Tuna Deadly Art

I'm Steve Backshall and this is Deadly Art.

I'm lucky enough to travel the world

tracking deadly animals.

But in this show I'm picking 25 of my favourites.

ROAR!

I'm challenging my team of Deadly artists

to recreate a killer moment.

You'll get to make some art yourself

and in the final show my team and will choose

which animals make it into my Deadly Art Gallery.

This is no ordinary art show...

this is Deadly Art.

'On today's Deadly Art,

'I dive into the seas to find a super-swimming deadly animal.'

This is extraordinary! There's hundreds of them!

'My team of artists recreate another killer moment.'

-I think he'll love it.

-Yeah.

'You can make your own deadly art at home'

Today's animal may seem like a pretty unlikely choice.

It's not venomous, it doesn't have sharp claws or talons,

however, it does have extreme speed.

It's streamlined physique makes it one of the ocean's top predators.

This is the tuna.

It swims at a staggering speed -

up to 70 kilometres an hour,

that's ten times the pace of an Olympic swimmer.

And super speed means an easy feed for these guys.

Time to meet today's artists

who are waiting in the Deadly Art studio for their mission.

I'm Nicola, I'm a sculptor,

and a power-tool queen!

I'm Jo, I like using gloss paint, human hair,

all sorts of different materials.

But most of all, I like making a mess.

In just a moment, you'll be joining me in Australia

on our tuna voyage.

But for now, these are the killer shots

I'd like my artists to recreate.

They need to include these three essential elements...

Number one, the tuna's silvery scales

which shimmer as they swim.

There are eight species of tuna but they have one thing in common.

Above, they're a shiny metallic blue,

and on the bottom, a shiny silvery-white.

This helps camouflage them from above and below.

The next element is the tuna's streamlined physique.

In the water, they are totally turbo-charged.

Their torpedo shape is perfect for speedy swimming.

They can accelerate with just a flick of their tail.

Unlike most fish,

tuna can keep their body temperature warmer than the surrounding water,

which enables them to achieve maximum power.

The next bit is tricky,

but I'd like my team to try and capture a sense of the tuna's speed.

They're really, really fast,

leaving their prey with absolutely no chance of escape

and this is what makes the tuna really deadly.

So their speed is the third essential element

I'd like my artists to recreate in their deadly art.

Jo and Nicola, good luck!

Look at that shimmering, shiny skin.

-They really camouflage into the sea.

-It's beautiful.

This is where they all swim together in a shoal.

You can really see that torpedo shape there. That's really important.

-Whoa.

-That's a feeding frenzy.

There's millions swimming around really fast!

-Right, let's do it.

-Come on, then.

Time for some Deadly Art.

I'm going to get loads of paint,

all sloshing around just like in the ocean.

I've got some gloss paint

which will be brilliant for that shimmering skin.

These three paintings will represent the three shots brilliantly.

Right, I'm going to sketch out the tuna fish.

I'm going to spray my board with an undercoat

so that it's really smooth when we paint on it later.

How on earth are those three boards going to turn into this?

Well, we'll find out soon.

Meanwhile, over in Australia,

I'm attempting an unusual scientific experiment.

The tuna is just about the most perfect example

of a hydrodynamic fish.

I, on the other hand,

am not that streamlined.

So theoretically, if I was to get in there

and try and travel fast,

I should be hammered by drag.

'So, we already know

'that tuna can travel up to around 70 kilometres an hour.

'Which equates to about 38 knots.'

You can see as we start to build up speed,

automatically, the water's pushing back against me.

I'm really, really struggling to hold on.

I'm actually already losing my trunks!

LAUGHTER How fast now?

6.8.

Aah!

LAUGHTER

I've lost my trunks.

So we're now going about a tenth of the speed

that a tuna can go, full-whack.

It's almost pulling the arms out my sockets!

How fast is that, Mark?

-Seven knots.

-Seven.

A bit faster.

Aah!

He's gone.

He's gone, Mark, he's gone.

What was our final speed when he let go, Mark?

8.5.

8.5. He did quite well.

I think that pretty much proves

that unless you're streamlined,

you ain't going nowhere in the water.

And it also proves,

why fish don't wear swimming costumes.

So how are Jo and Nicola getting on with their massive deadly art?

I'm glad we get to keep our clothes on, here in the art studio!

This painting will be the portrait of the tuna fish,

really showing off that lovely silvery skin.

I'll start with the background, pouring the paint, all thinned out,

which is obviously going to be the ocean.

So this gloss paint is really thinned down with white spirit.

It really sloshes around,

really run together to make that background.

I'm creating my background using a different technique to Jo.

I've started off with this white base,

because I want that to shine through

this beautiful blue paint that I'm about to apply using this rag.

I can just create a lovely ocean texture.

And then later on,

I'm going to add a shoal of fish on top,

gathering just before that feeding frenzy.

I'm going to leave that one to dry now.

Onto the last canvas. This one's going to be the feeding frenzy.

I'm going to use blacks and dark blues for the deep, dark ocean.

