Many more Cryodrakon images

Scavening on a dead Cryodrakon by Mark Witton

Chatting to Mark Witton the other day it transpired that artwork of Cryodrakon has already existed for some year. Large azhdarchids would have been a decent meal for small scavengers and we know of at least two incidences of dromaeosaurs eating them, one of which being the holotype of Cryodrakon (the other was Velociraptor I described with a pterosaur bone in it). The above piece was done in reference to this but Mark told me his point was to specifically reference the Canadian specimen which only now has a name.

I’m sure there’s other artworks out there that similarly were based on this northern ‘Quetzalcoatlus’ and would now refer to Cryodrakon, but almost inevitably once the paper came out there was a rush on to produce new images that rapidly appeared online alongside the ‘official’ artwork of David Maas. Here are a few of those.

Cryodrakon attacks a dromaeosaur by Gabriel Uguerto

First off is that by Gabriel Uguerto and this one is a bit of a cheat perhaps because he drew it for me as a commission but I’m delighted to have the original and it’s nice to see an azhdarchid giving something back to the theropods and not just being eaten by them or only following what is now a meme and eating baby sauropods.

Cryodrakon skeletal (full sized) by Dean Schnabel

There are already skeletal outlines appearing for Cryodrakon too. Dean Schnabel (who goes under the pseudonym of Sassy Palaeo Nerd on Deviant Art and Twitter) has produced two. One of all the known material scaled to the incomplete giant cervical (above) and a second that is just the holotype material at the correct size for that specimen (below).

Cryodrakon skeletal (holotype only) by Dean Schnabel

Finally, Joschua Knüppe put out this black one on an especially snowy background. While on the subject of snow, it’s popping up a lot I artworks already. The name Cryodrakon was intended to invoke Alberta as it is now rather than when the animal was alive when it was semi-tropical. That doesn’t though mean that snow is wrong (indeed David Maas sneaked a bit into one of his images) as even the warmest places will get snowfall on occasion and azhdarchids generally could fly long distance and the newly forming Rocky Mountains were not far away. I’m sure on occasion Cryodrakon ended up striding through snow and flying over white landscapes even if it wasn’t the norm.

Cryodrakon in the snow by Joschua Knüppe

These are not the only ones out there, a quick google will reveal a wealth of alternate takes on Instagram, Deviant Art and elsewhere (alongside a load of older rebadged art that various media organisations stumbled to produce and plenty of versions of David’s work, often inappropriately rebadged with someone else’s watermark). More I’m sure are coming but it’s nice to see your own scientific work reach out into people’s imaginations and artistic efforts.

 

Coda: I spoke to all the artists about linking to their work before putting them up here.

Guest Post: Producing Protoceratops art

The little ceratopsian Protoceratops (and indeed art on Protoceratops) has been a big thing for me in recent years as I’ve been lucky enough to work on some very special specimens and have them illustrated in life.  As is so often the case though, one new specimen begets some new opportunities and today sees the publication of a new paper on the ongoing issue of sexual selection and social dominance signals using some of these specimens in the dataset. The paper is freely available online here and I’ve also written about it here, but the paper also contains some lovely new palaeoart of signaling dinosaurs by Rebecca Gelernter who has kindly agreed to talk about her work here.

When I plan a piece of paleoart, I try to make the animal I’m restoring as complete as possible. I want to make it look like a real, tangible creature with adaptations that make sense for its life history. I particularly enjoy showing behavior, which made this a really intriguing project to work on.

First off, I had to figure out what my Protoceratops should look like. Anatomically, this was pretty straightforward, thanks to the wealth of fossil photos, papers, and books Dave had on hand. Factor in his enthusiastic feedback and that’s all the background you could ever need. At Dave’s request, I was depicting the animals without any filaments or other non-scale integument, so after familiarizing myself with the fine points of ceratopsian feet and beaks, all that remained was to design the color scheme.

I decided that the facial markings should be only part of the body with elaborate markings, as the frill and jugal bosses were proposed display structures. When designing markings for extinct animals, I like to thumbnail several different possibilities based closely on living creatures and remix them into something new. For Protoceratops, I mostly looked at antelope facial markings, and the final design features elements of bongo and sable. The jugal bosses are an eye-catching white, and the all-important frill is a splash of those ever-popular display colors, orange and red. I imagine that the animal would flush the frill with blood during an encounter with a potential mate or rival for flashier color. I used a camouflage-friendly beige for the animal’s base color, broken up by a line of darker splotches down each side that become bolder and more regular on the tail, another potential display structure. I used white again on the tip and ventral side of the tail to create a starker contrast, with more orange to draw attention to the ridge formed by the tall neural spines.

Dave asked for the piece to show two adult Protoceratops having a confrontation, while a group of less flashy subadults goes about its business in the background. I selected a pose that showed off the display structures: tail up, frill angled toward the other individual. I angled one adult’s head toward the viewer and one away to show that the display colors are limited to the front – no point wasting resources to color the side of your head that you can’t show off. I wanted the piece to be taller and narrower than your standard portrait orientation, so I raised the point of view above the two main animals and arranged the background players some distance away on another dune. Dave suggested adding the crisscrossing footprints in the staging area to suggest that this type of interaction has happened there before. I placed the animals in a particularly empty bit of desert, with just a few small, scrubby plants in the background.

I’d recently gotten good results from painting over a graphite drawing in Photoshop, so I was eager to try that again. There are different ways of doing this, but the technique I usually use is to set the graphite original to “multiply” and leave that layer on top, painting on a few different layers stacked underneath it. It’s an interesting change from using purely traditional media, and I’m looking forward to trying new things with it.

So there you have it: my process for making (definitely) accurate, (hopefully) interesting paleoart. If you’d like to see more of my work, I’m on all the usual sites under the name Near Bird Studios.

