And here’s the companion piece to the Baryonyx, the Suchomimus! This was heavily inspired by the design from Warpath: Jurassic Park, which I really dig (even if its head is literally a Bary head reused from the Lost World PS1 game). The designs here include (left to right, top to bottom) the default Warpath Sucho, the Jurassic Park Institute Sucho based on art by Timothy J. Bradley, and the maxed out Sucho from Jurassic Park Builder.
I may do more of these in the future, but the next piece will be only tangentially related. It has more to do with Bary than Sucho.
After a lot of work over what should have been a whole lotta “eh”, here are some “dossiers?” “readouts?” of Baryonyx drawn in the Jurassic Park art style. This is a fun one especially since you can compare and contrast it with the existing Jurassic World Baryonyx to get an idea of how those movies design creatures differently.
Enjoy! Another one of these will be shared tomorrow.
Stayed up late to finish a drawing of the very recently revealed designs for Attenborosaurus (left) and Plesiosaurus (right) in Jurassic World Evolution 2.
I’m excited for the game and am fairly lenient on “janky”/unpopular creature designs. On social media, Attenboro seems popular and folks don’t like that Plesio just looks like a King Cobra. But Attenboro is a good friend about it.
Idk if the Paleostreams by Joschua Knüppe have much presence on here, but they’re basically Twitch streams where people draw & chat about extinct animals and paleoart together.
Here are some drawings I did yesterday and then made a lot prettier. Animals from top to bottom are:
Here’s the penultimate Jurassic June entry, Jurassic World’s Mosasaurus.
I wasn’t able to find a lot of complete baby mosasaur remains online to base this one off of, so I made the silhouette a bit closer to a real Mosasaurus, along with incorporating some juvenile crocodile and komodo dragon. Including having a stand-out color scheme. Baby komodo dragons/monitor lizards (a close relative to ol Mosa) are seriously pretty. Enjoy!
While their plumage is extensive and ostentatious, revived Archeops have actually proven to be rather poor flyers. While they are able to fly short distances or quickly escape to high roosts with their wings, they are more adept at running. These feathers seem to be more important as flashy display features, with powered flight evolving later in time. Being omnivores, they hunt down prey and forage for fruits in packs.
Things have been pretty busy so this has been on the back-burner a little while, but I finally finished it! Only one more to go. The Despot of the Ancient Era…
Despite its modest size, Bastiodon is quite tough and imposing. Rough scales, scutes, and armored spikes cover its body. Its massive head is its greatest attribute, with a tall, wide frill that can repel attackers in conjunction with two long, pointed horns. The four tusks sprouting from its beak are used to dig up food and in bouts between rivals.
We’re in the home stretch! Only two more to go as well as a photo of them all together. Some fixes will be needed as well but otherwise I’m really happy with these. I’m actually gonna have to look into the logistics of selling prints, but I’m optimistic. You know I’m saving the best dino Pokémon for last, but the next one shouldn’t beat itself up over it. It’ll lower it’s attack and special attack…
While large, thin structures and extra surface area may seem like a liability for creatures in colder climates, the sails on Aurorus are crucial to its behaviors and lifestyle. Not only do the size and movement of the sails help to convey status and emotions between individuals even during heavy snowstorms, chromatophores in the sails allow them to change color as well.
Got the idea to do this while drawing and chatting with a friend. Aurorus’ sails can be pretty expressive, with 2/3 alternate sail colorations seemingly only used in Pokémon Amie. So it seemed a shame not to do something with them.
Remarkably, both fossilized bones and frozen tissues from Aurorus have been uncovered by researchers. Having such complete remains has allowed scientists in the Kalos region to not only hone the process of fossil revival, but also make exciting new discoveries. For instance, it was long speculated how a large creature like Aurorus could survive in the cold climates the rock record suggests it lived in. Analysis of preserved blood revealed high levels of glucose, which helps to keep cells from freezing even at very low temperatures
I played around with the formatting, lighting, and texturing for this one. I think a lot of the changes were for the better, but it may mean I have to go back and fix up Rampardos and Aerodactyl later. A bit painful since these take so long to do, but I think it’ll be worth it.
