaline Gourami (hope I got the English name right now).

I decided that one day, if I ever got an aquarium of my own, I should get Opaline Gouramis. Today is that day!!! :o) I now have 4 gorgeous Gouramis swimming in my tank (or mostly hiding in the corner, they're a bit shy. LOL) and it "only" took me three years as anquarist to finally get them. LOL Sorry, no photos if the real fishies yet, they REALLY didn't like when I brought out the camera. (It seems like painting them still is the easiest way to portrait Opaline Gouramis. LOL)

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