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.

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.

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.

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.