A Study in Blue

This was from school somewhere around a year ago. To help us get more familiar with using acrylics, we had to do a little monochromatic still life on a scrap of board. This would have taken me one class if it weren't for the fact I kept wanting to keep repainting portions of it. The lighting in the room is kinda funky--you have all these lights in the ceiling, and then plenty of natural light from one side of the room because of the windows. Always makes things interesting. In the end I was actually kinda happy with the outcome, though this photo really doesn't do it justice. Then again, traditional pieces don't usually translate as well digitally as one would like, right? This looks more high-contrast than the original and also really accentuates the brushstrokes, making it look even more painterly than it already was. Oh well. Might have to see if I can get a better version sometime.

Flowery Thumbnails

These were done for my art course. Each person in the class took a photo of a flower (our teacher had numerous close-ups from flowers in the class, making for plenty of options to choose from) and had the challenge of cropping it to create an interesting composition. I found three that I liked and did a quick B&W thumbnail of each to help get a feel for it. Stuck as to what composition I liked best (they all had elements that made them interesting in their own ways), I turned to some of my friends for opinions. The one in the top right proved to be by far the most popular, so I then did a colour thumbnail of it and found that I really liked it too. The others, despite having an arsenal of complex, intricate shapes and soft colours that came together in interesting ways, lacked the kick of the bold violets and lovely use of complimentary colours of the one I chose. I was ultimately very happy with that choice--it worked very well with the soft pastel that was used to produce final version. That one is currently up in the main foyer of my school, but I will be sure to share it when I can.

T. rex Gets a Body

Well, I had already been working on a head (even if what you see here has gone through substantial changes from what I posted a while back), so the next logical step is to expand that. Still no shortage of stuff to do before I can call it done, though I really like how it's coming along.

Dilophosaur Design and Sculpt WIP dump

A collection of stuff from something I'm working on right now. The idea was to envision how a Dilophosaurus might be able to be handled in a potential video game setting, in this case as a stealthy predator that slinks through the underbrush (and it is for this reason that I decided to make a few deliberate design choices to help further push the look, such as the stouter limbs). Still plenty of work needed to clean up the sculpt, but I like where it's heading. I started shading the last drawing, but decided it did its job as-is and so I'm posting it that way. Also, yes, those are the same eyes I posted earlier. No, I'm still not entirely sure what I'm going to go with, but it's probably going to lean more towards the two on the left.

Galloping Boar Croc

Did some more work spiffing up the Kaprosuchus from earlier. Also decided to put him in a much more active pose, in this case a gallop not unlike what is observed in some modern crocodilians. Posing went much more smoothly this time with no unsightly projections to be had, even if the process is still as tedious as ever.

Fun with Signs

These are a few warning signs I produced. The first one was the 'Don't Feed The Animals' sign at the top, and then people enjoyed them so much that it didn't take long for me to crank out more. I originally took inspiration from the signs at zoos and stuff which say the same thing, and wanted to put my own spin on it in a unique and comical way. It was also really enjoyable to experiment with the very graphic, vectorized style used as I've never really done that sort of thing before. They are actually super fun to make though, so if anyone has ideas for more please do drop me a comment!

Ornithomimid scribble

Another quick one from the Royal Tyrrell. This was done almost out of frustration after taking a couple stabs at ornithomimids there and and achieving less-than-desirable results (the start of a hand from one can be seen in the bottom right corner). I liked how this one wound up though. I think it's the sketchy looseness of it that I enjoy. Also, why is it hardly anybody adds 'lashes' to their theropods? Personally I think it can look kinda interesting and wanted to at least see how it would look to try adding some here.
I think the mount was of Ornithomimus, but I can't quite recall for certain. In any case, that place really has some nice ornithomimids on display and it's real easy to get a good look at most of them from an array of angles.

The Eyes Have It

These were some quick eyes done as concept work for a creature design. Eyes are something really interesting--they can really give an animal a lot of soul and character when done right. Thing is, for this design I really don't know how I want to handle the look of the eyes. I took a few minutes to sketch out some ideas and get them down, but... I just still don't know. There's a little bit of something about each of them that I kinda like.
I'll be posting more development of the creature later on, so we'll see how it shapes up and what I decide to eventually go with.

