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In Need of Reference Photos


Li'l Ninja Shrimp

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Li'l Ninja Shrimp

Whilst I'm in the process of saving up for my mantis shrimp, I'm making a comic centralizing around an aquarium and its inhabitants. I need photos to help in my drawing of them. Particularly of the following species (aka the main characters) :

 

peacock mantis shrimp

dwarf blue leg hermit crab

emerald mithrax crab

 

I'll most certainly need more as the comic goes on and more characters are introduced, but I'll ask for those when I get to them. What I currently need from the peacock mantis shrimp is a good shot of its underside (especially underneath the cephalothorax region). I also need to see what a blue legged hermit crab looks like outside of its shell (if a picture is unavailable, a good description will do! ;) ) as the main character is of this species and will be forced out of her shell rather frequently.

 

I tried google, but the pictures provided were unsatisfactory. I'm hoping the people who own these critters, or have had better luck finding the needed photos, could help me out! Please and thank you!

 

P.S. If anyone feels this thread is unwanted, feel free to remove it! I understand completely! :)

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Li'l Ninja Shrimp

Oh wow!! He/she is beautiful!! :o Thanks for the album pictures! I especially like that 'Manti-Claws' holiday picture! :D All those techy gadgets are making me nervous about owning a mantis shrimp though... :unsure:

 

 

 

And OP: Is your google broken? I'd be glad to help if it is.

 

..... Took me a while to figure out that 'OP' meant 'original poster'... I need to talk on forums more! :blush:

 

Heh, my google is stupid. :lol: Maybe I'm not using the best wording or something, but when I tried to google some images for my comic, I can never seem to find what I'm looking for (maybe I'm too picky for my own good...). Especially for a shell-less blue leg hermit, I keep getting images of either shelled hermit crabs of a different species, or completely random things. My emerald crab pics always comes out blurry for some reason...

 

The images of the peacock shrimp is the most successful of course, but they're always at undesirable angles, completely different in color scheme than what I'm looking for as a coloring reference (I never knew they came in so varied a color!), or the quality is just plain bad... Plus I always did wonder what the peacocks looked like under all those little legs!

 

Luckily, I'm not too far in my comic, so any difficulties I'm having in character design is being avoided for the moment! I'm not good at drawing despite my love for making comics, but here's a concept picture of the three main characters (shield your eyes from my awful drawing skills! You've been warned!)

 

concept_art_for_comic_by_teamninjabug-d7

 

Here's Stix the peacock mantis, Fiddle the hermit, and Kitty the emerald. It's obvious to see which critter I'm most familiar with! :P Plus I'm going the route of A Bug's Life and making the protagonists as cute and appealing as possible (whilst maintaining some amount of realism) and keeping the antagonist design more 'life-like' for the intimidation factor!

 

What do you guys think? (I welcome constructive criticism with open arms, but please, don't flame. Thanks :happy: )

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What do you guys think? (I welcome constructive criticism with open arms, but please, don't flame. Thanks :happy: )

 

I'd commission you to draw a picture of me riding my peacock mantis shrimp.

 

You know, for like, money.

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I don't see many blue one, but google images of "hermit crab without shell" has quite a few valid hits, and this one is actually an interesting angle to show some differences of a blue one:

 

large_9285_electric.jpg

 

Especially for a shell-less blue leg hermit, I keep getting images of either shelled hermit crabs of a different species, or completely random things. My emerald crab pics always comes out blurry for some reason...



Not sure what's wrong with this besides the large resolution:

 

emerald_crab.jpg

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Oh neat. Peacocks actually come in mostly all red too (deep water).

 

 

I think this is an okay side shot? Could be a little better but no light on her tank :closedeyes:

 

iHqZ9c3BbKins.jpg

 

 

 

 

I told Ivy to roll over so I could get a pic of her belly but she refused :(

 

So I googled this, might not be clear enough though.

