Feeding behavior infographic
Process of creating the infographic:
The feeding process of walruses is surrounded by a lot of speculation. This process is covered in mystery because it is considered dangerous to be in the water with wild walruses, the excavation technique of this species has not been investigated further (Kastelein et al., 1989). A walrus dives to 6-32 m deep to reach its favorite bivalves (mollusks): Mya, Hiatella, Serripes. They have to eat 41-72 kilos of wet weight biomass per day to keep their body in consistent condition. It is about 5% of their weight. The feeding and diving mechanism of walruses was of particular interest to the scientists and my external advisers.
I started with sketching as usual. The main idea was to depict the feeding scene with a cross-section part of the ocean floor with mollusks in it. First of all, I started with the big shapes, the ocean floor, the water, and the cross-section of the mollusks. I place my pencil sketch in Photoshop and a color layer in multiply mode over it. I started working on the walrus itself using a soft classic brush to create the big shape. Next I made a mask with the contour of the walrus body to keep the painting sharp even with a soft brush. Layer by layer I created the right shape of the body. At some point the walrus body was too elaborate compared to the rest of the scene. There was no connection between the walrus, the environment and the cross-section of the ground anymore.
An important moment of the feeding behavior is when the walrus waves its front flipper to expose the bivalves, which stirs up the sand so much it creates a sort of smokescreen. If I was to depict the scene exactly as it happens in nature, you might not see anything but fog. I was aiming to make a realistic depiction of the feeding behavior but still keep things clear, so I decided to show the start of the feeding, where you could still see the full walrus in the fog. It was also challenging to render the fog itself. I handled this by using special Photoshop brushes with the texture of smoke and several layers with different color modes. The result of this painting you can see on the next image. The infographic is designed to explain the feeding behavior of the Atlantic walrus from different perspectives.
Final result of the infographic:
Thank you for your attention!
