#phocoena

Harbour porpoise - 2026 - Sealife

Imagine my delighted surprise when the owners of Sealife (a whale watching, cetacean research, and education company in Portugal) contacted me last year for some new illustrations - the previous work I had done for them was from 2019! They have always been one of my favourite clients so I was more than happy to comply. Once again they wanted illustrations at the highest detail level, of three additional species they had sighted in the years since the first commission.

This turned out to be my favourite of the bunch, the harbour porpoise. A species I had drawn several times before, and every time they looked more or less like each other. I thought I'd had this species rather figured out. Nothing like a bunch of new reference photos and a newly built from the ground up illustration to discover that I, in fact, had not. This girl became quite different than her predecessor and I love her a lot!

Vaquita (Phocoena sinus)

An ambitious effort to save a diminutive porpoise called the vaquita has received the official clearance to move forward.

The vaquita (Phocoena sinus) is found only in Mexico’s Gulf of California, where there are just 30 of them left. On 3 April, the Mexican government announced that it would give US$3 million to the VaquitaCPR (conservation, protection and recovery) plan to save them. A further $1 million was donated on the same day by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in Silver Spring, Maryland.

The project, which will use dolphins specially trained by the US Navy to corral as many vaquitas as possible so they can be put into protective pens in their natural habitat, also got the green light to start from the Mexican government.

In short, mostly brown. In long, it's a bit complicated as Killer whales (and for that matter, all cetaceans) have multi coloured eyes! Unlike us humans, who have a singular coloured iris and a white sclera, cetacean eyes come in more flavours. Their iris is circled by a pale ring of varying colour, and the surrounding sclera is more often than not coloured too, sometimes even bi-colored. I have actually been working on a cetacean eye-colour-chart thing so I have some neat illustrations ready.

Here you can see the components that make up a cetacean's eye. It should be noted though that when relaxed, the eyelids cover much of it, leaving almost only the iris visible. As an example: a Harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena). On the left a clear view of the eye in its totality; on the right as visible in life.

Onto the whale in question. All cetaceans have beautiful brown irises: in many it is an unbelievably rich reddish hue when sunlight hits it directly. In shadow or underwater it looks more subdued though. Then comes the pale ring which in Killer whales is quite variable: in some animals it is very pale, almost white, while others have beautiful bright blue rings. The sclera appears two-toned in blackfish as far as I've seen. Killer whales have a rather modest dark brown area of sclera around the iris-pale-ring-combo, with the surrounding "base" sclera reddish pink. For comparison, False killer whales (Pseudorca crassidens) have a bit more substantive dark brown sclera area, with the surrounding sclera a striking bright red.

Some dolphins (and a porpoise)

Here are some illustrations I made over the past couple of months for different people. The striped and common dolphin were most recent - for a sailing company in Portugal. Most are reworks of older illustrations though to be fair, any resemblance to the originals is rather lost. They kind of go along with the two Australian bottlenose dolphins I posted recently. I really like this style of illustration; a bit loose but still realistic. They’re super fun to make because they’re relatively quick and I don’t get hung up on polishing every last detail. I hope you like them too ♥

Out of time

There it is. The surface. So close the light dances painfully in her eyes. She can’t help but keep looking. So close. And yet something keeps her down. Invisible tendrils stroked her side in a completely unpleasant way, like a jellyfish she didn’t see in time. But instead of swirling away when she flicked her tail at them, the silvery strands held fast. The more she twisted the more it grabbed her. And now her flukes and fins ache from the sharp bites it delivered. So now she hangs still, because moving hurts. Something needs to be done. But what? There it is, the surface. So close. But somehow, it is getting darker.

-- -- -- -- -- 

Burmeister’s porpoise (Phocoena spinipinnis)

Part two of the Porpoise Conservation Society commission: a scientific illustration, to match the painting of before. As with the vaquita, there is need for both accurate representation of this poorly known species, as well as more evocative images that may inspire people to help out. I painted this after the full painting was done, so luckily I’d had some experience with their anatomy and markings. They are fine and very subtle. 

A close up view of the little Burmeister’s porpoise calf that’s accompanying mom on their silverside hunt. He’s probably too young to eat fish with any regularity, but he’s taking a keen interest in the hunt itself. He observes closely how his mother works, and later on might play around with a caught fish. It’s all fun and games now, but one day he’ll put his learned skills into practise, and have acquired a serious taste for fish instead of his mother’s milk.