Interview with Jez Gibson-Harris

To those interested in palaeoart and the world of dinosaur reconstructions, the name Jez Gibson-Harris might not be familiar at all, and yet I can guarantee that almost everyone reading this has seen a number of his models and puppets since he and his crew put together all the live-action animals used in Walking with Dinosaurs and various subsequent sequels (and you’ll also know his work from the Dark Crystal not to mention Star Wars). Jez was kind enough to answer some questions about building model dinosaurs and getting them on screen, and he also handed over a nice pile of photos of various creations for me to share (though as ever, please don’t use these without his permission).

 

What is your background in model making?

I always made stuff when I was young, kits, sculptures, toys, jewellery then at College in Richmond in the late 1970’s I did a one year Art foundation course: so much fun, so many different techniques to experiment with. I then started a Jewellery and Silver Smithing course which I left after a couple of terms and joined a special effects makeup company that had just finished working on The Empire Strikes Back. I worked on The Dark Crystal and Return of the Jedi, building the famous Jabba the Hutt and later worked on Greystoke the Legend of Tarzan, The Never Ending Story 1 & 2, Willow, Tomorrow Never Dies and many more.

In 1986 I set up Crawley Creatures Ltd. in the Oxfordshire village of Crawley near Witney with a partner, Nigel Trevessey. We worked closely with Oxford Scientific Films working on Natural History films, documentaries and commercials and made models and animatronics for commercials and TV shows all over Europe. Nigel returned to freelancing in 1992 and went on to supervise the fantastic model build of Hogwarts for the Harry Potter films.

How did you get into recreating dinosaurs and prehistoric animals?

In 1996 I was approached by a BBC researcher to make a pilot documentary film for ex-Horizon Producer, Tim Haines. The pilot was Walking with Dinosaurs. We built a couple of maquettes a half scale Liopleurodon head and close-up body parts, including a large pair of feet to make footprints.

Tim Haines documentary background and exacting standards ensured that the real, grassless, backgrounds, the animatronics, models and CG all worked together to create a truly believable natural environment. The series was one of the most popular TV programmes at the time and won multiple awards including a Millenium Products Award, an Emmy and Baftas.

The success of this series spawned a genre of programmes over a ten year period depicting early life; Walking with Beasts, Ballard of Big Al, Sea Monsters, Walking with Early Life, The Giant Claw, Walking with Giants and Prehistoric Park. We also worked on the first three series of Primeval and more recently on Prehistoric Autopsy with Dr. Alice Roberts.

We made a T. rex head for a TV pilot of the Lost World, when we worked ay OSF, the series started at Pinewood Studios but was cancelled after six weeks into the build. I think our link with documentaries and OSF and our background of realistic looking work got the attention of the BBC researcher and as is often the case with the TV and Film industries you get pigeon holed, but what a nice area to get pigeon holed into!!

I am fascinated by natural history and paleontology, I have always loved museums, so much so that I have now designed a range of fossil chocolates (I have to admit that I love chocolate just as much as dinosaurs!). So we do a lot of dinosaurs for museums now as CG takes over more of the film and TV work. We have worked for The Natural History Museum London, Oxford University Museum (my favourite), The Eden Project, Gondwana das Prehistorium in Reden, Saarbreuken, Germany and the yet to be opened Dinosauropolis in Athens.

How do you start a new animal?

Usually we will receive a brief from an Art Director and we will do our own research for the latest museum reconstructions, or artists visuals, trips to museums to photograph fossils or skeletal reconstructions. We have a library of books that utilise as well as looking at internet sources.

A production company will usually have a researcher available who will look for the most recent scientific papers and studies and look to key palaeontologists whose field the beast we are reconstructing falls into, to provide us with feed back to images we send as we start to build our creatures.

What are the major techniques that you use?

We will start off with an armature, usually a metal framework, covered in chicken wire, hessian scrim and plaster all coated with shellac. The armature will be smaller than the intended finished surface, allowing for a layer of water based clay or wax based modelling material that will be sculpted to the smooth or wrinkled and textured skin surface that is required.

If we are making a large creature or model, we will usually sculpt a smaller scale maquette, (usually 1/10^th scale). The maquette will enable us to create the pose and proportions of the creature quickly and get feedback from our client and any scientific advisers before the full scale figure is tackled.

When making a very large model we have the facility to laser scan the maquette, surface the scanned data in GeoMagic software, which allows us to manipulate the model in CAD. These files can then be sent to a 5 Axis machining company where we can get a full sized armature machined in polystyrene.

When the full sized armature is returned to us we can then begin the clay sculpture. The finished clay surface is then sealed and a GRP (glass reinforced plastic) layer is applied, usually the mould is made in several joining sections and once cured this will for a hard jacket mould that will have all the surface texture from the sculpture embedded into its surface. When the mould has cured the parts are removed and cleaned and the sculpture is destroyed. Casts are taken from the mould in various flexible elastomers such as silicones or polyurethanes.

 

What do you have to consider from scientific sources and how do you decide where there in uncertainty such as with colours?

We will always aim for our models to be the best and most up-to-date reconstructions around so we encourage critical feedback especially at the sculpture stage when it is relatively easy to make alterations. We will produce a colour scheme based on discussions and this will be changed until an agreement is made.

Skin texture, colour schemes and feathers etc. on dinosaurs are tricky, there is no information on colour or sounds or behaviour and scant fossil evidence, as far as I am aware, of skin texture and feathering on larger specimens.

Scientists are able to argue the case for their views and understanding as to what the colour, feathering styles etc. may have been but from a filmic or TV point of view a creative decision has to be made to get the visuals on the screen and it is often a ‘best guess’ approach. The ‘best guess’ decision will usually be based on a modern analogy of the creature, our understanding of the environment that the creature may have lived in, whether the creature is a herbivore or carnivore, it’s size, whether the creature is bird, reptile, marine-reptile or crocodile like in its make-up, all this will be factored into the decision.