Lots and lots of white at the top

to show the light shining through.

Hmm, looks intriguing, team.

While Jo carries on having fun with the paint,

it's time for a deadly doodle with Nicola.

I'm going to show you how to draw a tuna fish.

It's really simple.

Start off with the shape of a rugby ball.

This is going to give you that torpedo shape that we're looking for.

A half-moon at the back.

And then join the shapes together.

Give him two fins.

One at the top,

and one at the bottom.

That's basically it for our shape,

but no tuna fish is complete without that beautiful shimmering skin.

So we'll use this iridescent blue ink.

Don't worry about going out of the lines,

because we can redefine this shape a bit later on.

Wash off your brush.

And for his belly,

some sparkly silver.

This is really beautiful, this colour.

It blends really nicely with that blue.

And I think that should do it.

When it's dry,

redefine that shape using a marker pen.

His tail...

and because this is a deadly tuna fish,

we can add some spikes.

And for his mouth...

More spikes...

And now we need some detail - a little eye.

Second fin.

A couple of lines.

And we can cut it out.

You might want to get some help with this.

And there we go...

our super-speedy deadly tuna fish. Zoom!

Great doodle, Nicola.

Steve has asked us to capture these essential elements,

so we need to make sure we get the shimmering skin on this one.

We've got silver paint for that.

I can still see where I drew the tuna earlier,

so we'll use them as our guides. OK.

We need to just move it around to get the shape of the fish again.

Because we've put on so much of this paint

you can move it around but then it'll dry in its own way anyway.

-Someone's created scales on this one.

-Yeah, that's that silver paint.

Really starting to see these fish take shape now.

That looks almost as much fun as being dragged along in the sea

with no swimming trunks on.

Back in Oz, it's time for me to get a little closer to our speedy tuna.

This is extraordinary!

There's hundreds of them!

Each one of these tuna weighs almost as much as me,

but they swim effortlessly.

They're just gliding past me,

they're barely swimming.

I feel like fish food.

Look at that!

Being up close to them under water

makes it easy to see why they're deadly predators.

They are the perfect shape,

nothing sticks up out of it to slow them down.

They move with just a flick of their tail. Awesome! Ha ha!

Luckily, tuna fish eat small fish like sardines.

If I was a sardine now, I'd last about a second.

Being in the ocean with the tuna was breathtaking.

Now Jo's going to put Nicola's tuna doodle in its ocean home.

All I've done is got a bit of card

and covered it in some shiny wrapping paper.

On the back, I've put two triangles, which will help stand it up.

Then I've cut through a wavy line

and I'll tell you what that's for later.

Now the fun bit. I'm going to make some seaweed.

We've got some watered-down green paint.

With the pipette I'm just going to draw a line.

And this is the good bit.

OK, I think that looks great.

Now, we're going to let that dry.

Once it is dry, I'm going to cut it out

making sure you get a nice, straight edge down this side,

so that when you stand it up, it doesn't fall over.

And then around all of the seaweed.

You might need some help with this.

There we go. So what we have to do next,

just get these triangles. I'm going to tape them onto the back,

which will make it stand up.

The seaweed will just sit... in front of it

creating the scene.

Then bring in the tuna, that Nicola made for us.

We're going to attach just a strip of cardboard to the back of it.

Like that.

Then we're just going to thread it up there.

There he is. Nicola's also very kindly made some more, little tuna.

When there's a feeding frenzy, there's always lots of them around.

Perfect. This tuna is going to join the others in finding its prey.

Great work, Jo. Over to Nicola.

Using the same technique that Jo and I used earlier

to create those bigger tuna fish,

I'm creating an entire shoal

Just by pouring two blobs of paint,

and using a paintbrush and moving them

into the torpedo, streamline shape.

And then...

they're ready for their detail.

Each tuna fish is going to need an outline...

a little eye...

..two fins...

..and when I've done that to the entire painting,

we'll have our shoal of tuna fish.

I want to capture the speed of the feeding frenzy.

And these are going to be their prey.

Oh, those poor little sardines are going to be gobbled up.

The big art is complete.

We've used loads of silver paint to capture

the shimmering skin of the tuna.

-The torpedo shape is very apparent in that one.

-Yeah.

In this feeding frenzy painting, you really get the idea of speed.

I can imagine them racing through the water.

Do you think Steve's going to like them?

-I think he'll love it!

-Yeah.

So it's time for the big reveal.

Remember, these are the killer shots I wanted my artists to recreate.

Let's take a look at the finished work of art.

Wow! That's jaw-dropping!

I can really imagine these tuna zooming

through the Australian waters.

On the first canvas, the tuna are gathering, ready to start feeding.

They're perfectly captured in gloss and metallic paints.

This canvas is quite abstract but you can see the small sardines

at the top of the picture,

with the tuna about to rocket up to grab them.

And finally, we get a close-up

of their eye-catching blue and silver scales.

Beautiful but deadly.

That's a top deadly rating from me

but will it make it into my deadly gallery? Maybe.

See you next time for more Deadly Art.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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