Sharks! And archaic actinopterygians... (Patreon)

I still have many fishes to draw, but not as many as I did in the past (err.. what?). Most recently, I've been re-drawing a few sharks where my previous drawings were unsatisfactory (in part because they were copied from the works of other artists), and I've also been doing archaic actinopterygians that have never been reconstructed before. The biggest animal here is a Basking shark Cetorhinus maximus. My plan with Basking shark illustrations has always been to show the animal with a closed mouth (heresy!), but I did have trouble - when drawing this animal while consulting photos - getting the proportions right. As you can see (I shared these pics on social media), it took a few efforts before I was happy... (the one at the top is the image I was previously intended on featuring in the book).

Below the Basking shark, we see my new Frilled shark  Chlamydoselachus anguineus. As with the Basking shark, my old drawing was based on another artist's work and wasn't that good anyway, so here's a replacement. Like the Basking shark, it was drawn from photos. Here's an early stage in the development of the drawing...

Finally, I've also just illustrated two archaic actinopterygians (ray-finned bony fishes) that I haven't done before. At lower right is the ptycholepiform Ptycholepis, a Middle Triassic mostly marine European fish (about 12 cm long) with a sloping skull roof and small, pointed teeth. It isn't unique to marine sediments but also seems to have moved into brackish and freshwater environments on occasion. And at lower left we have the phanerorhynchiform Phanerorhynchus, a sturgeon-like Carboniferous fish often suggested to be close to sturgeon ancestry. As is obvious from the reconstruction, it has an elongate rostrum, a covering of armour plates, and a serrated dorsal midline. My section of text on it in the textbook is way too short and needs expanding -- note to self.

Both of these actinopterygians were reconstructed from complete, well preserved skeletons, as illustrated by their respective describers. The colour schemes are entirely hypothetical and inferred from extant analogues (carp-like teleosts and sturgeons, respectively).

Still some more fishes to do, or - alas - re-do. Hope you like, and thanks as always for support.