What to have to consider from the perspective of filming?

Time is usually very short on a production so after discussions and hopefully a story board from the production company, we know exactly what we need to build and what the camera will need to see. Time and materials are very expensive so ideally we will only build what needs to be seen which is why a storyboard is so important. Sometimes we can build models to a smaller scale if there is no referenced give away in the shot. If we are filming at a studio or on location we have to think ahead about logistics of moving a large model or for freighting and crating and the logistics of moving and operating in the environment on the shoot

How many people would be involved in a typical build?

Because of the nature of the contacts for film, TV and museum work the deadlines are usually very short and labour intensive. So, as well as using our fulltime staff we rely on a network of Freelance Specialists to assist in delivering the models to the screen.

At present we are building a well known, very large, full-sized creature. We have three sculptors, seven mould-makers a mechanical engineer, and a CAD engineer in addition to the two office staff. Shortly we will be hiring two body fabricators. Fabricators really make soft mechanics, using specialist foams and lycra fabrics they will design and make a flexible under-structure that the sculpted skin surface will attach to, but still enable the skin to bend and flex realistically in all the right places, similar to the under-structure of costumes used in programs such as the Telly-Tubbies and their ilk.

Later in the process we will bring in a couple of Art-Finishers to prepare and then paint the assembled finished creature skins.

What is the creation from your team that you are most proud of?

This is a difficult question for many reasons. One of my first jobs in the industry was working for the Jim Henson Company on the film the Dark Crystal and I was making Mystic characters. The team of people we were working with was so creative and exciting that I will never forget it.

Jabba the Hutt has to be one of my best achievements, working with a small team of six people we made one of the most famous villains in cinema and for such a prestigious film, I still get asked for autographs by Star Wars fans.

Greystoke was my next film and our supervisor Rick Baker won an Oscar for the work we all contributed to. The quality of the ape suits and the performances of the costume wearers was very special.

But those three films were in my freelance days and so the creations I’m most proud of from Crawley Creatures point of view is the work we produced for the BBC/Discovery Channel series of Walking with Dinosaurs. It was a very bold concept at a time when animatronics and CG had not been used a great deal in TV. With a small budget, from a special effects point of view, a very small build crew and production crew we felt very much part of the whole process from start to finish and that involvement was very creatively rewarding. The series was a huge worldwide hit and it got a lot more people very interested in dinosaurs and we won several awards for our work, which was nice!

Protoceratops take shelter – new palaeoart

Although PLOS has many things to recommend it, one thing they don’t do is give you a lot of notice about publication and so actually the production of my recent paper on Protoceratops came shortly before the manuscript went online. As a result, although the paper had been around in various guises for several years, it was a bit too short notice to have everything ready for its publication, including both a press release from me and the following artwork.

The superb illustrator Andrey Atuchin had very generously got involved in producing an illustration to come out alongside the paper, but his recent illness coupled with the limited notice put everything back. However, I am delighted that he has now completed his new work and allowed me to put it up here.

Above is a simple (but fantastic) vignette of a single Protoceratops. This represents the age class of the block of four young animals that were the feature of the paper, with the reduced size of the frill and the overall proportions of the animal that does differ from what we see in adult animals. Although juvenile dinosaurs are often rare, there is a natural tendency for only full adults to be illustrated, or we see young animals only in the context of their parents or part of a herd and it’s great to be able to focus on a single animal, especially when the adult is already so familiar.

This then makes the whole composition below rather unusual and of course very fitting for the paper. We see the group of juveniles together, devoid of adult supervision or as part of a herd but in their apparently natural aggregation. The environment of course reflects the Mongolian Late Cretaceous with a very sandy region and little real plant life. The overall composition though hints at the wider issues of the paper in a nicely understated way – the group are largely at rest, though remain vigilant and the fact that there are multiple individuals means even those not directly scanning the environment are not that vulnerable and the group as a whole are looking in multiple directions. Staying vigilant is especially important for young and vulnerable dinosaurs lacking the size, experience and defences of adults, and so they must with here a pair of Velociraptor on the horizon.

My thanks of course to Andrey (who retains the copyright on these, please don’t share without permission) for this wonderful rendition of group living in the Cretaceous and nice of him to sneak some theropods in there so I can forget about my fall from grace and pretend that this is not just about ornithischians. It’s a wonderful piece and it really does convey not just the contents of the paper, but the issues at the heart of it, and even if you disagree with the hypotheses, it’s certainly evocative and really does show the concepts magnificently.

 

 

 

 

Interview with Julius Csotonyi and Steve White

Fans of palaeoart will have kept up with the various interviews I have done over the years with a wide variety of artists who favour the realm of long-dead organisms. Today, however this is more directed to the specifics of the big new book in this field: The Paleoart of Julius Csotonyi. This obviously follows on from the popular ‘Dinosaur Art‘ of 2012, and like that, this is published by Titan and is edited by Steve White. Since I have written a few lines for the book and some of the work is based on things Julius and I have collaborated on, it seemed inappropriate to write a review (though it is great, honest), but being no strangers to answering my questions, Julius and Steve were kind enough to give me some of their time to be interviewed, and of course this is beset with images from the new book, and my thanks to them both for providing the words and images. (As ever, everything is copyright to Julius, so no taking it now).

So, what is in the book?

 JC: Some words and lots of pictures (snicker, snicker). Lots of new stuff, actually. I created some of the artwork (nearly two dozen paintings) specifically for the book, and these have not previously been published in museum exhibits or books. There’s also a large complement of images that were commissioned by researchers for press releases on newly described taxa or novel research within the past couple of years. Many of these have only sparsely been seen before. What I’m really happy about, and which differs completely from Dinosaur Art (2012) is the enormous number of pieces that have only appeared in museum exhibits around the world, making it highly unlikely for the average person to have seen them all. These include the life-sized murals for the Royal Ontario Museum (the “Ultimate Dinosaurs” exhibit, 2012) and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (Dinosaur Hall, 2011), a wide array of traditional and digital drawings for several different exhibits at the Royal Tyrrell Museum (2007-2012), the unusual Permian landscapes for Gondwana Studios in Australia (2013) and the broad interval of time (Devonian to Pleistocene) covered by murals for the Hall of Paleontology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science (2012). Close to three quarters of the pieces have been published since 2012. I’ve also updated several older pieces to agree better with available information.

