Fish pose a tremendous problem to visual graphics designers across the entertainment mediums. On the one hand, the way that fish move along with how they look from the side compared to a top-down view is wildly different, but needs to be nailed to make them look natural. Next, there’s the fact that they’re in water, adding another layer of animation that needs to work with each fish that’s either swimming around or breaching the surface.
It’d be easy to neglect fish as merely background punctuations, but in some popular entertainment productions, it’s the detail given to the fish that truly sells the products. Looking at a variety of different art and animation styles, here’s how some talented designers have brought their on-screen fish to life.
A Colossal Fish with Nowhere to Hide
One of the biggest fish to take a huge chunk out of the entertainment market in recent years was The Meg. The 2018 comedy horror fully leaned into the absurdity of such a fish swimming in our oceans, adding in plenty of tongue-in-cheek moments to keep the good times rolling. However, creating this prehistoric shark and integrating it so well into the motion picture certainly wasn’t an easy task.
The team was determined not to simply make a sized-up great white shark. So, they made the skin less smooth, integrating a jagged aesthetic, wrinkles, and disrupting the sleek look that we all know of great whites. They turned it a rusty brown, added additional muscle lines, but maintained the swimming motion of modern sharks. It was because of the work put in during the graphic design phase that the film made $530 million at the worldwide box office.
A Static Catch with Lots of Character
Some entertainment mediums don’t rely on big CGI budgets and don’t even need their fish to be swimming around. Even so, the fish depicted in the most popular of these creations have had to boast a wealth of character and be shown in action to help bolster the appeal of the products. It’s this that the graphic designers behind the Big Bass series have achieved.
The Big Bass slot series is easily one of the most popular around. It’s so popular that it can be used as a selling point in promotions. The bingo deposit bonus, for example, gives 200 free spins on the three best Big Bass slots. The most eye-catching of these is Big Bass Splash thanks to the design of its titular fish. A brilliant green-and-bronze flailing fish erupting out of the water in front of a serene setting perfectly reflects the experience in store.
A Few Pixels and Just Two Dimensions
When you build an entire game around fishing different species, you need to make each unique in its aesthetic and behaviour. One of the most endearing achievements of indie sensation Cast n Chill, which released earlier this year, is that developer Wombat Brawler achieved exactly this with pixel art for the 2D game. In the cosy game, there are over 50 fish to find, each of which is easily identifiable as your lure sinks beneath the waterline. With different swimming patterns and reactions to lures or getting hooked, Cast n Chill has made these 2D fish feel real.
In The Meg, Big Bass, and Cast n Chill, the designers have managed to bring their fish to life with different styles and techniques, helping to make the end products all the more popular.
