# Want your betta featured in my print project?? Call for photos! (Due Jan 17)



## centaurii (Aug 31, 2015)

The quick rundown:

I'm working on a 3 color print for my lithography class (yellow, red, blue)
I want to make a sort of scientific illustration print of the various breeds of betta (something like this)
*I'd like to base my art off real pet bettas*! Instead of Google 

What do YOU get out of it? Your fish featured in art, AND a random giveaway of one of the final prints to everyone whose fish was featured in the print. This is a $50-$75 value since printmaking is very expensive, just the paper alone is $2-$30 a sheet.

If you have doubts about my artistic ability, see my Behance portfolio and also my work-in-progress website.

*All fin types, all color patterns, male and female, juvenile and adult, are welcome*. 

My own betta, Omicron, will of course be featured.* Do you want me to include your fish?? See my criteria below!*



Reply to this post and either share some photos, or links to photos, of the fish you want featured! 


You have to be a responsible fish keeper, i.e. no bettas living in bowls/vases unless you’re in the process of upgrading to a proper tank setup right this moment.


The photos MUST be clear- not blurry, not too dark, and detailed enough that I can see fine detail like the fish’s scales. If you're not sure, post anyway, most of the photos I see on this website are pretty clear.


No stress stripes! 


No more than 2 fish per person, since I’d like this to be collaborative from a lot of people. If I don't get a lot of submissions, I'll take more than 2 fish per person.


Any breed of betta splendens is allowed, however *check here* to see if I’ve already gotten enough submissions in a given category. 


As for poses: if you can, please submit at least one pose that is from the side, showing the fish in profile. After that, you can submit photos that show the fish in various swimming and other poses. 


The fish does NOT have to be flaring, in fact I will probably only feature a few flaring fish in the print, since bettas do not flare 24/7.


Please feel free to share photos of your late bettas if you managed to get great photos of them while they were alive, that is fine with me <3


*Now for the legal stuff:* you retain full rights to your photos, and I retain full rights to the final print I create. I will attempt to sell some copies of the prints, and if I exhibit, I may not be able to credit every single person who contributed, though I will certainly make every attempt to do so! If I do make any sales off the print, I will donate at least 10% of my profits to charities and organizations supporting wildlife conservation, like WWF, or organizations doing really good work with animals, like APOPO Hero Rats. If for some reason you are not okay with this, then do not submit any photos. Feel free to ask me questions though!


*If you want to be credited for your photo contribution*, include in the post or in a message how I should credit you, i.e. whether you want to use your name (Jane Doe), a nickname (JaneFish @ Bettafish.com), or a business name (Jane’s Fishery). 


*DEADLINE: JAN 17*, since I will begin sketching for this project asap and must move forward with the print to stay on track in class! I do not have the luxury of time with this, but all my previous prints have turned out great!


If you read all these guidelines, include in your post what your most favorite fish species is!


I will also allow anyone whose photo was accepted to use the print as their icon, facebook cover, signature, etc, as long as credit is given to me for the print somewhere on your page.


For everyone else, a very limited edition of prints will be made available in my Etsy shop, and I will also either sell the image digitally on Society6 or a similar site, so you can purchase products with your fish friends featured! 

Happy fish keeping! If I forgot anything I’ll update this post as needed.


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## Lekoguy (Dec 1, 2016)

*His Magesty; Yul, the King of Siam*

This sounds like fun!!!

I'm in and I agree with your stipulations.


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## centaurii (Aug 31, 2015)

WOW, what a beautiful fish!! I initially wanted a blue and orange betta myself when I was first fish shopping, but I got too scared to order one from Thailand, so I ended up with Omicron because he's turquoise  I picked him because he was very curious and expressive when I looked at him in the fish shop, and he would follow my finger.


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## Lekoguy (Dec 1, 2016)

Thank you for your kind comments. When I first saw a photo of him, I was quite, how you say, smitten. &#55358;&#56599;


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## Hyunjicho (Nov 8, 2016)

Most of these pictures suck so I added more  They aren't show quality or anything, but I love em


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## Devyn (Oct 4, 2015)

awesome project!! i dont even mind if you dont use my bettas i still wanna see how this turns out!

Azog - White and Red EEHMPK with a little fin by no means is he a quality bred betta but i think he is special and beautiful  
Unamed Betta I just purchased last week for my brother - Looks to be a Black Copper Crowntail?


