#dalli

[screenbeanz]

Anthony LaPaglia and Oscar Isaac in Balibo (2009).

Click to enlarge the GIFs.

[rainu-wa]

[wearedegrassi95]

[angelhummel]

the fact that they had Alli and Dallas all teed up and ready to go just for the writers to put a pin in it so Alli could go to Paris and meet Leo and go thru that whole nightmare i’m about to start biting and clawing

[namu-the-orca]

Girl’s day out

I just realised I’d never posted the finished Dall’s porpoise painting I made for the Porpoise Conservation Society! High time to make up for that, because it’s one of my favourite things. I had so much fun painting this piece, the lighting, the surface, all those different poses and beautiful faces and markings. The front views were challenging though; Dall’s have very curious proportions that are rarely if ever captured on photographs. It took a lot of tries to get things right.

The painting offers a glimpse into something we will likely never get to see: a Dall’s porpoise nursery pod underwater. Although a striking and conspicuous species, very little is known about Dall’s social lives. Animals that bowride and offer close looks are usually juveniles  – females with calves are wary and stay far away from humans. Nonetheless some proof exists to support the idea that females come together in nursery pods, perhaps for protection or to help each other tend to their calves. 

Here we see females with calves in all stages of life. Near the surface one mother races along with her almost fully grown daughter, in the foreground another dives down with her newborn in tow, and in the background two mothers socialise: one with another neonate, the other an unruly juvenile. Note the juvenile’s almost delphinid facial markings, and the lighter sides that are almost creamy on the calves and have faded to grey on the juvenile. Dall’s porpoises in fact posses markings like most cetaceans, but as adults they darken out so much that the markings become indistinguishable.

[bgrand]

[cheshicat]

Modern Schiaparelli couture taken from the House of Schiaparelli’s iconic 30s design, the infamous lobster

[namu-the-orca]

The Dall’s porpoise (Phocoenoides dalli)

Some of your may remember the work in progress views for these guys, now finally onto the interweb they go. Another commission for the lovely people at Porpoise Conservation Society, as part of our porpoise species series. Usually one scientific illustration suffices, but with huge sexual dimorphism, two distinct colour morphs and very different calf colouration, no less than six illustrations came into being.

They were lots of fun to paint, and it was interesting to get to know the species better. Truei-type Dall's porpoises occur only east of Japan, while the Dalli-type extends all across the northern Pacific. Within the Dalli-type are again two morphs: in the East the white marking is long, in the West it is short. The change is gradual, and find their extremes on either side of the Pacific. Dalli- and Truei-types are not definitively separated either: a Dalli-type female from the Eastern Pacific was once found carrying a Truei-type calf.

I also tried to show as much individual variation as possible, while still keeping the illustrations representative. Some examples: the Dalli-type male is dotted with fine black spots. Most Dall's have a couple around the edges of their white markings, but some animals are simply covered in them. The four adults also show different degrees of lightness. The Truei-type female is very dark, with almost no white markings to speak of. The Dalli-type female is as light as they get: extensive markings on her pectoral fins, and the normally vague grey tailstock marking is a solid white.

The calves are a different story altogether. Unlike their adult counterparts, newborn and juvenile Dall's porpoises show clear, almost dolphin like markings on their body and especially face. Interestingly, Dalli-type calves display a Truei-type like marking in creamy grey. On very young calves this area can be very light, making them almost look like a Truei-type animal.

Another interesting thing is the males 'manliness'. The more macho a male, the more convex shaped the flukes and the more forward-canting the dorsal fin. For some reason Truei-type males are usually displayed as smaller and more flimsy than Dalli-type males, even though there is no difference in size. So here I reversed the stereotype, giving the Truei-male more manly fins. Another interesting thing is the influence of pose on their perceived shape: although the Truei-male's tailstock seems slimmer than that of the Dalli-male, both have the exact same measurements.