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Here we see the rare and extraordinary Piano Fish captured in mid flight with a high speed camera.

This is for the "fire & ice" contest over at www.irtc.org. I realize this image may be a stretch as far as the Fire & Ice topic goes, but I assure you that when I started out my intentions were much more focused. Hopefully the judges wont be to brutal. My original plan was to make an ice fish jumping out of a bowl of flaming hot lava, but when I rendered it, I thought it looked pathetic. Then (this is when I got way off track) I shifted focus and decided to make the fins into piano keys and the flaming droplets of lava into music notes. With a few good suggestions from my friends I decided to model some jets and pipes. He looked a bit lonely, so I decided to model a passenger. The dragon was inspired by Olivier Derouetteau's artwork. Modeling the dragon took the longest, he is made of metaballs. With the dragon came the need for a saddle, harness and a seatbelt. In keeping with my own piano theme (way off track, now) I decided to model a hat shaped like a piano hammer. In the end I ran out of time and was so far off topic that I considered scratching the whole project. I found some spare time to add the fire and smoke 3 hours before the deadline and unfortunately neither turned out how I imagined. Anyway, I had fun making the little fellows and hopefully someone will enjoy them. Thanks for looking.