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## ThatFishThough (Jan 15, 2016)

I'll post various pictures of all my bettas, past and present. You can choose the two you want to include.

In order: 
One very fat CT girl, Rei (SIP). She wasn't normally clamped or fat, but I never did get any better pictures.
Two of Akuma; a Red Copper Devil FTOHM.
One of my turquoise SeD girl, Melody (SIP).
Two of my Black Melano HM girl, Eclipse.
My Red Marble HMPK (Sam's) marbling process.
My Yellow Salamander EEHMPK, Kumo.


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## Platy lover (Aug 25, 2016)

What a great idea! Will credit be given to us for the photos that we took?


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## frospike38 (Feb 11, 2015)

Haven't named my Betta yet but here he is, he's a DTHM














































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## Hyunjicho (Nov 8, 2016)

These are a bunch of pictures of Peeve (the fish that I posted above) when he was a baby. 
Edit: some of Pineapple flaring. Sorry for all the pictures XD


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## ThatFishThough (Jan 15, 2016)

@Platy lover Yes, read through the first post.


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## ShadeSlayer (Jul 20, 2015)

Amazing fish here!! Here's my brother's copper marble HM boy Luc. He's marbled out since these pics, hope the flash doesn't mess with you. Both are of him, you can choose which stage of his marbling you like best. Thanks!!


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## Riza1990 (Aug 2, 2016)

Sounds like a fun project! I'll submit one of my boys. Same fish, different color depending what angle of the light hits him. 

























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## centaurii (Aug 31, 2015)

Thank you everyone for your great photos! Such a nice variety of fish!


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## DangerousAngel (Mar 26, 2015)

What a great Idea!! I would LOVE to have Ollie featured in your project!! He's just a simple yellow-ish VT with a bit of BSE. 








Here's another one of him for you to choose from:








If you'd like, you could choose Dangerous instead, here's a picture of him: He was just a regular red and royal blue VT








I can get you another picture if you need  Either one is fine by me!


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## DanaeLeigh (Jan 14, 2017)

Disko (Blue/Green) and Hamilton (Red) are temporarily living in 2 gallon cylindrical tanks due to dorm rules restricting tanks over two gallons. Disko is about two, and I recently rescued Hamilton from near death and onset fin rot due to Walmart's severe mishandling of their fish. Both are now happy and healthy.

Have fun with your project, it sounds like fun!


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## ShadeSlayer (Jul 20, 2015)

Wow. So many beautiful fish.


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## BettaStarter24 (Mar 24, 2014)

Sounds fun! Looking forward to seeing the final result!

If you want to include some of mine you can. The male is my late HMPK Misha who I lost about a month ago and the female is my newest girl leia. If you want to include her I can get you better pictures if these aren't good enough.


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## CollegeBettas (Feb 23, 2016)

This sounds like such an interesting project. I love it when people turn here for their art since there are so many different types of bettas. Here are two of my boys:

Hank: Hank is a young male Koi HMPK I got him from a breeder on IG, he is 7 months old, so not quite full grown but growing fast. Hank's currently in a 4 way divided 10 gallon with my other two boys since I am home for break (my fourth passed after a week ago, so I have an empty spot). Before break he was living in a 2 gallon, but now he will be taking a 5.5.









Adam: Adam is a pretty standard veiltail, but he is my only long finned betta. I got him from Walmart, because he was in bad shape and I had a feeling he had fin rot, thankfully I was wrong. I do believe he is full grown, though. He permanent home is a 6 gallon cylinder tank (he is currently in the divided tank with Hank).









I can try and get better pictures too if you would like. I also have a DTPK and a Female CT if you don't get either of those. The DTPK, is not a fan of pictures, though.


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## centaurii (Aug 31, 2015)

Great entries! 
Once the deadline passes, I'll start finalizing my short list of fishes for the project and message those who were accepted. If I still need some fish to round out the drawing, I'll reopen submissions or ask people for more than 2 of their fish.


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## centaurii (Aug 31, 2015)

Hey everyone! I'm not able to edit the original post apparently, but I'm going to extend the deadline another week! 

*Here are the fish types I'm missing:*

- more females
- more juveniles
- more gold, orange, kois, and pearlescent/multicolor fish
- more plakats, crowntails, and doubletails

I'll start sketching today and let individual users know if I'm using their fish and if I need more photos (if the fish is still available to photograph).


