Chances are if you have hunted at some point in your life, you have also fished.  In fact, according to the latest National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, 37.4 million U.S. residents 16-years-old and older went fishing and/or hunting.  Of that, 9.4 million both fished and hunted.  It’s no surprise that many of us fall into the “both” category.   For this group of dedicated outdoorsman, fishing is perhaps the only way to pass the time during the so-called “off-season”.

Here at Legendary Whitetails, we’re no different.  That’s why we decided it was time to launch a line of performance fishing apparel.  Some may say we are just “testing the waters” or “wetting our line” with this new journey into the performance fishing apparel world, but the fact is, we’re “floating till fall” just like you!  Hunting is in our blood, but fishing is what propels us from one season to the next.

Oh… and we love designing new apparel and camo patterns!

Although we are well versed in technical camouflage that hides and blends an individual with its surrounding environment (see: HuntGuard), our new Big Game Rapids Camo tends to lean more heavily on our fashion camo directives, acting as a pattern and color first for a variety of design purposes.

Meet James, one of the ultra-talented artists behind the Big Game Rapids Camo Design.

 Meet Tom, the other ultra-talented artists behind the Big Game Rapids Camo Design.

Big Game Rapids camo was designed in-house by two of our graphic artists who not only happen to be avid hunters, they also live for fishing.  Tasked with developing a pattern that combined water and fishing elements, Tom and James dove (no pun intended) head first into researching and designing this awesome new water camo pattern.   Here’s a behind the scenes look at the steps they took to create what ultimately became Big Game Rapids camo – a staple feature of the Legendary Anglers Collection.

Step 1

Inspiration

First, the team set out to identify the core elements and inspiration for the new camo pattern. Just like terrain and foliage serve as the obvious inspiration for our Big Game Hunting camo patterns, water was the obvious choice for a camo fishing pattern.  To be short, let’s just say not all images of water are created equal. James and Tom scanned through hundreds of images of lakes, oceans, and streams to find one that had what they were looking for.

Although it may not look like it, this image formed the core of the Big Game Rapids

Step 2

Vectorize

For Tom and James, this is when the fun began.  Now that they had their inspiration in hand, it was time for the artists to do what they do best – go fishing get creative.  The reflective lake surface provided the coloring and contrast to form the core background of Big Game Rapids, but they wanted more.

In order to make the pattern more abstract and organic, the image was vectorized.  In layman’s terms, a computer program analyzed the image and used mathematic equations and geometric primitives (points, lines, and shapes) to create art that is clean, camera ready, and scalable, without any loss of quality, meaning they did something I still don’t understand.  Basically, rather than having a thousand different shades of blues and grays (yes, there’s more than 50) like the original photograph, it groups a bunch of similar tones and displays them all as one fundamental color.  In this case, a picture really is worth a thousand words. The result is what you see below:

By vectorizing the image, we were able to produce a repeatable and unique water camo pattern.

Step 3

Layers

To further break up the pattern and add a few Legendary touches, Tom and James overlaid the tree branch and leaf elements from our original Big Game field camo pattern.  The shapes were again vectorized and the transparency was cranked up to give the appearance of being somewhat see-through.  The result is what you see below:

Step 4

Dots, dots, and more dots

Subconsciously, you might not have even noticed the small dots scattered amongst the completed pattern.  These small dots are the result of a process called halftones.  Halftone is the technique that simulates continuous tone imagery through the use of dots, varying either in size or in spacing, thus generating a gradient-like effect.  From afar the tones and shapes blend to create a shading effect, but close-up you can see the dots display quite differently.  The earliest uses of this technique can be seen in the famous painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the island of La Grand Jatte” from Georges Seurat.  He and Paul Signac developed the concept of “pointillism” in 1886.  That very concept, developed centuries ago, is still applied today through the halftone printing process used in our camouflage – Pretty neat, huh?

Step 5

Big Game Rapids is Born

As you can see, camo is an art form around here. While it may seem as though the artists were able to create the new Big Game Rapids Camo with a few clicks of the mouse, we can assure you it wasn’t so simple.  Many hours and many tweaks went into producing this new fishing camo pattern so that it came to life just as envisioned.  Like the water directive, the graphics are bright, clean, and a nice compliment to the apparel line.

While it may not serve the same critical purpose as the camo you don during a deer hunt, there’s no denying the unique appearance and look it brings to the Legendary Anglers Collection.  Although we can’t make any promises, the camo looks so good we think it might just help you catch a few more fish!

If you’re a Hunter Who’s Hooked, check out our new Legendary Anglers Collection!

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