There are so many species of fruit fly yet to be described, that the fruit fly experts can't retire! Here is one that I drew this morning, to be published soon.
Here's a sneak detail from a more complex figure that's in press.
Underpainting using digital watercolour brushes is fun. Simply make your drawing layer "Multiply" mode, and use free digital watercolour brushes to paint on the layer underneath. I think the best thing about this technique is that you can take an older drawing and jazz it up to go into a book or presentation (whereas you would have kept it black and white for the journal paper). 'Responding to climate change - lessons from an Australian hotspot', edited by Professor Paul Burton, has just been published by CSIRO Publishing.
I assisted as a mediator between authors, editors and publishers to ensure that the figures were ready for publishing. My illustrations of three new Podapolipid mite species (16 drawings) have just been published in a new paper by Owen Seeman and Robert Constantine.
Citation: Constantine RA & Seeman OD. 2014. Three new species of Eutarsopolipus (Acari: Podapolipidae) from Australian carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae). Journal of Systematic and Applied Acarology 19 (1), 87-109. To read more about Owen's work and to see microscope photos of other Podapolipid mites, read Mighty Mites on the Queensland Museum website. Well, she didn't make the cover of Vogue but she did make the cover of Zootaxa for the large monograph by Owen Seeman, Jenny Beard and Gary Bauchan published this month.
Owen and Jenny gave me a high resolution SEM image of this female flat mite (Tegopalpus conicus), along with a colour photo of the living mite. I have digitally tinted the SEM to reproduce the mite's natural colouration. It's a simple process that can look so striking. Here, only two colours were added to the very simple shape of the mite - the task becomes more time consuming as you increase the range of colours and if there are more complex shapes involved. Source: Beard JJ, Seeman OD & Bauchan GR. 2014. Tenuipalpidae (Acari: Trombidiformes) from Casuarinaceae (Fagales). Zootaxa 3778 (1): 001–157. Dr Owen Seeman has published a new paper, which I contributed to. The new mite Berzercon ferdinandi is named after Ferdinand the Bull, for its horn-like corniculi, and also represents the first species of the new genus Berzercon.
Seeman OD & Baker MR. 2013. A new genus and species of Discozerconidae (Acari: Mesostigmata) from carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) in New Zealand. Zootaxa 3750 (2), 130-142. New reference book 'Tropical fruit flies of South-East Asia' will be released soon by CABI. Thank you Dick and Meredith for giving me such a great opportunity!
The oldest specimen I've drawn wasn't just any dead fly, wings askew and head on wrong. It was from the British Museum of Natural History, with a beautifully handwritten label 'A.R.Wallace, New Guinea, 1868-91.'
The latest publication featuring my illustrations is a description of a new species of jellyfish Bazinga rieki which has been assigned to a new suborder.
CITATION Gershwin L & Davie PJF. 2013. A remarkable new jellyfish (Cnidaria: Scyphozoa) from coastal Australia, representing a new suborder within the Rhizostomeae. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum - Nature 56 (2): 625-628. |
MichelleScience and nature illustration, from a garden studio. See what I'm up toFollow me on Instagram
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