First Fish Feedback

Get you some pastels and powders
Your paint is to harsh
Lay down your base colors and make it alive with the powders
Your base colors look ok
But the markings ??? Not so
Play with those pastels it will make a world of difference
Where did that blank come from? Don’t answer
Get a good blank,

 

My first fish was awful, so were my second and third. I got a complete replica and just keep stripping it with lacquer thinner to repaint again and again to practice. It does make me want to stick to mammals though! I will say it needs improvement but not bad for a first attempt.

 

My first several were terrible
Filled with sheet rock mud mixed with styrofoam balls
Painted with laytex paints
Just about 50 years ago
Mandi is correct practice!
Don’t give up
I now love doing fish mounts

 

Like Carl said, the paint is to harsh and that blank is horrible. It actually looks like a spawned out female rather than the original male with a Kype. Notice the upper and lower jaw difference between the two. Tone down your markings and keep at it

 

I’m no master fish guy so take this for what it’s worth.
Why do people jump right to paint in critiques? It starts with anatomy. Does your fish anatomically look anything like the fish in the photo?
Start with step one then move on to the next step.
Advise is Dont use flex eyes for any species of salmon. Pupil shape on a salmon is way different from most all commercial eyes.
I’m assuming it’s a blank. Was it sold to you as a chum? Because it most certainly is not.
Paints not to bad. But the fact that it’s a anatomical nightmare detracts for any of that.

 

Jon
If you do a jam up job on the paint it takes away from a poor blank
But don’t give up
Your off to a great start
Allot of customers don’t know a thing About anatomy
But they want a pretty fish
I have another triple tail I’m working on now (custom repo)
And I’ve had several come in my shop and say
Dang what a nice crappie

 

I’ll disagree on the anatomy part. Now it’s just me but a mediocre paint job on a anatomically well done fish looks way better then the other way around. Does that look like the vent fin on a chum to you? It’s not the OPs fault. There’s no way that blank is what he was sold as being. Shame on who ever sold it to him.
I will agree about what people see though. Numerous time Ive had people comment on photos on my Instagram page “ looks great!, is that one mine?” While it’s the same species it looks nothing like their fish.