SW: Without wanting to sound crass, pretty much what it says on the cover. It’s a career-spanning retrospective of Julius’ paleoart career; again, we’ve tried to include a certain amount of factual material, focusing, as with did with DA, on perhaps the lesser known or more unusual creatures that might not be too familiar to the casual enthusiast.

Steve, how is this different to Dinosaur Art, either conceptually or overall, aside from featuring just one artist?

SW: Well, the very obvious difference is the myopic focus on the actual work of a single artist this volume afforded us. DA was a little more generic in feel; in this one, Julius was able to go into considerable depth on his style and methodology. The previous volume didn’t really give us room for that.

To Steve, with the contributors to DA, what led to focusing on Julius first in terms of the next run in this series? And Julius, did you approach this differently to DA with more scope? Was there anything you wanted to show?

SW: The theory behind Julius’ volume is the hope that it will be the launch for a possible library of titles. There was some discussion after DA came out over where we go next (I was told I had put Titan in the ‘dinosaur business’) and I had thought we’d go for another multi-artist volume but it was decided to adopt the single-artist approach. That was followed by conversations on who would be the initial illustrator, which fell roughly into two camps; those who wanted an artbook and those who wanted a dinosaur book. it was felt Julius spanned both arguments. From a purely commercial perspective, lots of dinosaurs is going to be a big pull; this isn’t a true dinosaur book, so to speak, the science being pretty incidental in the text, but there is enough to make any enthusiast pick it up, which they will just for the art. And, of course, with Julius’ work, is very driven by the science anyway, as he stays very close to developments. So, I’m hoping that if this volume does well, I’ll be allowed to go after someone who have perhaps seen perhaps in more ‘artistic’ terms. Anyone who knows anything about Paleoart will probably be able to hazard guesses on who I mean…

Julius also had the advantage of a backlog of work capable of filling a volume of the size we anticipated!

JC: Compared to Dinosaur Art, I had a chance to create a considerable amount of new work. Unlike for commissions, I had more freedom to decide on the subject matter and to experiment with artistic style and format of presentation. There were a few different kinds of scenes that I wanted to explore, unusual kinds of interactions between species – more of them hypothetical, if plausible, than would generally be the case with commissions – and to play around with portraying scenes from unusual angles. Many of these new experimental pieces were inspired by conversations with paleontologists such as yourself. The encounter scene between Sinornithosaurus and Liaoningosaurus (below) stands out as a good example, as does the Apatosaurus tree-tipping scene [Ed: this last one will be getting its own post shortly].

Is there some kind of theme to the book?

 JC: The book is separated into four sections: a Q&A section followed by the artwork, which falls into three broad temporal intervals: Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. This allows there to be a way of organizing the work that is familiar to many paleontology enthusiasts while keeping the media and styles of the artwork sufficiently shuffled to maintain an ever-changing presentation.

SW: We did want to do a sort of temporal/geological approach so that casual readers could immerse themselves in a visual representation of the evolution of life on Earth. This was largely because Julius had done enough art from throughout Time and it was this that very much drove the layout and look of the book.

Julius, how have you developed since DA came out, either in style, technique or interest?

JC: When DA came out, I was in the height of applying the technique of photographic compositing. Since then, I’ve felt an increasing interest to move back toward manual painting (at least digitally, but also some more traditional non-digital artwork). I still do a lot of photographic compositing, and a lot of new material appears in the book, but I’ve also taken the opportunity offered by the book project of creating noncommissioned work to flex my traditional painting muscles some more, and a lot of the newest material in the book is digitally painted. I’ve received some favourable responses to this kind of artwork, but traditional painting has also always given me more of a thrill to do than does building up a scene photographically. In terms of interest, I think that my interests have broadened since the publication of DA, and I am currently involved in producing more pre-Mesozoic work than I did before. It’s a time interval that I’ve neglected earlier, and I’m eager to explore some of the earlier, weirder points in earth’s history.

What is your favourite part of / picture in the book?

JC: Like any artist, I look at older pieces and I find myself frowning at things I would now do differently as my knowledge changes and new information is published, However, from an artistic standpoint, there are quite a few new pieces that have given me a lot of enjoyment to produce. There’s a Sinornithosaurus piece that was absolutely fun to create because of the freer, more expressive style of paining that I used in it than I’m used to. Certainly one of my favourite new pieces to create was a painting of a group of Apatosaurus feeding on trees that they have toppled using their bulk. This one was fun from its inception – it was generated from a lively discussion that you and I had in Dinosaur Hall at the Royal Tyrrell Museum last year – through to its design and completion. It features a very unusual perspective, demonstrating what we would see from ground level through a bug’s eyes, showing the full 360 degrees of rotation and the entire range of sky to horizon. It was a challenge to generate the appropriate amount of distortion in the trees and dinosaurs, but I’m reasonably happy with the final result, both in the composition and the amount of detail that it contains.

SW: I have to say, my fave images are the very newest. I think those are the ones where you really see everything that he has learnt as an artist really come together. I am thinking particularly of the Acheroraptor piece, which I really loved, and the Sinornthiosaur one as well.

What is next for each of you?

