Just want to add this real quick because it’s important.
I know it’s tempting to want to pirate this series but if you have the money then PLEASE don’t. Apple TV+ is only $5 a month so you can just pay for a month, watch the series (maybe multiple times) and then cancel. You could even just use the 1 week free trial if you need to. But please, let’s show the creators of the series (including actual paleoartists and scientists!) our support so that we can maybe see a season 2 or even a renewed interest in paleo media in general.
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!
Signed, high-quality giclée art prints, drawn for the officially licensed 30th anniversary edition of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park novel, published by Folio Society (foliosociety.com).
Self-directed piece featuring two outdated Tyrannosaurs (Jurassic Park / featherless style) as a warm up for a bigger project to come. Available as a print at https://www.vectorthatfox.etsy.com
I “recently” hit 2K followers on Instagram and asked my followers what they might want to see sketches of. The following are some of that requests filled out to what I would honestly call more than sketches. Really gotta learn when to stop myself.
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.
Here we are, last stop on the JP Palettes train. The Holy Grail for every JP 90′s kid. At least as far as I’ve gathered.
Hot take: Rubber “real feel” skin is super overrated. Sure, flexibility, less seams, and “skin-like” material is neat, but it’s a lot less durable, easier to break, and paint can be susceptible to peeling. Nothing lasts forever, but I feel rubber has a real short shelf life.
Here’s a GIF going between the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World T. rex colorations. There’s a decent amount of discrepancies between the actual models, but these colors match up a lot better than I expected.
And, here it finally is, the last Jurassic Palettes piece. I may come back to this idea in the future but it’s so nice to finally have finished this project as originally planned.
The T. rex is my favorite dino in the series, so this one was especially fun to work on. Second to the raptors, it (understandably) gets the lion’s share of cool color schemes from the franchise.
Here’s an extra Male T. rex, this one’s more “generic” than the others. It follows the patterning most random merch from JP3 used (lollipop holders, things like that). There is a specific source, props to anyone who can guess what it is.
The Male Tyrannosaurs are done! T. rex has some killer color schemes across the franchise and there’s so much good stuff to pull from. I know there are still some iconic rexes left unaddressed by this post, rest assured they’ll be in the next (and, for the moment, final) piece.
This wee bab comes to us from the unreleased Night Hunters line, a follow up to the (surprisingly released) Chaos Effect line. There are like 2 promo pics I could find, and color schemes were conflicting. So, why not both?
Featuring Fuck Capitalism Triceratops, Eat The Rich T-Rex, and ACAB Pterosaur! There will be more dinos and phrases coming in the near future! These are specifically drawn in a retrosaur style, taking inspiration from early paleoart depictions of these animals.
Today, made a warm up involving everyone’s favorite dinos, specifically, how the ecosystems they lived in also contributed to to the adaptations that made the big predators the way they are!
T.rex lived in a time where it had to punch through armor and muscle with only its face, meanwhile Spinosaurus stuck to the water, because there was FAR less competition when on land, it ran the absolute gamut of large carnivores, from Carcharodontosaurus to Rugops
I want to say thanks again for your patience over the last several months, but I’m so excited to say that the giant project I’ve been working on is coming to a close. If you follow my insta, you probably already know, but for the rest of y’all, I illustrated a children’s book! It’s a bilingual early-reader counting book about dinosaurs, and will be available in its final incarnation this holiday season. I’ll keep y’all updated as the release date is announced!
Full disclosure, this has been both a dream project and a seemingly-insurmountable hurdle for me. I’ve learned so much from it, not only about fun stuff like designing a book and feathered theropods, but also about the parts of being a working artist that I really genuinely hate, like writing/negotiating contracts, arguing over revisions, and generally digging my heels in the sand and fighting to be paid for the work I do.
The version I’m finishing now is actually the second version of this book- I initially illustrated it with a local children’s book company who I’ve been working with for years as part of a charitable project. But several months ago, it was picked up by a bigger publisher, which was great news because that meant I would actually get paid for it! But they wanted a lot of revisions to re-release it, and that’s been the sticking point, with the publisher requesting changes and additional work on the book outside of our original contract, and expecting me to do it for free. It put a couple of grey hairs on my head, because I really want to do a good job on this project and see it through to the end and make a product everyone is happy with, but I knew I’d have to push back to be compensated for the work I do. But I did, and I’m glad I did. The publisher and I have reached several good compromises along the way, and the new version of the book should be available soon!
Alas, this feathered cutie was cut from the final version, but trust me when I say there’s a new, cuter Trex in store for y’all.
And all y’all get ready- I’m starting to post new ink work again this weekend! Thank you again, and I hope you enjoy!