Kaprosuchus Sculpt WIP

Most recent project. Had a lot of fun with this one. Not only is Kaprosuchus just such a cool-looking animal, but it also meant I got to spend a nice chunk of time looking at croc anatomy and how it looks externally. Really happy with the result. Still some more work to do on this big guy, so this almost certainly isn't the last we'll see of him.
Posing was achieved through the aid of masks (since there aren't exactly a ton of ways to pose things in Sculptris), which in fact turns out to be a very long and tedious process (for Sculptris, at least) that yields less-than-ideal results (indeed, I cleverly angled the camera here so as to hide the messiest bits).

Tyrannosaur Sculpt

This was something I did a short while ago. It was originally based on AMNH 5027.... And then somewhere down the line I decided to stop with that and roll along with it and make it look a bit different. There are a few things I wanted to change on the head, and I also really wanted to do more with the neck (and in fact did, a little bit). I'm definitely thinking of taking this thing back up and finishing it off.

It was made in a free sculpting program called Sculptris. Made by the developers of ZBrush, Sculptris allows you do do many of the same things as that other program. However, there are a few things that can't be done in Sculptris. For example, you can't get anywhere near as high of a resolution to the sculpt as you can in ZBrush, making it incredibly difficult to make crisp, good-looking texture. Oh well. At least it has a very user-friendly interface and is relatively straightforward to use.

Pachyrhinosaurus sketches

A couple little scribbles from my time at the Royal Tyrrell Museum. As is probably evident, I was working at a much faster pace and with softer pencil for the bottom one. The skull referenced for the top one was jawless (and so was the only other ceratopsian skull nearby) so I pretty much had to wing it. Didn't notice I had made it so short until I got to the mount in one of the other halls, haha.

A few sketches

These were all done at the fabulous American Museum of Natural History during a visit there. The top two took around 10 minutes each. The allosaur took around 20 if I recall correctly--besides I wanted to take some additional time with it to make it look a little nicer, it had the additional challenge of the fact that the specimen it was based on (apparently a cast of AMNH 666) evidently had relatively substantial portions reconstructed, so I had to try and take this into account on the fly.

Young Tyrannosaurs: Adorable Fuzzy Balls of Death?

I did this one last year after the publication of that young Tarbosaurus specimen. What can I say? I have a soft spot for tyrannosaurs.
The throat was originally going to be scaly, but then near the end I decided to make that fuzzy too. Not entirely happy with how much there is a visible "seam" with the neck there, but overall I think it's actually one of my favourite dinos I've drawn in a long time.

I was actually excited to do this one after the success of a young Gorgosaurus I had done previously. That one was really interesting to do, and for the better part of a year a copy sat on the wall of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology (and another copy--albeit of horrendously poor quality, for some reason--can also still be found by digging around the Museum's Facebook page). Expect me to be writing more about that one at some point later.

There was actually a quality of that Gorgosaur that lots of people brought up whenever I showed them--the eyes were lively and adorable, and it was all fuzzy (and indeed looked kinda huggable, or so I was told)... until you saw the teeth, after which hugging it seemed to be a pretty bad idea. I wanted to shoot for something like that here on the Tarbosaur. Did I succeed? Not entirely sure.

Hello, world!

Hello everyone. I’m a highschool student and amateur artist and researcher currently living in Northern Ontario.

Ok, so what the heck am I gonna do here, now that I have a little space to do so?

Well, first things first, one of my major ‘hobbies’ is natural history. Especially Mesozoic non-avian dinosaurs. I tell you, this past year or so I have become so entranced in trying to soak up as much as I can about science and anatomy, sometimes it feels crazy. So anyway, expect dinosaurs. Plenty of dinosaurs.

I also make art. Or at least, that’s what people like to call it.  So expect me to spend a lot of time sharing that. And yes, this and the whole dinosaurs thing overlap frequently.

I also used to LOVE doing fantasy stuff when I was younger. Lately I’ve been so caught up in my precious science though that that (and the art, to an extent) have taken a back seat. I honestly would really enjoy getting back to some of that. But, we’ll see what happens, and where else this thing may go.

In case this sounds like I’m basically making a place to dump all my crap, you’re right. But hey, why not? I mean, with the ever-growing online community, and indeed with both more scientists and artists joining the pool, it is not only a great place to get noticed but also to get feedback from people who know what they’re talking about--it's a win no matter how you look at it.

Ok, that was probably a downright boring block of text, wasn’t it? Fine, let’s get this thing rolling.

Here's a Torvosaurus. This one was just a quickie and took little more than an hour start to finish. Did it early last year. I've tried revamping this one a few times since, yet somehow find the original to be still more appealing. Dunno why, but sometimes that's just how it is.