Friday, January 5, 2018

Behind the scenes

Been working hard last year to complete the manuscript of my catalog on fossil Cyprinodonts. Little known, fossil fish. A fascinating subject. 




Even after 7 years working on the subject I still have to do some more research and finish a number of illustrations before the  manuscript can be finished. The photos, taken early september 2017, show some of the illustrations in proces. Like all fossil killies in the catalog they are illustrated in the way they probably looked like in real life. Artists impressions I created, based on the knowledge of recent killifish.




Here's a sneak preview of some illustrations (unfinished): Cryptolebias senogalliensis (top)Aphanius kirgisicus (middle) and Aphanius longipinnis (bottom). :


The catalog is scheduled for publication in the autumn of 2018; however the publication also requires a few reviews. Scientific papers which need to be published prior to the catalog. These peer reviewed articles take time. Meanwhile, I guess I'm trying to save my patience, I am refreshing my blog ´A queer fish´ and doing some additional writing and illustrating on fish in general. The first result is a publication on sticklebacks in 'Straatgras'; the (Dutch) magazine of the Museum of Natural History in Rotterdam. The illustrations of three sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus - the threespine stickleback; Pungitius pungitius - the nine spine stickleback and G. doryssus - the fossil Nevada stickleback) are now available at my printshop. All of them in black and white ánd in a full color version. The fossil Nevada stickleback is a personal artist impression illustrating this fish, for the first time ever, the way it may have looked like in real life.


Meinema, Eduard (2017): Fossiele en recente stekelbaarzen in zoet en zout water - Straatgras, Museum of Natural History Rotterdam, Volume 29 (2): 57-58.

Read the PDF (article only and, sorry for that, all in Dutch; you may like the illustrations though...); visit the website of NMR) and / or read my blog on Sticklebacks (A Queer Fish - Sticks and Stones; an English summary of my article).