SW: I’m actually just wrapping up my third artbook as editor, although this one is somewhat different, thematically, as it focuses on aviation art. This isn’t a multi-artist volume though, but the work of Adam Tooby, who’s very much on the cutting age of this particular discipline, using digital art in an otherwise very traditional medium. I guess in some ways there is a slight crossover with paleoart in that they are both very much at the edge of Fine Art (in my opinion anyway); but they both produce artwork of incredible quality but largely overlooked. I am very happy with this one and looking forward to seeing the final result.

In the meantime, my comics day job keeps me pretty busy, but I am wondering about future artbooks. They are a lot of work for me on top of my full-time editor job and I couldn’t do them without my line editor in Titan Books, Jo Boylett, who’s the real power behind the throne. But we have discussed future titles. DA has done so very well for us so another multi-title volume could be a possibility; I even have a theme for it, but we’ll see. And, as I mentioned, if Julius’ book does as well as we expect, it could hopefully allow me to do another single artist book.

Meanwhile, I wouldn’t mind actually do some of my art now and then. Still want to do my shark book…

JC: At the moment, I am working on a number of museum exhibits, book contributions and research press release images. I think that even aside from the book, 2014 will probably be a pretty productive year for new artwork. Some of this will come from collaborative work between myself and my wife, Alexandra Lefort, who is not only an accomplished planetary scientist, but also a talented artist herself, focusing mainly on wildlife (hence the opportunity for collaboration) [see the above picture]. A major overhaul/update of my art website is also in the works (also largely due to Alexandra’s skills and efforts), and I will be making a lot of my pieces available as prints on my growing print website. As time permits (sigh…), I also want to post new entries to my science blog, Evolutionary Routes.

In terms of the direction of my artwork, I mentioned an increasing interest in painting (both traditional and digital) over photographic compositing, and I think that quite a few of my upcoming pieces will reflect this attraction to a somewhat more painterly style. I’ve also become increasingly interested in using my artwork to promote biological conservation efforts. One of the ways in which I wish to apply traditional painting techniques is to generate original artwork to help raise funds to protect vulnerable to endangered organisms such as sharks, or fragile ecosystems. There are many possible avenues to explore in this arena. And as time permits, I’d really like to get out on some paleontological digs and get dirty.

Interview with Andrey Atuchin

Today’s palaeoart interview is with Andrey Atuchin. He has rather stormed onto the scene recently with a string of beautiful artworks, especially with some of the recent new discoveries coming out of Utah. As forever, the works here are his and used with permission so please to do not reuse them or take them without his express permission.

How long have you been an artist?

Frankly, I think that I have never been an artist at all. 

I drew from early childhood as far back I can remember. Maybe I had some artistic ability and my classmates often asked me to draw something, they thought that I was cool in drawing. Later I became interested in scientific illustration. The style of scientific illustration attracted me, with attention to details and scientific accuracy. I’m really fond of these books with illustrations, the encyclopedia, the catalogues of animals. I started drawing my own illustrations, just for fun. Being a teenager, I started collecting insects. Also, after reading an antique book of Professor Neumayr «Erdgeschichte» (translated Russian edition of 1903), I was interested in finding and collecting fossils. I painted beetles, which I collected and I loved to paint them as in an encyclopedia. One day I brought my drawings to the art-school and showed to teachers. I wanted them to teach me how to draw well. The teachers took me to art-school without an exam, so now I can boast a pair of years of study at an art school. I also took personal lessons in drawing.

 

How long have you been producing paleoart?

I was interested in dinosaurs as far I can remember from my early childhood, as well as in nature, animals, space, astronomy and science in general. Once, when I was 5 or 6 years old, my older sister brought me from Moscow a set of plastic toy dinosaurs and other ancient animals (made in Poland). I remember that moment, and these animals fascinated me. 

 

What first got you interested in dinosaurs and art?

 In the same years, I drew my first paleoart (if I can call it that). I drew a scene where paleontologists dig a dinosaur skeleton and then lifted by helicopter. I guess I saw it on the news on TV. After that, rare books and articles in popular science magazines fueled my interest in this theme. Articles about Soviet paleontological expeditions to Mongolia, novels: “Plutonia” by Obruchev and “Lost World” by Conan Doyle. 

As for the paleoart with fleshed-out dinosaurs that I remember, the first drawings I made in 1994-95 under the influence of the film “Jurassic Park”, I think it was the Tyrannosaurus that attacks the ornithomimids. 
Translated foreign books about dinosaurs began to pass in our country, probably on a wave of popularity of dinosaurs after the movie. As I said, I loved the encyclopedias but Russian books about dinosaurs were a rarity, especially in provincial regions and in my town, I did not even know that there is such a wonderful book with pictures of Zdenek Burian somewhere. One day in the book-store I saw an amazing and terrific book – an illustrated encyclopedia of dinosaurs by Dougal Dixon. I had never seen such book: many different dinosaurs with their Latin names, colorful images, description, and most importantly – the figures of a skeletons and skulls. This book has been read so much by me that it is falling apart. So you could understand my feelings when someday I have received the offer to illustrate Dougal Dixon’s new illustrated encyclopedia of dinosaurs in 2004 . I didn’t believe it … such amazing coincidence.

The lack of books with good illustrations also prompted me to start drawing illustrations by myself. I just wanted to read a good book about dinosaurs and started drawing dinosaurs how I wanted to see them in a book. I really liked the style and technique of illustrations by Denys Ovenden and I put this style as the basis of my own artworks.

 

What is your favorite piece of paleoart that you have produced?

 I do not really like my own artworks. My trouble is that I’m a perfectionist, I am always not happy with the result. I am very self-critical yet and I would never put on the wall most of my artworks. But occasionally I like something, for example Nasutoceratops or Lythronax. 

 

Who is your favorite paleoartist or piece of paleoart?

