I chose to work with the Golden Butterflyfish. Since I have never illustrated fish, I started off with a lot of sketches over reference pictures. I worked in Photoshop with a pen tablet, which I also haven't done in a while, so I took the time needed to get comfortable again. 

Drawing over reference is very satisfying in terms of results and the learning effect was great. So when I was free handing the characters I felt rather comfortable with the body structure of this fish. I tried to give my characters different expressions, which is a complete challenge in itself ;-)