OkapiBoy's Fish Sculpts: River Monsters- Goonch Catfish

[OkapiBoy]

Hi everyone!
If you are also a member of the DTF, you may recall that two years ago, just as a personal challenge to myself, I started to play around with sculpting my own figures. It was a project that took a year and two months to complete. I mostly sculpted prehistoric animals.
As I was winding down the project in late 2018, I still had a box of sculpey left that sat around for a few months. I didn't want to waste it, but also was at that time done with sculpting prehisotric animals. Then, Late 2018-early 2019, I decided to do a series of fish based on one of my favorite show, River Monsters! I watched that show so many times!
As I  went through the list, it proved to be more daunting that I thought, but I continued. The original list of planned five figures soon grew and. grew.
I ended the series with a total of 17 figures. As much as possible, I wanted to have a representative from each continent (not always possible).

I finished the sculpt but life and its demands kept me from painting the figures until early this year. It was perfect timing with the whole stay at home thing. So after a long delay, I completed painting every single one of them!

So my plan is to slowly post each one of them individually, then a group of them from the same region or continent.
They don't have a particular scale size, I just based it on my very first one and eyeballed each one to roughly fit the same size scale. I used this Owen figure to base my human comparison, not always accurate, but its the closest I got.
So here we go, ready? Let's do it!

PS: I will post and add photos to this original post as I add more photos to make it easier to see them all in one page. Cheers!

River Monsters series

South American Species


Arapaima - One of my favorite fish! It is also one of the largest freshwater fish. Unfortunately, this South American fish is threatened with extinction due to habitat destruction and overfishing. Posted 7/4/2020
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Red Tail Catfish - Another large South American fish.Posted 7/9/20
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Giant Pacu - Another large fish form South America. Posted 8/7/20
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Asian Species

Giant Snakehead - A notorious large predatory fish from Asia. It has been a problematic species in some countries as an invasive species. Posted 9/5/20
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Goonch Catfish - A large catfish from India. Posted 9/7/20
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[OkapiBoy]

River Monster series: Arapaima
Okay, this was my very first one for the series, the mighty Arapaima, one of the largest freshwater fish in the world alive today.
It is from one of my favorite episodes.
I saw my very first Arapaima years ago when I visited the Vancouver Aquarium in Canada, and I was blown away ny the size of the fish! They are huge!
Since then, I was fascinated by them, it reminded me a lot of the Arrowana, a popular aquarium fish.

This figure would be the base as far as how I went about deciding the size of the rest of the figures. Its not too big, but not too small either, measuring 7" inches long. I also chose this Owen figure who measures 6" inches tall as a comparison human figure to scale.
Looking at it now, I can see that the body of the fish is slightly off, a little too wide. But it is still my favorite from the group.
I had a great time paining it.
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Here she is before I painted it. I used a brown Super Sculpey.
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Well there you go! There are 2 other fish from the Amazon that I will add later, until then, thanks for looking!
Cheers!

[bmathison1972]

Very nice, @OkapiBoy

I know someone who will commission one from you ;-)

[sbell]

Very nice, @OkapiBoy

I know someone who will commission one from you ;-)

That's really cool, I can't wait to see what else is coming!

And if you meant me re: commissions... probably not an arapaima. Just because I already have soooo many. It's almost ridiculous! Almost

[Isidro]

Fabulous model! I like the way you used textured things for obtain the scales. A garlic net, maybe?

[Advicot]

Terrific

[OkapiBoy]

Thanks everyone! Its been a fun project for sure!
@Isidro - yes, the mesh I used for the scales is a garlic mesh!

[OkapiBoy]

Next one up is the Red tail catfish, another giant!
It's beautiful fish that unfortunately is often seen in pet stores being sold to unsuspecting aquarist when still very small. Not a good aquarium pet!
I found out that sculpting catfish is hard due to those very thin barbels! Many of them broke during the baking process!
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Well there ya go. After this one, there is one last South American fish to post, so stay tuned!
Thanks guys!

[sbell]

That looks great, nice paint job.

I have heard that some sculptors will use super thin wire within things like whiskers and barbels, just to give a little more support for the thin bits!

[Advicot]

Splendid work

[OkapiBoy]

Thanks everyone!😃
One more South American river monster to post- any guess?😂

[sbell]

Thanks everyone!😃
One more South American river monster to post- any guess?😂

Wolf fish?
Dorado?
Tiger catfish?

[Advicot]

Arapaima/ picarucu

[sbell]

Arapaima/ picarucu

He did one already!

[Advicot]

Silly me, ok then how about an Alligator Gar, or a payara

[sbell]

Silly me, ok then how about an Alligator Gar, or a payara

Gar aren't from South America!
Payara could be cool though!

[OkapiBoy]

So far no one mentioned it!😂
Will try to post it soon!

[sbell]

So far no one mentioned it!😂
Will try to post it soon!

Electric eel?
Stingray?
Candiru?
Piraiba catfish?
Lungfish?
One of the many knifefish?

Is it one from the river monsters show?

[OkapiBoy]

Well, time to post the last fish from the Amazon! No one guessed it
Its a Timbaqui, also known as black pacu, giant pacu. It did make an appearance in the River Monster Show. Almost all of the fish I will be posting have been seen on or was the main featured fish in that show.
Its the weakest of the trio for me, I almost ended up discarding it, but in the end decided to finish it. I think having it painted helped a lot. I made it a little too yellow to make it pop up a bit.
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[OkapiBoy]

And here is the entire South American collection, all 3 of them
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Next, we will travel to Asia, yes?!