Giant Manta Diving in the Sea of Cortez

Investors: Hiroshi Konazawa of Toshiba, along with Kura San ("Bear") and over fourteen investors in the Argonaut's Pacific Rim clothing line.

Location: Los Angeles, California as well as Kobe and Tokyo, Japan. This project's Japanese distribution worked great until the Great Hanshin Earthquake wrecked major portions of Kobe on 16 January, 1995--local Japanese time. We lost two lead investors in the quake.

Inspiration: I made two "Bucket List" ocean dives in the early summer of 1993 and the early summer of 1994. The target contact species was the giant black mantas of the Sea of Cortez after my friends and I heard that Peter Benchley the brave and tormented recovering alcoholic author of "Jaws, The Deep, The Island" and "Rummies" had done the same.

The background was airbrushed using Liquitex Professional Acrylic Inks and F/W inks that I had on hand with thinners. I didn't stop until I had the seawater colors for the Gulf of California perfectly matched. The fish and diver were drawn by hand using Berol prisma pencils, markers, Prisma markers, F/W inks and Dr. Martin quill inks.

The giant oceanic manta ray, giant manta ray, or oceanic manta ray, (Mobula birostris) is a species of ray in the family Mobulidae, and the largest type of ray in the world. These two easily surpassed two tons each. They are circumglobal and is typically found in tropical and subtropical waters, but can also be found in temperate waters.