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## Reivyn124 (Jan 17, 2017)

Here's a few shots of Ryu - Koi HM
First few are from when I first got him, in a quarantine/grow out tank. Next is in his planted 10 gal!









baeta.exe is swimming


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## Reivyn124 (Jan 17, 2017)

Bonus shots of Aleph Null:









baeta.exe is swimming


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## DangerousAngel (Mar 26, 2015)

I can help you out with Plakats, and a female, choose whoever you want.
This is Prince Onyx II, my beautiful Black Dragon

















And this is Mia, my VT female


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## Kamereone (Jan 15, 2017)

Wow so many pretty fish! Mine aren't especially exotic looking but if you'd like I've got a young blue female creatively known as "Blue" who is a fuss about sitting still for photos.... might be the bright red phone, now that I think on it...

If you're interested in plain-jane-mundane, I can get more photos with a real camera.

Awesome idea, best of luck with the project!


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## CollegeBettas (Feb 23, 2016)

Since you aren't finding many double tails or crowntails, here are my other two fish:

Apollo is a Double Tail male. He is originally from Petco and I got him from DangerousAngel who had him for a short time. He is my second betta and lives in a 3.5 gallon tank. He also is very difficult to take pictures of.









Squirt is my first betta and is a Crowntail female. I got her from Petco as a "male" baby betta, but she has grown up so much. She is currently in a 5.5 gallon with some nerite snails and will soon be joined by one or two mystery snails.


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## centaurii (Aug 31, 2015)

Whew! It's been a whirlwind few weeks, I was and still am pretty deep in assignments, exams, and deadlines.

Suffice to say: the print has been finished and is now in two different exhibitions!

At some point, I will upload or link photos/ video of my process.

It was very, very hard to choose which fish to feature, and due to the limitations of printing in 3 colors, the final product may not exactly match the fish I picked. But it was a fun project and I think it was worth all the 6-12 hour days on my feet in the print lab


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## BettaStarter24 (Mar 24, 2014)

Looking forward to seeing it!


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## centaurii (Aug 31, 2015)

Found a down moment! Most of my progress pictures/videos are on Instagram.

Attached are photos of the original black grease drawing of the yellow layer, the final print itself, and closeups on some bettas. 

Some notes on the project:

I ended up fitting some fish in by combining multiple references. For example, Mia is represented as the flaring veiltail female at the top, though the body is based on Pineapple. Leia was included as a doubletail instead of her actual fin morph, since I did not get any submissions of an adult female doubletail. Several fish are from the tumblr fishblr/bettablr community, including one SIP.

I am happy to announce this print received an Honorable Mention at the local annual printmaking show for the city, which is roughly equivalent to receiving 4th or 5th place! It gets me a free workshop at the local art society, which can sometimes be expensive. Thank you all so much for participating in this project, I have used it to help people appreciate bettas and advocate for their proper care. My printmaking professor especially was impressed that 1. I put out a call for reference photos, 2. that people... actually responded, and 3. that such a large, active online fish community even exists for bettas.


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## CollegeBettas (Feb 23, 2016)

It looks amazing! You did a great job! Will you be selling prints?


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## BettaStarter24 (Mar 24, 2014)

It looks amazing! I can say you captured Misha well and definitely got Leia's coloring spot on.


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## centaurii (Aug 31, 2015)

CollegeBettas said:


> It looks amazing! You did a great job! Will you be selling prints?


Thank you so much! As for selling the prints, here is the unfortunate part of the project: only 2-3 prints out of the 12 turned out even close to being properly aligned. 

All the other prints are duds (at least, to me) because I was not allowed to use the super precise layer registration system. The professor had many students destroy the registration pins in the past by crushing them in the press (which damages the $$$ presses), and registration pins are expensive. So they were unwilling to risk it until our class gained more proficiency with the presses.

Because of this, I had to drop the prints by hand and hope I got the layers matched up. In the end, the dud prints look like they are suffering from a bad case of 3-D glasses  But if people are still interested in them, I will certainly sell them at a steep discount to what I would normally charge. After I get back from my audition tomorrow, I can post photos of the duds and see what people think.


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## CollegeBettas (Feb 23, 2016)

Sounds great. Good luck at your audition!


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## Devyn (Oct 4, 2015)

Absolutely fantastic job! I'm honored you picked my fishies! I would love a copy! 


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