Location: Ft. Lauderdale, FL Days: 10/20-10/22 Conditions: Clear skies & windy. Small-passing low pressure system first day of the trip. Tropical storm over Jamaica.
Notes:
Conditions for the week were tough. Heavy winds from an approaching hurricane Sandy made beach fishing out of the question. A week before flying down, I caught an episode of Joe Cermele's HookShots (http://www.fieldandstream.com/hook-shots) If you're not familiar with his webisodes, check them out. Joe and his buddies fish various waters across the nation with and slam fish using various techniques. His most recent is a colorful look at Miami's peacock bass fishery.
Taking this as inspiration, I decided to target peacocks on the fly. I've wanted to hunt them since I was a kid. First thing I had to do was stop into Orvis in Manhattan to see Rob Ceccarini and work out a fly selection. He knows his stuff, and his selections seem to always out-fish most other things in my box.
It didn't take much time to get rolling once on the water. I spent my time hunting the residential canals and everglade swamps for peacocks and largemouth, while showing a good friend and fishing newbie Erik the ropes.We caught plenty of fish, but the quality picked-up after we dialed-in a pattern of fishing the canal outflows.
Overall it was a mission-success. Erik, who never even picked up a rod before the trip, had numerous bass and peacocks under his belt by the end of the week on both bait and plugs. He was hooked. I knocked another fish off the species list and learned a lot of new water.
The striped bass tail-slap theory has always been an interesting debate. The scenario: You're casting a pencil popper into a school of nervous bunker. The water suddenly explodes, and you get a glimpse of a huge tail smashing your popper upwards of 5' to 6' through the air. It lands a few yards away, and moments later, is sucked under by a 50 lb striped bass (we all hope so anyway). Now, did that bass purposely tail-slap the lure to stun, then eat it? Or, was it just a result of her missing her target?
I'm not a scientist or a marine biologist, and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn last night. But I do draw 'em like I see 'em. On a recent visit to Bass Pro Shops I noticed a very interesting clue into this discussion when I saw a live-fish feeding in their huge 35,000 gallon aquarium. The tank had every fresh water game fish imaginable, included a few Cape Cod Canal-transported striped bass.
Feeding at Bass Pro Shops
The crowd got an up close and personal look at these fish massacring dozens of large shiners. Immediately drawn to the stripers, I noticed that after a shiner was taken on the surface, the force and momentum of the fish turning after the strike ended each time with some variation of an accidental tail slap.
I sketched it in my fishing log while drinking a few cold ones at Liars Saloon, between the good tides over the weekend:
1.The striper hones in on a fish, turning upward aiming at the head of the target.
2.Turning body vertical, the fish strikes from below
3.Right after the strike, striper carries momentum through turing 180 degrees, and powers with a few powerful sweeps from the tail back down below.
When the bass made that last move (3), each went below with a tail-slap on the surface, which makes me think if a striper hits your plug and misses, the follow-through may send your lure flying, or result in a tail-hooked fish. The fish knows it didn't eat, so it makes another pass right after, or possibly a competing fish takes the plug instead.
I'm not sure what side of the debate I stand, although this proves to me the slap is unintentional at least some of the time. It would be interesting to hear from a biologist that is in the know. Maybe that's the next illustrated project added to the to-do list.
Kicking off 2012 with some new work below, each in a different style/technique. I've never been a big follower of illustrators having just one style, and have been lucky enough to experiment new techniques often. Enjoy.
The Wall Street Journal:
New military technology for fighting a new kind of war
A few weeks ago GREY contacted me with a unique idea to create a Snow
Crab 101 infographic for Red Lobster's Facebook page. Given the chance to
illustrate the life of a snow crab and work with an amazing company
such as GREY, I was fast to jump on the opportunity.
GREY
sent me a word document rich with researched details and a rough idea to
use as a starting point. They wanted a "how to eat" section to accompany
the main art, and since the main usage of the piece was
Facebook, a roughly 8 x 10 inch dimension was the target size. Tight
fit for the goals we wanted to achieve but a challenge I was looking
forward to.
I sketched out a few fast layouts and
chose to go with a sidebar for our how-to-eat information. We wanted to
have a snow crab as our dominant main art, and I wanted it to tie-in with the main art so it didn't feel separate on the page. GREY
was pretty open with layouts, so knowing this was a strong idea I
immediately went into sketching a tight rough:
Shooting reference – a great excuse to steam up a few crabs:
Again, when working with clients who are getting constant feedback from
their clients (in this case – Red Lobster), I feel the tight pencil
roughs save a lot of time on production for all involved. This also
gives everyone a piece of mind looking over the details while not leaving
anything a surprise later in the game.
