Sharks: Magnificent & Misunderstood

The Flandrau Science Center and Planetarium of Tucson, AZ commissioned a graphic wrap for an arcade cabinet housing their educational game, Shark Racer. The game, developed in-house, allows the player to select one of five different shark species to race against a human olympic swimmer. Each species of shark demonstrates how its respective morphology affects its swimming style and speed.

My illustration depicts one of the featured species, the Blacktip Reef Shark, crashing through the water’s surface at the beginning of a race, with a human and a Mako Shark in the other lanes. My hand-lettering was inspired by a combination of water ripples and gill slits, and was finished in Adobe Illustrator.

This arcade game was one of the central components of the exhibit Sharks: Magnificent & Misunderstood, on display from 2019 to present.

Graphite and digital media. 33"x72". 2019.