 

mantis-underside-_zps08dba35a.jpg

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Li'l Ninja Shrimp

will deffintly be cool i love comics i cant wait to see it

 

I hope I won't disappoint!! ;)

 

I'd commission you to draw a picture of me riding my peacock mantis shrimp.

 

 

You know, for like, money.

 

That's gotta be the nicest thing anyone's said on my art. Thank you!

 

I don't see many blue one, but google images of "hermit crab without shell" has quite a few valid hits, and this one is actually an interesting angle to show some differences of a blue one:

 

large_9285_electric.jpg

 

Weird, I tried to be specific in my google search, going 'blue legged hermit crab without shell' or 'shell less blue legged hermit crab'. I didn't get this picture at all and all I had to do was be less specific about my wording? Okay... I'll go along with that!

 

But I'm amazed at the color difference! I don't know what I expected its little bottom to look like, but I never thought it'd be a pale red color! Awesome!! And thank you for settling my biggest nagging thought! :D

 

I don't think I clicked on the emerald crab one. I remember clicking on one walking on a mushroom-looking.... type.... thing as well as several others, but they always came out blurry.

 

 

 

iHqZ9c3BbKins.jpg

 

Awwwww, so tiny! Baby mantis! Awww!! *ahem* Sorry, I spaz out when I see adorable tiny animals! :wub:

 

 

I told Ivy to roll over so I could get a pic of her belly but she refused :(

 

That's okay! I was thinking maybe the shot can be made when the shrimp's moving up the tank wall or something! But that makes me think... teaching a mantis shrimp to roll over and other simple tricks would be a fun experiment on these guy's learning (plus it'd be cute!)!

 

So I googled this, might not be clear enough though.

 

mantis-underside-_zps08dba35a.jpg

 

Awesome! What words did you use on google to get that image? I tried 'peacock mantis shrimp belly' and 'peacock mantis shrimp on its back', but I never got that result! It's a bit blurry, yeah, but I think it'll certainly help! Thank you!

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I couldv'e sworn I had some blue hermit pics on my phone.. I'll try to get some close ups for you one of these days..

 

for now, here is a close-up of a zebra I've had since starting my first tank

http://www.flickr.com/photos/115806844@N04/12815061895/'>12815061895_0b6c0ca17f_c.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/115806844@N04/12815061895/'>Untitled by http://www.flickr.com/people/115806844@N04/'>GHill762, on Flickr

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That's gotta be the nicest thing anyone's said on my art. Thank you!

 

I'd say your artwork is so good that you should make it into some sort of product and sell it on Etsy. Post cards would be about the simplest. You could sell prints, posters, T-Shirts and things like that. It's really easy to do. My fiance set up an Etsy store to sell her pottery. You should do the same.

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+1 Etsy. I love Etsy! So many cool and creative things people come up with on there. I found a wine/vodka bottle yesterday that a person cut the top clean off and used magnets to hold it back on so you could make it into a tiny fish tank (aka a pico) inside a wine bottle!

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Li'l Ninja Shrimp

Sorry for taking long on responding. I was working on my comic and I've been postponing sharing it here out of pure nervousness. I got the first couple of pages done and I can show you guys the first one.... y'know, to test the waters here (pun may or may not have been intended)... I'll put it on the end of my post.

 

Yayz, I know of Etsy! I have an account, but I only use it to buy pokemon plushes from my friend. But I never thought any of my work would be worthy of actually selling on there! But thinking about it... It sounds kinda fun! And I can totally use the money to put in my mantis shrimp stash (so far I got $136, saving for a G.smithii)! :3 I never worked on arts and crafts outside of drawing on the computer, but I can probably learn! Shirt-making sounds easy enough!

 

..................

 

Well.... it's time.... Like I promised.... here goes nothing... :unsure:

 

reef_of_madness__prologue__pg__1_by_team

 

The introduction of the mantis shrimp antagonist, Stix. This ninja shrimp hid reeeaaalllly deep inside a piece of live rock and now he's on the loose to wreck havoc upon the aquarium!

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