Art book

Five lined Constellation fish

The history of deep sea exploration is a relatively recent one.  The first oceanic expedition was in 1872 when the HMS Challenger was rigged with specialised laboratories and state of the art scientific technology; for its time at least. Throughout the exploration their scientific team had discovered approximately 4,000 previously unknown species.

As important an historical landmark in the field of oceanic exploration this particular voyage has become, it was still flawed in its infancy. Specimens collected on the voyage were dragged out of the ocean with deep sea nets and were often badly damaged and disfigured from decompression sickness.

It wasn't until the 20th century, a daring naturalist by the name of William Beebe would to the first to brave the abyss in a new type of submersible called the "bathysphere".
Between the years of 1930 and 1934, off the coast of Bermuda, he made his descent. 

This would revolutionise oceanic exploration, as this was the first time these deep sea animals would be viewed untampered in their natural environment.

William Beebe wrote down his observations in his book: Half Mile Down. In this book he described over 80 different fish species, many have since been later confirmed with further exploration.

But many of these species are still unrecognised by science, such as bathysphaera intacta or the "giant dragonfish. Bathyceratias trilynchus, the "three-starred anglerfish". Bathyembryx istiophasma, the "pallid sailfin". Or perhaps the "abyssal rainbow gar" which he had uncharacteristically not given a nomenclature.

These are referred to as Beebe's "untouchable fish", and are some of in my opinion he more plausible and fascinating cryptids out there.

One such fish was described on page 212, where Beebe wrote:
"I yelled for continuance of the stop, which was at 1900 feet, and began to absorb what I saw; a fish almost round, with long, moderately high, continuous, vertical fins. The skin was delicately brownish. We swung around a few degrees to port, bringing the fish into the dark blue penumbra of the beam, and then I saw its real beauty. Along the sides of the body were five unbelievably beautiful lines of light, one equatorial, with two curved ones above and two below. Each line was compound of a series of large, pale yellow lights, and every one of these was surrounded by a semicircle of very small, but intensely purple photophores.
The fish turned slowly and, head on, showed a narrow profile. If it were at the surface and without lights I should, without question, have called it a butterflyfish (chaetodon) or a surgeonfish (acanthurus). But this glowing creature was assuredly neither, unless a distant relation, adapted for life at three hundred fathoms. My name for it is bathysidus pentagrammus, the Five-Lined Constellationfish. In my memory it will live throughout the rest of my life as one of the loveliest things I have ever seen."

After resurfacing Beebe would describe the encounter to his artist Else Bostlemann, whom, after a period which Beebe would amusingly describe as "an artistic huddle" where they both made attempts and corrections and adjustments to the illustration, had settled on this depiction of the animal.

Naturally such a description captures one's imagination. With perhaps a little bit of artistic liberty I decided to do what I do best, which if you know me is make a humanoid character based off of the fish.

This was the result of that little artistic exploration.

I usually hate working with dark colours, because I find them to be a lot harder to control, but I really like this one, so I'm pretty okay with it this time ^_^

I would like to explore the bizarre realm of marine cryptids more in the future. As for this one, do I think that this is a real fish? Most people believe that this was actually a misidentified comb jelly, which I personally believe is most likely.

Though I am a skeptic by nature, it is possible that this is a real fish that has simply yet to be identified by science. After all, only five percent of the ocean has been charted, and we are still only in the juvenile stages of oceanic exploration. It's entirely within the realm of possibility that this shiny little constellationfish is somewhere out there waiting to be discovered.