 I truly love many artists. Also, now there are many new young artists and sculptors who are very talented. I was also fortunate to have the pleasure of working with some of them on joint projects, such as with Julius Csotonyi, Alain Beneteau or talented 3d artist Vlad Konstantinov. Nevertheless, my most favorite paleoartist is Douglas Henderson. The Real Genius of Paleoart in my opinion. His great works are full with the spirit of ancient landscapes, very atmospheric and always breathtaking. Animals in his paintings are an integral part of the landscape, and the scenery is majestic. This is the windows in the extinct ancient worlds.

 

What is your favorite dinosaur / archosaur?

 In fact, I do not have a favorite dinosaur or another animal. Rather, I love the groups of dinosaurs. I love hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, and abelisaurs and some others. I often and gladly draw dinosaurs from these groups for publishing.

Also, I think that my favorite dinosaur or archosaur is the one that I’m working on at the time, or one that has not been published yet and it needs to work with professional paleontologists to create the reconstruction together. This is what actually favorite for me. I make my favourite as all that I’m working on (or at least I try to). 

 

Is there any animal you would like to paint but have not?

 All of them, I think, or at least a huge amount. I now have tons of ideas in my head, but I have to admit that I’m just not able to implement them due to time constraints.

 

What do you think is the most important part of good paleoart?

First of all it needs to study the subject, and many sciences. I know some perfect wildlife artists or scientific natural history illustrators who are professional ornithologists, entomologists or just amateur naturalists. That is the best way to do professional artwork. My biological education helps me in my work as I know the animals, their anatomy, behavior, evolution, ecology, and more. Study science books and original publications about dinosaurs. Consult with paleontologists often, and collaborate and work together with them. Sometimes I study the real bones, take part in expeditions and excavations, and prepare fossils. In fact I was a scientific researcher at first, and I have learned as an artist in the second turn to qualitatively depict animals. 

Insofar as it is an art then also a good technique is important, knowledge of composition and other artistic skills. 

Paleoart shows pictures of the distant past that is available to us only in the form of scarce fossils, so one of the main problems for any paleoartist is to produce a naturalistic depiction of the animals so that they look lively and believable to the audience. Many extinct animals look unlike modern animals, very strange and unusual, but it is above all living organisms and is necessary to represent them appropriately. 

In general the paleoart is unity, interconnection of science, paleontology and art, projected through the paleoartist’s personality.

Interview with Scott Hartman

Well it’s been quite a while but this was never forgotten, so I’m delighted to get the palaeoart interviews rumbling to life again by bringing you a one on one with Scott Hartman, most famous for his dinosaur skeletals but also well into the more ‘traditional’ branches of life reconstructions. There’s plenty on his website and DeviantArt pages, but Scott has also been good enough to share some new and upcoming stuff too. As ever, everything is copyright to Scott so play nice and no sharing without asking him first, it’s his work not mine.

How long have you been an artist?

I’m afraid I don’t have a straightforward answer to that – while I drew a bit growing up I never really kept up with it. For a long time I approached technical illustration as a tool rather than art; even my life reconstructions were originally little more than a way to show off anatomy for quite a while. I guess the transition probably occurred when I started to do artwork regularly to help supply the Wyoming Dinosaur Center with imagery for displays; since I was doing “arty” things on a regular basis I started to learn new techniques, began to think more about composition, lighting, etc. So in terms of when I felt I had personally become an artist then it’s been a decade or so.

How long have you been producing palaeoart?

Based on my previous answer I have to say that it’s been for longer than I’ve been an artist! The first paleoart pieces I produced that were shown in art shows was back in 1995, but they were…well, let’s just say I still had much to learn. The first skeletal reconstructions I produced that I would consider sufficiently professional so as to stand on their own was 1997, while the first life reconstructions that I would still want to take responsibility for probably date to around 2001-2002.

What first got you interested in dinosaurs and art?

I have always been interested in dinosaurs – some of my earliest memories include having the Little Golden Book of Dinosaurs read to me (often several times a day). I guess from there I never really grew up. Art, on the other hand, was really just a re-occuring fancy until my work with dinosaurs demanded I take it more seriously, and from there it has grown into its own interest rather later than I imagine occurs from other artists. I expect this put me at something of a disadvantage compared to the many talented young artists I see out there that dedicate far more time to honing their craft, but luckily I’ve play a bit of catch-up later in life.

What is your favourite piece of palaeo art that you have produced?

I guess it would be Dawn Fisher (above), which depicts Unenlagia fishing in the early morning hours. It’s not really a complicated painting, but it’s one of the few pieces where I truly approached it as a compositional piece rather than a technical reconstruction, and lo and behold it turned out with the tone and feel that I had originally envisioned. I have a few others pieces that I’ve also been working on from an “art-first” perspective, but alas they are also more complex and I haven’t had time to finish them (so far!).

Who is your favourite palaeoartist or piece of palaeoart?

There are just so many ways to take (and answer) who my favorite paleoartist is – my favorite as a person? My favorite in terms of technique? In terms of accuracy? I’ve done this long enough to have several paleoartists that I am lucky enough to enjoy as friends, while the internet has also allowed for an even larger influx of new talent to be seen that perhaps would have been missed in previous decades. All of which sounds like I’m wussing out really. I guess if I had to pick one name it would be David Krentz, as I’ve always found his artwork delightful and he’s been a fantastic coworker on a myriad of different projects, from education to film and TV. My favorite piece of paleoart requires no such beating around the bush; it’s Mike Trcic’s Daspletosaurus sculpture that he did back when he was working on the original Jurassic Park dinosaurs. I’m sure a lot of it was timing (I originally laid eyes on it at my first SVP way back in Seattle), that it was one of the first paleo sculptures I’d seen in person, and the way it encapsulated much of the paleoart revolution up until then, but no other piece has made such a strong visceral impression on me. I’m just sad I didn’t have the means to pick one up back when they were available.

What is your favourite dinosaur / archosaur?
I always have a soft-spot for the animals I’ve spent time working with, including Archaeopteryx, Supersaurus, Camarasaurus, and Medusaceratops. I’m also pretty darn fascinated with all things archosaurian in the Triassic (and even the synapsids, but this clearly is neither the time nor place to talk about those one-window wannabees).

