Hello!
I was so fascinated by the beauty of Mahi Mahi, yet it’s popular as a dish! so I decided to make this piece for fun (It’s been a long while since I did a toonish 3D illustration) and as a gift for my little son (I want to print it in poster-size and hang it in his room).
I Used Blender and Photoshop (Heavy photoshopping actually) to accomplish this.
Thanks for watching!
This is one of the best water renders ive seen in blender. Would you mind sharing ure secrets to getting the depth and the textures for the water
It looks really cool! Nice color scheme, I think the only thing that does not match is the sky background, maybe more painted clouds or something. Could you show a screen capture of the blender scene? 
I’m glad you guys liked it 
I will explain the process… but this only works for illustrations! as mentioned above, I used photoshop heavily…
The fish was modeled, textured, posed and rendered in Blender separately (Big fish and small yellow ones). Then the waves were modeled, given a displacement and material, then rendered (all renders in Blender Internal by the way… I’m not really used to cycles yet because I haven’t used Blender in a while).
Now in the photoshop oven, I compiled all the renders and started doing the magic!
Color corrections, effects, blur, painting elements (sky and clouds, rays, bubbles, fisherman and boat, bait, fishing pole, starfish, particles were all hand-painted).
Caustics were made using some caustic images that I modified in photoshop and blended on the sand floor.
Some scrn shots from Blender:
I use this technique to add flexibility when I edit the illustration in photoshop. Plus, it’s a lot faster to render
Original resolution for this image is 4000X3600
Cheers
This is wonderful.
Steve S
Thats awsome. So you got the depth and caustics of the water to make it look like a very clear ocean in photoshop?
Lovely work great job on the fishes, I just think the top of the water could of had a smoother transition.
Thanks all for the cool comments 
Here’s a scrn shot of the waves… basically a plane with a displace modifier…
This looks awesome! I love the colors and tilted angle. Great picture!
A very beautiful and dynamic image, Jassar! Thank you for posting information about your workflow, as well!
How long would you estimate the painting took you in Photoshop? The result is outstanding.
Again, thank you all!
James,
The whole thing took me 2 weeks from start to finish, but I only worked on it in my spare time; I have a full-time job and a family to take care of, which makes it hard to find quality time to work on this
Great render, I really like colours and style. Congratulations !
Beautiful render. Love the color palette.
By the way, think for a moment what happens just a few seconds later in this scene?
The fish bites the bait and the hook is pulled to go piercing through the cheek. I went fishing once, caught a fish and found the entire thing extremely violent. Had to take help from someone to release the fish into the water and i could tell that it did not go down as a good day in that fish’s life.
Makes me wonder how fishing gets depicted in so many artworks as idyllic and romantic. And i find it strange saying this as i don’t even love (or even like) animals!
anuraag, that’s the ironic romance of this image this beautiful fish will be dinner in just a couple of hours :)…
Beautiful image…
Nice !
Very colorful, beautiful and creative.
This is awesome. I would have loved to have this on my wall as a kid!
wonderful image, love the colors and the simplicity. the compostion is great too.
great image. it looks like a watercolor painting.
Can I say terrific ?
