Ichthyological Research Cover
Special Issue
In 2023 May, I was unexpectedly contacted by Dr. Kentaro Morita, a professor at the Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo. He and the team of Ichthyological Research appreciated my work from three years ago (see: https://www.misakiouchida.com/ichthyresearch) and offered me the opportunity to create another cover art for a special issue featuring native Japanese char ― a type of fish that inhabits the clear, upper streams of headwater areas. It has been a while since I last drew scientific illustrations of fish, and I realized how much I missed it. Naturally, I was delighted to accept the offer.
The cover was used for the issue of Proceedings of the 10th International Char Symposium in 2024 November.
Japanese Native Species
The team at Ichthyological Research was very particular in selecting the char species. They chose the following species, which are considered native to Japan.
Salvelinus leucomaenis, Salvelinus curilus (syn. Salvelinus malma), Salvelinus alpinusm,
Salvelinus namaycush, and Salvelinus fontinalis.
I especially enjoyed drawing Salvelinus curilus – known as “Oshorokoma” in Japanese – since I currently live in Hokkaido, the only region in Japan where Oshorokoma are found.
As I did in 2020, I used graphite and color-pencils for fish drawing. (Oshorokoma are the one on lower right.)
The finished cover art features a turquoise blue background, a color not used in the previous series.