General Discussion

So I have an idea in mind for a series of watercolour/pointilism (or dotwork) pieces focusing on orca individuals and their relationships within their pods, and to make it more personal/relevant to New Zealand I was going to focus on the NZ orca individuals. Awesome idea, right?

But there’s no information freely available about the NZ orca aside from "17 unique individuals" and I am so so frustrated. THERE'S OVER 100 ORCA HERE, WHY ONLY 17??.

I want this series to be small, and personal, and secret so that when I’m ready to approach Ingrid with my idea I can whip out my portfolio that features the series and pitch my idea about doing personalised art pieces showing individual orca to be included in adoption packages. But I can’t do that if I have to email her FIRST just to get the pod information of the 100 individuals to do this prequel series

*slams head on desk*

Whyyyyyyy

I did a quick google search and found this?
http://www.orcaresearch.org/index.php/identification-guide

Edit: http://www.orcaresearch.org/index.php/scientific-articles I'm reading her 2000 thesis and she goes into a lot of detail.

@Clarinetosaurus

That only has a small selection of the orca found around both the North and South Island (actually the "17 unique individuals" I mentioned in my OP), Ingrid Visser is the only one that holds all of the information about the NZ orca pods and ecotypes as she's the only one in the world to complete her university degree solely focusing on the population's habits and pod structure. Taken from: http://www.orcaresearch.org/index.php/research/our-team

"Born in New Zealand, Dr Visser remains the only researcher specializing in orca in New Zealand waters.

Her research officially began in 1992 when she embarked on her life-long dream to study the orca. Since then she has worked with orca not only around New Zealand, but also in the waters of Antarctica, Argentina and Papua New Guinea."

So she's the only one in the world that holds the information I want. Ingrid is also currently heavily involved with the assessment of the Russian orca situation and helping plan their rehabilitation/release, so even if I did reach out there's an expected delay for a reply - just don't know how long the delay is. Weeks? Months?

It'll be easier to switch my focus to the Southern Resident pods, as the information is readily available thanks to Ken Balcomb and his research teams :)

@lehiishe yeah I realized that my link wasn't very helpful after I posted lol

hope you find more info!

@LizardKing
That's a pretty handy photo reference collection!

Some of the bundles of photos I know I've seen on Facebook (part of several cetacean spotting and dolphin/orca groups >.< ) but a whole lot that have never crossed my path before! It looks like a great gallery full of every possible encounter around NZ, what a treasure trove - you've just saved me hours of Facebook sleuthing. How did you find this??

And thanks, I'm super excited to work on this and guess I got a little over-excited. In the past I've focused on the Southern Residents so know where to get the info I want for them, and assumed the NZ orca would be similar but apparently not so! Ah well, this just gives me more encouragement to approach Ingrid with this idea and hopefully get more of the pod info out to the public easier.

@LizardKing she really is! And it's so awesome but also [i]incredibly frustrating[/i] lmao @Clarinetosaurus you still tried to help me, and I thank you for that! I'd already discounted the link yesterday as I tore it to shreds mentally xD hence my aggressive response, sorry! My frustration at the lack of info should have been aimed elsewhere (like Google for not giving me results lol), and definitely not at a fellow FR user [emoji=familiar heart size=1]

@lehiishe I didn't perceive your response as aggressive at all! If anything I misunderstood what you were looking for so it's my bad. :'D

I found a neat free access article on marine mammal sounds that show the sonograph for each species around australia/new zealand. Might be neat to incorporate it as inspiration in your drawings? (gotta ctrl+f for Orcinus orca because this article is HUGE)

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40857-017-0101-z


Also I'm on university wifi so I can access journal articles behind a paywall (like one about orcas around Macquarie Island if that's close enough to NZ to be relevant to you) but I can't share them ughhhhh. Here it is anyway. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-018-2361-y

@Clarinetosaurus Awwww I'm jealous! That Macquarie Island research paper could help since it's an island between NZ and Antarctica and the South island tends to have Antarctic ecotype C in their waters over Winter, though only really if there's photos of some orca included that show the saddle and eye patches as that's like their version of a fingerprint. Oooh those sonographs are fascinating to look at! The shapes are almost like a dance, I like it. Could be inspiration for background detailing, mimic the shapes and have like ripples radiating out from them....I really like that, actually ----- @LizardKing I didn't...think of it that way at all gosh. Like this idea has evolved from my exploration of watercolour, and orcas kept popping up in my work over the last 5 years, and I started exploring pointilism recently and it just...all works together rather well? So I'm just picking it up and rolling with it really! But looking at it again this actually is a massive long-term goal however I'm so psyched for it - which is odd, normally I can't commit to long term projects :o Woah your classmate sounds wicked cool and etheral - are you sure she's not a fairy or elf in disguise? Either way I'd love to see some of her art. [url=https://scontent.fakl7-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/61214804_2884332725125285_7859255295107661824_n.jpg?_nc_cat=107&_nc_ht=scontent.fakl7-1.fna&oh=5af0a8dfca38caa52e4f5e7da91ae307&oe=5D8C2855]Here's[/url] my practice piece that's prompted this whole idea! Excuse the wonky tail anatomy, it is just practice after all :P And ahhh, thank you for the vote of confidence, so do I because I'm really inspired by her! That's so cool that you stumbled onto the site and then continued using it. Have you contributed to helping ID some critters, or posted up photos yourself? How does it work? I'm so curious about this awesome nugget of a resource website, how have I not heard of it before?? *whispers* I still don't see it as a massive goal, however thank you friend [emoji=familiar heart size=1] maybe when I'm weeks into planning it'll hit me just how much I've bitten off eh? xD

@LizardKing

That's a shame, from what you've described her artwork sounds so lovely it deserves to be shared with the world. Maybe you could be like "so I know someone that's also really loving watercolour and dotwork in their art, and we got chatting and I mentioned your art and she'd LOVE to see it!" ?? Because I really would! Heck I wanna talk techniques and style now haha

Ahhh that's true! I've never been one to make long-term commitments when they come from a place of being forced, because that sets a bad foundation to build upon and you're not motivated to stick with it. At least, that's how it has been for me in the past. If only they taught goal setting in school that was focused on helping individuals find their passions and building the goals from there - which can be a bit hard, seeing as not everyone really knows their passions during high school. Maybe we just shouldn't have to set massive goals for adulthood while barely being past the teenage years? Hmm...But yeah! You're right, if I've been drawing orcas for 5 years then I sure am committed hahaha, I'm glad I've decided to turn towards the joy drawing orcas brings vs turning away because "but that's not what's expected of me". A small hurdle every artist has to face I think, is learning to draw what *you* enjoy vs what's "expected".

Heh thank you! I actually re-worked the background like...3 times(?) to get the pigment I desired, and even then it was a hit-or-miss about how the paper dried and if the swirls would stay or not. I was going for more of a deep-sea or space vibe for the background on that one - having developed my own personalized palette the previous week in class really helped in figuring out what colours to mix and then how much water vs paint to use.
I didn't even think of using the dotwork to highlight the small differences in each orca! Like, it might have happened anyway just not as a conscious effort.vs accidentally done. Gosh, you're a treasure trove of insights and good ideas!

Also holy WOW you've contributed to it over 100 times?? That's huge! And helping ID bones is so freaking cool, and bird skulls are so small and varied - I bet there's a few people that love your help with IDing their bone photos :) Man, if I had more time I'd so give this app a go (as it is I have so many apps that I downloaded with all intentions of using them and now...nope lol)

Sorry for the delay in replying, walked a doggo and then did a supermarket mission. Hooray adulthood haha