Wood Carved Raven Islehopper

Made of basswood with poplar spines

The sixth in the series, this islehopper was the most popular choice of my crew to create, inspite of the fact that I have only caught ONE of these. ( I could tell you a fishing story of how I was off of Old Faithful Isle, looking for islehoppers, but it was just ruby splashtails over and over.But then......)

So a few fun facts of the islehopper: -

• It is a mix of 2 ocean species, the pufferfish and the boxfish. It is probably closer to a puffer, but does not inflate in game.
• There are 29 spines on the islehopper
• In game, certain species can only be found at certain large islands. For example, the honey islehopper can be caught at Cresent Isle. The internet says that the Raven and Amethyst can be found at any large island, but I have to say that I caught a lot of honeys at Cresent Isle, but never anyother islehopper.

Technically this one is not done, it still needs a gloss coat, and that is at work, and until we are allowed to move about it will have to wait.
Also , the spines are sharp!. Poplar holds it edge better than basswood so they will not easily dull. In making the spines, I sanded a round dowel to a point with 3 sides and cut to length. Holes were drilled in the fish, and the pointed dowel was glued in. Any open area was filled in with putty( green stuff).

Thanks for looking, more are on the way