One of the first fossil Pokémon to be revived by Cinnabar Island scientists, Aerodactyl is a landmark in the field of Poképaleontology. This large creature used its broad wings to soar on thermal air currents over the ancient seas. Long, needle-like teeth helped to hold and shred prey, thought to be primarily fish and other coastal sea life. The recently discovered phenomenon dubbed “Mega Evolution” has been found to affect Aerodactyl, and specimens who have mega evolved have brought into question the authenticity of the fossil revival process.
Aerodactyl has arrived! I never realized how big this guy is. That height is straight from the game, and the wingspan is approximated off the in-game model as well. It’s no Quetzalcoatlus, but Aerodactyl is big enough not to be taken lightly.
Before January of this year, the most I’d done as far as digital art was playing with photos in Adobe Fireworks 2003 in my spare time. This year was my first formal introduction to making digital art from scratch and I’ve really enjoyed it.
I’ve compiled some of my favorite/best pieces from each month here (though I cheated a little in June) just to have a quick look at how far I’ve come. I’m happy I was able to make all the art I did this year and I’m more than happy with how a lot of it turned out (thanks in no small part to some art tutorials and good advice).
I’m also very excited to see what the next year holds in store for me and what this might look like come New Year’s Eve 2019. I’ve got some ideas on what to make but more so I want to hone my skills and learn what I can really do with Photoshop. I made most of these pieces (at least the non-traditional ones) with like 6 or less default brushes so I don’t know if that makes these more or less impressive.
And thanks so much for everyone who’s liked, reblogged, commented on, and shared my stuff so far. I decided to start making/sharing art on a whim last year and I could not have wished to have gotten as much attention as I have. It’s been a real gift (pardon the awful, cheesy pun) to have made such an impact, as small as it is.
Hoping everyone had a great year and I’m sure I’ll be posting some more dinosaur schtuff soon.
The study of reviving extinct creatures from fossils is an exciting and ever-changing field. While it has advanced enough to create new organisms from fossil material, the authenticity of the results has been questioned. Specimens of Tyrantrum in particular usually exhibit collars of feathers, but rare variants include collars of osteoderms or a full-body covering of feathers. While this science is imperfect, the author does not feel it worthy of comparison to the “mad science” performed by Liss et al. in the Galar region.
Here are the non-shiny versions of the pics from yesterday. Enjoy!
The “shiny” condition, as it is often called, is caused due to a genetic difference in pigmentation like melanism or albinism. This condition is harder to define however, as it does not affect all creatures in the same way. While members of the same species exhibit the gene identically to one another, specimens are highly rare and scientists are still not sure how this expressive and variable gene works.
Tyrantrum is finally here and with it comes the end of the realistic fossil Pokémon art! It is bittersweet, but I am happy to have finally finished these. Tyrantrum especially turned out really well (because I took forever on it) and I’ll be sharing some non-shiny pics and a group shot soon.
Custom Littlest Pet Shop of the extinct Carolina Parakeet. One of the US’s only indigenous parrots, this species was once plentiful along the east coast. Due to deforestation and being hunted for their feathers, the Carolina Parakeet was declared extinct in 1939.
Blue bird is the before pic and the last one is a museum specimen.
There were once eight subspecies of black rhinoceros. Three of these subspecies are now extinct, with one, the western black rhinoceros, having gone extinct in 2011. All other subspecies are critically endangered. One in particular, the Chobe black rhinoceroes, may have only one individual remaining.
Tully Monsters (and trilobites)! Love these guys, funny weird extinct almost-fish. Tried really hard to emulate @everydaylouie ’s coloring on this one, he’s an inspiration.
Today I learned about extinct giant sloths and when I heard that I thought, “oh, probably the size of, like, a small bear?” NO THIS BITCH COULD EAT A BEAR WHY DID HE NEED TO BE THAT BIG LOOK AT HIM COMPARED TO THE LITTLE DUDES IN THE TREE????
