Hi everyone, hope you’re all staying safe and staying indoors during this pandemic!
I had a go at drawing a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton in Paint (I based it on lots of different drawings and photos of skeletons I saw, but the one I used the most is the Nation’sT. rex at the Smithsonian. The leg stance is my own, so palaeotumblr, let me know if that’s anatomically impossible!)
After that I decided to have a go at giving it a body. I hope I didn’t make it too shrink-wrapped?
Palaeoartists - feel free to give me a critique so I can improve for next time!
A few things I opted to include, along with sources linked:
Neck ribs and gastralea (stomach ribs), which are delicate, hard to mount and often missing from museum skeletons!
Keratinised facial features are from this Your Dinosaurs Are Wrong video.
I tried to make it obvious that the eyes face forward, the hands are supinated, not pronated, and the feet are digitigrade - common mistakes in beginner dino art!
Possible mistakes I can see already, palaeotumblr let me know!
The tail looks way too thin to be an effective counterweight to that huge head, should it be thicker?
More keratin on the lachrymal than just that little eyebrow-like ridge?
Would the feathers stop there, or would they plausibly extend all the way down the dorsal side of the tail? I know the ventral side was scaly as we have impressions for that.
The teeth need to be more obviously heterodont, but that’s hard to draw in Paint!
Here it is, the final Jurassic June piece. And, instead of going for a baby, I gave the existing baby T. rex an edgy teen phase!
This juvenile T. rex is based on Jane, the fossil specimen argued to be a juvenile T. rex(orNanotyrannus to some). This makes the animal a lot more sleek and lithe, perfect for fast pursuits before it turns into a chunky tankbuster.
Some digitally-colored pencil sketches I did in the past week.
The Halszkaraptor’s colors are taken straight from a Spotted Shag (a species of cormorant) and the Albertosaurus is based on pieces by the artist @Toarcian on Twitter.
Another JP Inktober sketch! I’ve been building these up a bit (and also running out of backup drawings) and we are finally at the T. rex! This was the first JP sketch I did and I think it strikes a nice balance between sketchy/simple and accurate.
So, the discovery of a new tyrannosaur was announced today! Dynamoterror dynastes, or “Frightfully powerful ruler” is a tyrannosaurid that lived in New Mexico around 78 million years ago. Now I am an artist first and a science man second so I can’t say I fully understand its implications or even all the details of its discovery, but you can read all the technical details about this new feller if that’s your thing:
This also happened to coincide very well with me having a day to make some fresh new content for Inktober, and I do love me some tyrannosaurs. Even super fragmentary ones that don’t really have a definite skull yet.
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.
Another selection of quick sketches done recently, longisquama, concavenator, smok, iguanodon, torvosaurus, stellasaurus, dilong, tauraspis, mei long and suminia more substantial content on the way soon, maybe
“God ain’t my fucking daddy. My daddy was a cunt, but he knew he was a cunt. God still thinks he’s God. Nobody’s told him otherwise. I’ve met people like you all my fucking life. Goodie goodies. Make a charity record. Bake a cake. Save a fucking soul! You’ve never eaten shit. Don’t know what it’s like out there.”
- Peter Mullan as Joseph in Tyrannosaur(2011) Post link
Ben Day dots and a pseudo vintage texture give this one a bit of a throwback feel. It’s an older one from about 5 years back, and I did it simply because drawing dinosaurs is fun.
I know dinosaurs and humans are separated by 60-some-odd million years of existence. Reality is fine and all, but as Adam Savage once said: “I reject your reality, and substitute my own.”
