Despite a general decline of Bonelli's eagles in Europe, the south portugal population of this raptor opposed this tendency by shifting its culture of nesting on cliffs to using large trees instead. Nowadays only very few pairs in southern portugal still use cliff nests. Furthermore, these birds are increasingly using areas of high human presence. Mixed media illustrations (pencil + watercolour + digital) from 2009. Left to right: adult male, adult female, subadult, immature, juvenile ©João T. Tavares/GOBIUS comunicação e ciência #omnicogni #joaotiagotavares #illustration #illustrator #mixedmediaart #traditionalart #birds #birdwatching #birdsofportugal #raptors #eagles #bonelliseagle #aquilafasciata #algarve #portugal #conservation #gobiuscomunicacaoeciencia #lifebonelli — view on Instagram https://ift.tt/Kd5eIFN

Well, look at that! Safari doesn’t let me publish pics unless it is a text post but Chrome does!

Anyway, I never uploaded any scientific illustration here that wasn’t digital. Here’s a traditional piece of work - some mammal droppings. Do you like it?

You can allways do the easy joke and say “it’s just crap”.

I challenge you to ID the species these belong to, or at least the family.

©João T. Tavares/ GOBIUS Comunicação e Ciência

Presently I am negotiating a commission. It would involve several illustrations, so I sent this little set of examples (from my work at GOBIUS) to try to convince this potential client and show him how I can use different techniques, traditional methods like pencil and watercolour, digital painting and mixed media. I hope it works.

Anyway I am a sucker for this fieldguide plate kind of look (despite the clump of mammals).

Whats your favourite type of illustration from these here? Do you think these work out well together? Would love to get some feedback.

Fieldguide plates are beautiful. I just love the way different organisms are layed out next to each other for comparison, especially as a book (but also as posters, identification plates, whatever). Unfortunately, this is merely part of my portfolio (done while at GOBIUS) in a commission I am hoping to work on. Maybe someday.

On a different note, I realized someone used one of my illustrations on alchetron without any reference whatsoever to my name or the source of the image... Being an illustrator is never easy, but not getting neither payment nor any sort of credit is the absolute worse.

©João T. Tavares 

Here is something in a style that I have not shown here before. This editorial illustration was done for a project named REASE, involving several institutions in the Algarve (Portugal) and meaning to show to the public the importance of ecosystem services, especially in the case of aquatic habitats.

This is an oldie. Back then, GOBIUS partnered Ecoceanus (a boat tour company based in Portimão) and APECE, an NGO focused on sharks and rays to do communicate why sharks are as important as they are awesome. All these species occur in portuguese waters, albeit rarely in some cases. And yes, I would change the size of some of those fins and of that diver.

This is Poster for a Comic Competition for school kids, back in 2011. It was organized by a Steppe Birds Conservation Project in Castro Verde (Southern Portugal).

What is your favourite character?

©João T. Tavares/GOBIUS

This is an infographic poster (which I illustrated and designed) showing 1) how a experimental tidal energy collecting device is set up in a open tidal system - Ria Formosa, 2) how this open lagoon looks and 3) how much biodiversity could actually benefit from having an infrastructure to settle upon. So much, that actually the rate at which the device got life incrusted onto it that it created problems to its functioning.

On my last post I showed how basic 3D can help create infographics. In this case, the 3D model of the device wasn’t created by me, but I was allowed to use it as a base element of the whole image.

These are some of the small mammals that occur in Southern Portugal. This montage of pencil illustrations was derived from the illustrations originally made in 2012 for a mammal guide for the Redondo municipality, in the Alentejo (Portugal) of which I posted some stuff before.

© João T. Tavares / GOBIUS Comunicação e Ciência

Back in 2012, this was a pro-bono assignment to a conservation project which was trying to save the seabirds of Corvo Island, Azores (google it up) by erradicating introduced mammals, especially rats. Watercolour + digital. © João T. Tavares / GOBIUS Comunicação e Ciência

This is my “all duty Fire salamander”. 

The original reference was a picture from a Portuguese Fire Salamander Salamandra salamandra ssp. gallaica taken in Évora, southern Portugal back in 1996. It served as reference for my stippling assignment during Fernando Correia and Nuno Farinha’s “Introduction to Scientific Illustration”, an optional within my Biology degree curriculum.

Later on, I used it for this particular digital illustration, which I played with in the second picture (a re-post) with just because photoshop layers are cool and I could.

You might know this illustration from this tumblr blog and this facebook group.

ssp. gallaica is a rather robust fire salamander from NW-W Iberia, usually with some red blotches mixed in with the usual yellow. Check this out if this interests you.

© João T. Tavares / GOBIUS Comunicação e Ciência

This is on of the neatest products using my illustrations yet. GOBIUS had these underwater identification plates produced for project BIOMARES, as a communication product about the Arrábida Marine Park. Anyone can use these plates in and out of the water, kids can paly with it in the bathtub or at the beach and divers can take them in the pocket of their BC jackets. It has some of the commonest and most iconic species found in the marine park, both fish and marine invertebrates.

These illustrations were used in other products like posters and leaflets about the beaches and diving in the marine park, etc.

© João T. Tavares / GOBIUS Comunicação e Ciência

For some reason, I like seeing my work printed. In this page from GOBIUS’s portfolio and service catalog from 2013, I am showing some linework that illustrates wader (AKA shorebird) ecology and a map of the area that shows how nutrients move from one part of the estuary to the other, commissioned by EVOA.

© João T. Tavares / GOBIUS Comunicação e Ciência

A different post from my recent ones. I haven’t uploaded science illustration work in quite a while. But here it is.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Last year, I had had to create colour illustrations of Deep Sea Fauna, including a group of really cool beasts and a couple of environments for a science exhibit called Luminar. I am still preparing the images from that project to include in Behance, but here is a mashup from those illustrations. Dive in and tell me if you like it! 

First light (Iberica イベリアで )

First Light WIP 20190120

Another go at this one, a bit more saturated.