Is there any animal you would like to paint but have not?
All of them? I really love coming up with new visions of prehistoric life, but there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to get it done. And I’m about to have a lot less free time this fall.

What do you think is the most important part of good palaeoart?

Obviously good technique is important, but I feel that what makes paleoart fascinating is that it’s always in a state of tension between what constrains an artist (data and plausibility) and the freedom to follow his or her imagination. Being able to navigate that tension to produce something that is simultaneously data-driven yet fresh and imaginative is the intangible “it” that the best paleoart has in my view.

Interview with Julius Csotonyi

The first single-fingered dinosaur, Linhenykus, commissioned to publicize the discovery (2010).

Today I’m delighted to bring you an art interview with Julius Csotonyi. I first came across his art relatively recently after he ended up doing a lovely life reconstruction of Linhenykus and this sent me to discovering his work. I recently got in touch to ask to borrow a bit of that piece for my new blog banner and casually suggested he might like to join the ever-growing list of artists on here and he was most keen. So keen in fact I’m rather buried in his artworks, so enjoy! As usual this art is Julius’ and should not be reproduced etc. without his permission as he retains the copyright.

Dinosaur Art book review

I’m sure a good number of readers will be well aware that there is a new book on it’s way to the shelves for mid September on palaeoart and more specifically, dinosaur art. I’ve been lucky enough to get an advanced copy in exchange for doing a review, but I’d have been happy to do so anyway. First things first though, I know almost every artist featured (and am friends with several) and even the editor Steve White and indeed have interviewed them myself on the Musings. Obviously I’ll try to be a neutral as possible, but while this review is gushingly positive, it’d be unfair not to point out my obvious connections to many of those involved.

Doug Henderson asteroid piece

Anyway, onto the book. Quite simply it’s superb, and really doubles as covering two very different things in a single volume. Most naturally it’s a book crammed with high quality artworks from a great number of superb artists and features numerous images that will delight. Even with my familiarity with a great deal of palaeoart and having had the chance to browse the collections of my friends, there were plenty of images here I’d not seen before.

A Sinornithosaurus by Todd Marshall

The paper quality and print quality is superb (which is important) and there are even a few fold-outs to give maximum exposure which is significant given that already it’s quite a large format book. This is a seriously nice piece and I can image there will be a good number of sales to people with no great interest or love of dinosaurs because it just looks fantastic. It’s a real coffee table book in that sense (and I mean that as a compliment).

Julius Csotonyi Cretaceous scene.

However, aside from just looking gorgeous, this book also provides some real commentary on pretty much every aspect of palaeoart. Each series of images (grouped by artist) is accompanied by a dialogue / interview between the editor and artist. This covers the artists origins in palaeoart and obvious little questions about their interests and favourite species, but also delves into the creation process, the style and techniques of the artist and the state of play with modern developments and especially the rise of digital media. As part of this we do see drafts and sketches for pieces showing how the artist changed aspects of the work or developed pieces which is truly fascinating. Each section also has a featured taxon with a series of images by that artist on the relevant species and some accompanying text about the animal in particular, giving a bit more depth and study to each of these compared to a lot of the bigger works which are presented largely without comment.

John Sibbick Scleidosaurus sketch and completed work.

If there are any quibbles it’s that I would have liked to have seen more text. What is said is really interesting and while I’m sure the hefty tome wasn’t cheap to produce with all those pages of full colour artworks, I can’t see that a half dozen extra pages of just text would have made much of a difference. My other minor issue would be that there’s really quite a lot of non-dinosaur stuff in here. Now that’s not me being against non-dinosaur palaeoart in any way shape or form, but the book *is* called Dinosaur Art and at least a few readers might be disappointed that there are a few places where a good number of pages can be turned before finding a dinosaur. While the dinos do dominate, it does just seem a little between-two-stools – it’s not 99% dinosaurs (or even Mesozoic reptiles) as one might expect from the title, but then nor is it mix of all kinds of palaeoart (even if that would likely feature more reptiles than anything else). As I say, both very minor things and ones that I doubt will put off anyone who really likes their art, and indeed nor should it.

Mauricio Anton South American mammal assemblage

Overall then this is a real must-have. I can’t recall another book like it either in terms of the volume of art, the production values or the interviews / sketches that add a new level of detail. While I rarely do go out and get volumes like this (and of course was lucky enough to get mine gratis) this is something I’d have gone out of my way to get my hands on and you should too.

Raul Martin Citipati

Oh and finally I should add that all the images here were provided by the publishers who allowed me to use them to promote the work. They and / or the artists retain the copyright on these images.

John Conway’s Tarbosaurus chasing Gallimimus.

A very Brazilian pterosaur

Back in 2010, the Pterosaur.net boys and girls descended on Beijing for the Flugsaurier meeting. A good time was had by all (well, as far as I could tell) and while pterosaur researchers generally get together to argue, one of the things that was sorted out was that the next meeting would be in Brazil in 2013.

The conference fieldtrip in China included many a long drive in a minibus to get between the various localities and museum in Liaoning. On one of these journeys I had (what I thought) was a great idea for Brazil and John Conway was unfortunate enough to be sat next to me and feel the full force of Dave explaining his new concept. However, fortunately for me, John loved it and went with it. We pitched it as a possible logo for the conference and while they have picked their own (which is lovely) they have included our effort (I say ‘our’, John did the whole thing) on their pages, so it seemed an appropriate time to post this to a wider audience.

In my head I had the idea of pterosaur heads being bold and colourful, and that’s very true of the Brazilian flag. Add to that the huge size of some of their crests and at least one Brazilian genus, Tupanadactylys, that was big enough that it could pass for a flag at the right angle and with a bit of imagination. So here it is, a truly Brazilian pterosaur.

