Aquarium illustration!

[AlStu]

Hi all!

As well as coming back to fishkeeping and trying to finish a PhD, I am also a children’s illustrator (more of my work can be found on my website). My latest illustration is very fishy, so I thought I’d share it here!

I always get very frustrated that search-and-find pages are often very inaccurate in terms of what they portray together, so I tried to make this as realistic a setup as possible (while also capturing the slight hairiness of a community tank, I recognise angels and swordtails wouldn’t be everyone’s first choice, but they are a fairly common combo) any comments on this welcome! In future I’d love to make a whole book of these with different styles of aquarium, but they take long enough (this is easily 20+ hours of work!) I’d need to find a way to get paid first…

The illustration was done using a glass-nibbed fountain pen (my baby) on layout paper for the lines, then digital markers on my iPad for the colouring (makes it much easier to have things like the transparency of the fins compared to traditional media), then a scan of the layout paper overlayed on top to give it a bit more texture.

Some details for anyone interested:

Thank you for looking!
Alice

 

[Mike Singh]

Welcome and elegant work!

 

[AlStu]

Welcome and elegant work!

Thank you!

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

As well as coming back to fishkeeping and trying to finish a PhD, I am also a children’s illustrator (more of my work can be found on my website). My latest illustration is very fishy, so I thought I’d share it here!

Very nice.
Alice, I have a suspicion that @megwattscreative may be interested in your work.

cheers Darrel

 

[AlStu]

Hi all,

Very nice.
Alice, I have a suspicion that @megwattscreative may be interested in your work.

cheers Darrel

Thanks Darrel! Funny enough, being a Norwich/ University of East Anglia person I have followed @megwattscreative’s incredible work and activism for quite a while!

 

[megwattscreative]

Thanks Darrel! Funny enough, being a Norwich/ University of East Anglia person I have followed @megwattscreative’s incredible work and activism for quite a while!

Oh hello Alice! That is very flattering :') I love this piece so much! If you're looking for a collaborator/someone to help, I'm keen 😅 I have a feeling if you wanted to cut time down you could ink on procreate, although that cuts out a lot of the fun (and neglects your baby). So so cool!

 

[PARAGUAY]

The illustrations are really good, they would make be great in fishkeeping book for children to learn, and grown ups for that matter

 

[AlStu]

The illustrations are really good, they would make be great in fishkeeping book for children to learn, and grown ups for that matter

Thank you so much, that means a lot! In an ideal world, I’d love to do a book with pages like this for multiple different ‘types’ of aquarium that realistically (with a little artistic licence) showed the different styles (think Dutch, Iwagumi, black water, nano cubes, big predator tanks, the list goes on!) in a fun and approachable way.

Sadly I think it would be too niche for most publishers to pay for that amount of illustration, and would be too much work for me to take on without a route to getting paid. I’m wondering about approaching magazines to see if I could make it in monthly instalments, or possibly doing a kickstarter, so there’s still some hope for it yet!

Edit to say that if anyone does happen to need or know someone who needs an illustrator for a fish/aquarium related project, I’d love to be considered! My contact details can be found on my website in the first post.

 

[PARAGUAY]

I know some UKAPS members know Nathan Hill editor of Practical Fishkeeping quite well,who might be open to a article , could be a starting point

 

[AlStu]

I know some UKAPS members know Nathan Hill editor of Practical Fishkeeping quite well

If you can think of anyone who might be able to put me in contact, that would be amazing (always seems better than cold calling) otherwise I’ll work out the best email to use to pitch it to them!

 

[Tim Harrison]

@AlStu have you thought about self publishing ? There are a few services out there that might be worth investigating. It could be a cost effective kickstart into a career writing and illustrating children's books.

Then there is this as well

Children's Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2024 : The best advice on writing and publishing for children

Author(s): N/A, Binding: Paperback, Date of Publication: 20/07/2023, Pagination: 464 pages, Series: Writers' and Artists', Imprint: Bloomsbury Yearbooks, Published By: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, Book Classification: Language, ISBN13\EAN\SKU: 9781399408929

shop.winstonebooks.co.uk

 

[FrozenShivers]

I can't draw to save myself sadly, nice drawings!

 

[The Miniaturist]

You have a great illustration style for children's books. Love those eyes, gives the fish more expression! 👀
They would also make excellent greetings cards or colouring book outlines with a full colour image to copy. 🙂

 

[AlStu]

Thank you all for your lovely comments!

You have a great illustration style for children's books. Love those eyes, gives the fish more expression! 👀

I love adding googly eyes to things so much, it makes me giggle and I’m glad it makes other people smile too!

They would also make excellent greetings cards or colouring book outlines with a full colour image to copy. 🙂

I’m actually working on a bird colouring book at the moment, but wondered if these pages would be too complicated, nice to hear it would be something you think people would enjoy 😊

@AlStu have you thought about self publishing ? There are a few services out there that might be worth investigating. It could be a cost effective kickstart into a career writing and illustrating children's books.

Sadly, a niche self published book does not a career make, even if it’s fairly accomplished! Publishers only need to see one or two fish illustrations to know you can illustrate fish, a whole book of them does not, as far as I can tell, ad a huge amount of value career-wise.

The services where you pay to publish are very poorly thought of and put absolutely no effort into distributing your book, so the chances of making your money back are almost zero. I could go down the print on demand route (I already have an activity book out in the world) or order copies to sell, but the uncertainty means I can’t really justify spending upwards of four months unpaid illustrating a book that may only sell a few copies of, when I could be working on other portfolio pieces that would be more likely to get me jobs at the end of it. Self publishing via kickstarter to get upfront funds is definitely an option, if there is enough interest, but will have to wait until after PhD as I do not have enough time to do the amount of advertising needed to successfully fund a campaign.

Then there is this as well

Children's Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2024 : The best advice on writing and publishing for children

Author(s): N/A, Binding: Paperback, Date of Publication: 20/07/2023, Pagination: 464 pages, Series: Writers' and Artists', Imprint: Bloomsbury Yearbooks, Published By: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, Book Classification: Language, ISBN13\EAN\SKU: 9781399408929

shop.winstonebooks.co.uk

I have this book and have studied it intensely. Sadly a portfolio full of fish illustrations isn’t the best way to get an agent! 😅

Alice