Help id this fish?

[City Dad]

I've been using Illustrator to do some drawings lately. Below is my latest effort.
http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb225/timmeinhart/squaw09.jpg
I don't know the name of this fish, but we used to catch a lot of them when I was a kid. I can remember times when the bottom of the Columbia River seemed carpeted with the things. They liked to mass around bridge pilings too as I recall. They would eat anything that came their way from nightcrawlers to Mepps... they loved those spinners.

I tend to remember things in much more vivid color than they probably were in real life, but this is more or less how they looked.

In the fall the Sasquatch would feed heavily on these fish if they could find them shallow enough (Sasquatch hate getting wet above the knees.)

My guess is that the fish above, the fish of my memories were a largemouth/chinook hybrid...

perhaps some of you experts in fish hybridization could help me out here...

[sansou]

Lesser Yellowtail SquawMouth Bass.

[gavin310]

Nice illustration man

[Crawler]

:Shocked:

Its samsquanch's brethren!

[cappo]

Goonch....

[Skyler]

Colorado Pike minnow:
http://coloradoriverrecovery.org/general-information/the-fish/images/colorado-pikeminnow-large.jpg

[pasadenafishin]

god you have a good memory ha

[JediMindTricks]

i dont know if i should....

say BS u copied that exact illustration skyler posted. good job anyway.
or say,
holy **** damn u got a good memory.


either way, that illustration is awesome. do one of me.....



j/k.

[FishermanStu]

thats def a squawfish.

[City Dad]

Lesser Yellowtail SquawMouth Bass.

or more accurately, Combatus Oldbooticus, sometimes know as $3.00 US (but may be more now due to inflation)

Hopping there are some Illustrator gurus here; my goal is a vector image, but I still haven't found a really good way to depict the scales - their size and arangement. The body still looks flat. I'm trying to figure out a good way to make the scale rows at the front and back smaller than those in the middle... also, I noticed in the jpg that the shading on the belly is way too dark while the shading on the bottom fins cannot even be seen. gotta look at that...

[PUDD MASTER BAITER]

I could be wrong .it looks like what we use to catch off the trimmer marina ,at pineflat lake , off our house boat ,using velveeta chesse in deep water on the bottom,while fishing for , big trout, during in middle of the day. During our summer 4 week stay when i was young.the locals called them hard head trout. They were strong fighters on our ultra lights with 2lb.for the last few years ,i havent seen ,or heard of any caught ,when ive been lucky enough to get up there.

[Skyler]

or more accurately, Combatus Oldbooticus, sometimes know as $3.00 US (but may be more now due to inflation)

Hopping there are some Illustrator gurus here; my goal is a vector image, but I still haven't found a really good way to depict the scales - their size and arangement. The body still looks flat. I'm trying to figure out a good way to make the scale rows at the front and back smaller than those in the middle... also, I noticed in the jpg that the shading on the belly is way too dark while the shading on the bottom fins cannot even be seen. gotta look at that...

I don't know illustrator too well, but I own at CorelDraw. Used to run a sign shop, and we did everything vector. What you need to do to get that 3 dimensional depth is use the fountain fill on each individual scale, and play with the light source. Then you can modify the color by overlaying a transparency.

[sansou]

or more accurately, Combatus Oldbooticus, sometimes know as $3.00 US (but may be more now due to inflation)

Hopping there are some Illustrator gurus here; my goal is a vector image, but I still haven't found a really good way to depict the scales - their size and arangement. The body still looks flat. I'm trying to figure out a good way to make the scale rows at the front and back smaller than those in the middle... also, I noticed in the jpg that the shading on the belly is way too dark while the shading on the bottom fins cannot even be seen. gotta look at that...

Ok, ok, ok....if you want to get "technical":

I'm no proctologist, but I would say it does really resemble a Squawfish, but I do find fault with how you do the fins. The transition at the beginning of the fins (compare to Skyler's pic) looks un-natural, and so does the shape and coloring. Once again, I'm no dermatologist, so I couldn't really tell you how to draw one, just only criticize (which comes naturally as a Frenchman). The belly of the fish (as compared to Skyler's pic) needs to have that "alligator skin" look.....the one you have is too greenish/blended (like you said, the scaling is "off").

Nice job nonetheless!!! I look forward to the final revisions....heck, it would be a cool fish to have on a T-shirt. Anybody can rock a tuna, YT or largemouth bass, but a Squaw? Hells, no. Takes a special kind of deeply disturbed character to proudly sport the pike-squaw!


* "Illustrator" ??? Was that the special edition set of crayons Crayola put out a few years ago? I got the 52 color one, with built-in sharpener!!

[Skyler]

* "illustrator" ??? Was that the special edition set of crayons crayola put out a few years ago? I got the 52 color one, with built-in sharpener!!

ha ha ha ha ha! Classic!

[City Dad]

Thanks Skylar, Sansou... merci'! (but you're wrong about the shape and coloring of the fins - the transition, yes, but the rest is correct for that particular strain - just ask bigfoot)

The scales started out as diamonds then I filled them with a linear gradient and applied a distortion filter to round them.

The problem I see is that, on the body of a real fish, the scales get smaller toward as they proceed away from the lateral line and also as the proceed horozintally from the middle of the lateral line - that is, the scales are smaller on a fishes back and belly and at the tail and head then they are in the middle of it's body.

this can be depicted in paint, but in the object-oriented world of vector art it's a tad trickier (at least for me).

I think I've got a handle on the fin transitions though.

Be on the lookout for next drawing - the majestic bridge-lipped sucker!

[Skyler]

Thanks Skylar, Sansou... merci'! (but you're wrong about the shape and coloring of the fins - the transition, yes, but the rest is correct for that particular strain - just ask bigfoot)

The scales started out as diamonds then I filled them with a linear gradient and applied a distortion filter to round them.

The problem I see is that, on the body of a real fish, the scales get smaller toward as they proceed away from the lateral line and also as the proceed horozintally from the middle of the lateral line - that is, the scales are smaller on a fishes back and belly and at the tail and head then they are in the middle of it's body.

this can be depicted in paint, but in the object-oriented world of vector art it's a tad trickier (at least for me).

I think I've got a handle on the fin transitions though.

Be on the lookout for next drawing - the majestic bridge-lipped sucker!

You could use the envelope tool (that's what it's called in corel) to shrink the scales gradually toward the tail in one batch, then overlay them as a transparency and trim the edges. Just start out with a big block of scales and squeeze it toward the tail, belly, and head. This will give you a pretty smooth transition, with big scales toward the middle and small ones toward the edges. Then make them translucent and overlay it on the fish, trim it down, and set the light source for the whole batch. make sure to group the objects before setting the light source, otherwise they will seem like christmas lights, lol. You could also try and piece it together one scale at a time, but then you are gonna basically be piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, lol.