My very own Darwinopterus

As readers will remember, a couple of weeks back I dropped in on Luis Rey to talk over dinosaurs, pterosaurs, classic rock albums and help him get a blog up and running for his new artwork. Inevitably the conversation at one point turned to thinks Luis hadn’t yet done and things I was interested in seeing. I noted that for all the raft of pterosaurs Luis had thrown out in recent year, neither Darwinopterus or any of it’s close relatives had made it into his collection and given the novelty and importance of these taxa, it should surely be high on the priority list.

Luis simply suggested I sketch what I had in mind and he’d have a go. The turn around was rapid and the result was beautiful and here it is already:

I sent Luis some images of the wonderful Darwinopterus robustodens specimen as a source for proportions and general anatomy and produced a sketch of the posture I wanted. I can’t remember ever having seen a picture of a pterosaur about to land on a tree and that’s what I went for. I’ve seen plenty of them in trees, flying between trees and even taking off, but not in the act of landing. I’m also a big fan of unusual image shapes for art and love things that eschew the normal A4-type proportions, so I specifically asked for something very tall and thin to emphasise the height of the tree and the wingstroke. Anything other than that is shackling the artist (especially when it’s Luis) and something I don’t like to do if I can avoid it, so I said nothing about colours, patterns, background etc.

Anyway, here it is (and here it is on Luis’ pages). My massive thanks to him for his work and for crediting me with far too much. Head over there and tell him how awesome it is for me.

Interview with David Krentz

Today we turn to David Krentz and a real shift from the more traditional palaeoart which has mostly been covered here. Until recently, David was best known for his dinosaur sculptures – hardly a rare medium, but one that’s barely made it into the pages of the Musings, but his work with moving pictures means he’s also been heavily involved in documentaries and even movies, not least being the director of the recent Dinotasia. I’m grateful to David for his time and the load of his art. As ever, the copyright stays with him and these images should not be reproduced or used without his permission.

How long have you been producing palaeoart?

If you mean how long have I been drawing prehistoric life, than I’d say from around 2 or 3 years old.  I have kept some old books that I drew in the margins of, and they are dated to the early 70s.  By Kindergarten I was in full force already.  I saw the Marx playset and all I wanted to do was make clay dinosaurs.  The teacher realized I was hopeless and did something very innovative.  She took me aside and said “David, for one week you can make a giant display of dinosaurs with clay, and at the end of the week you tell the whole class about it”.  When the week was over and I did my presentation I had found ‘my voice’ and also the power of sharing your knowledge and passions with others.  Of course dinosaurs waxed and waned during my school years, but they were always my first love.  I did know from around third or fourth grade that I wanted to make dinosaur movies though, and that never went away.

What first got you interested in dinosaurs and art?

For a lot of people its the first museum visit.  Growing up in Winnipeg Canada we didn’t have any great skeletons in the museum, I didn’t see a T.rex skeleton until I went to college in California!  For me it was books, movies and toys.  I don’t know about an interest in art, it was never deliberate.  I just wanted to get the images in my head down on paper or in clay (later with super-8 movies) in the best way possible.  It was all self taught and never labored, just executed till it look good.

 
What is your favourite piece of palaeo art that you have produced?

I’m my own worst critic.  A lot of my stuff I can’t stand to look at.  I’d say that my Gorgosaurus sculpture called “Judith” is my favourite (above).  I created it when I was taking many liberties designing characters for the Disney Dinosaur movie.  The piece was therapy.  I’d come home after putting lips on Iguanodons and try my redeem myself with Judith.  It was my first real attempt at a studied and serious sculpture.  I tried to put all of my knowledge of motion and animation in it, because I felt that is one thing I could bring to the world of Paleoart.  I’m also pretty happy with some of the digital models I did for Dinosaur Revolution and feature film Dinotasia (below).

Who is your favourite palaeoartist or piece of palaeoart?

Oh man…I hate this question.  Sin of Omission and all that.  I’d say the most influential would be Bill Stout…his book from the 80’s blew me away.  I was hooked on Doug Henderson‘s work the second I saw it..he is no doubt my favourite artist.  For sculptures I’d have to say Tony McVey.  For all of these artists its hard to name a favourite.
Since I’m also in Dinosaur Movie guy I should name some of the most influential movies as well.  King Kong would be seminal to my imagination. Star Wars ( I know..but there were dinosaurish creatures) for making me yearn to do THAT for a living.  Phil Tippets Prehistoric Beast ( see…he worked on Star Wars!)  completely set me on fire when I seriously considering learning film making.  When Jurassic Park came out I was already a jaded-snob, and I’d still hold Prehistoric Beast against it.  Don’t get me wrong, JP was a game changer, but I was just too critical in my early 20s to really let it move me.

What is your favourite dinosaur / archosaur?

Gorgosaurus, and I also love centrosaurs in general.  Gorgosaurus/Albertosaurus is just plain sexy.  Greg Paul is to blame for that.  He made it look so appealing and athletic to me.

Is there any animal you would like to paint but have not?

Like a lot of PaleoArtists I’d have to say the answer changes daily.  Some days I realize just how amazing a Deinotherium is and then the next a prosauropod takes my fancy.

What do you think is the most important part of good palaeoart?

Getting a personal relationship with the subject matter.  If its a Hendersonian landscape I have a feeling that I’m in the scene hiding under a log an holding my breath.  If its an isolated dinosaur against a white background or a sculpture than I’d say gesture (pose) and character.  Its really important to get a sense of motion and weight and even more so to be drawn to the animals eyes.  I don’t want to know what the animal is as much as I do WHO it is.  I don’t care about the type specimen, I want character.  I understand that maybe is not the most desired answer for a scientific subject yet that my point of view.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – to quote Saint-Exupery – ” If the sculptor has nothing but science his hands will have no art”.