I had the opportunity to
write the text, so I add the copy and their fonts during the
rough sketch phase so the client can read through the sketch and see
exactly what we want to show. They edit the copy while I work on the
final renders and design tweaks, allowing the page to develop together
smoothly.
As the illustrations come together, I switch the rwketches with new art and make any text edits that are noted. During this process we cut-cut-cut, to keep the layout from becoming too text heavy. Soon the piece is ready to go:
The final was published on Red Lobsters Facebook page very shortly
after. It got a lot of traffic and customer conversation – a
win-win for all who was involved.
A special thanks to the talented GREY New York creative team and Red Lobster for giving me the opportunity to eat snow crab and dive into this. You were an absolute pleasure to work with.
"I wonder if I could drive that into a tornado and survive"?
I have (yes I'm serious) although my thoughts are more fueled by curiosity then science. For Discovery's Storm Chasers star Sean Casey and the researchers of VORTEX2 it's a reality. Armed with a camera and research equipment, they drive customized vehicles into the heart a tornado in the IMAX film Tornado Alley. If you haven't seen it, I definitely recommend it.
When Big Screen Films contacted me with an opportunity to create an infographic poster for the feature, I jumped right on board! The idea was to diagram the two heavily modified research vehicles, highlighting their key features of science and survival. The kicker with these was I had an opportunity to see both vehicles in person, and meet their teams to answer my questions.
The first vehicle up was Sean Casey's Tornado Intercept Vehicle (TIV-2) – a vehicle modified to park inside a tornado and film with an IMAX camera. Armed with a camera and sketchbook, I met the team at The Museum of Natural History in Manhattan for a early screening of Film, spending some time climbing around the truck and talking to the crew.
Once the movie was over, driver and team crew member Marcus Gutierrez took me for a ride through NYC, which was definitely one of the highlights of the gig. Living here for almost 8 years, I know there are few things that turn the heads of New Yorkers, but people literally ran out of the road when this beast drove through. I'm not sure what rates they charge storm chasers for parking in the city:
A few days later I visited VORTEX 2s Doppler on Wheels (DOW) vehicle at the Liberty Space Center in Jersey City, NJ. The DOW 7 team was extremely helpful answering my questions and curiosities.
After seeing both vehicles in person and taking hundreds of photos and notes, I immediately got to sketching our layout. The original plan was to put both vehicles in the same poster. I really wanted to have a few pop-out details along with my cutaways, to pull the viewer into the key features.
Since the TIV and DOW teams were doing the copy, I made room with dummy type to fill so they can work while I render the art. I find this is a tactic when the text is coming from an outside source, allowing the design and art to progress while giving others time to write. Its not an exact science, but in most cases there is usually only minor cutting and design adjustments at the end of the process. I feel the key to this being successful is having detailed rough drawings, so clients can see exactly what we want to show. The tighter rough will also save time with edits later in the process, since the experts will see if something is off early in the game. When this is noted I adjust my art as I work. Both teams did an excellent job with the text, making the information brief, yet adding details that are interesting to readers.
Working on the final art. I always say, there's no such thing as too much reference:
As the pieces come together, I replace the rough sketches with the finals:
Andy Wood had the idea of illustrating our headline, which I dove right
into. I think it definitely adds a nice touch to the piece:
We also had the opportunity to break both trucks into separate posters, which made two nice options and aired out our layouts a bit.
And there you have it… Illustrating an IMAX movie poster. I've had a lot of cool gigs over the last ten years, but this one is definitely up near the top. A special thanks to Big Screen Film's producer Andy Wood and Director of Strategic Partnerships Deborah Raksany. They are an absolute pleasure to work with! I'd also like to thank the TIV2 crew – Sean Casey, Marcus Gutierrez and Brandon Ivey and VORTEX2 DOW team for showing me the vehicles and putting up with my infographics nerd questions.
www.mikesudalportfolio.com:
I draw and diagram a lot of fun stuff – from historical battles to oceanic scenes, and the occasional toilet (yes its true).
I have been illustrating, researching, writing and designing my own informational graphics for over nine years now.
My staff jobs include The St. Petersburg Times, Asbury Park Press, Associated Press, and more currently the Wall Street Journal, and clients such as Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, Scientific American Magazine, Giant Screen Films, AAA, Boating Life, The Nature Conservancy, Pfizer, and Red Lobster.
I also fish way too much.
