Draw Dinovember Day 30 Tyrannosaurus rex

Draw Dinovember Day 29 Amargasaurus

Draw Dinovember Day 28 Carnotaurus

Draw Dinovember Day 27 Corythosaurus

Draw Dinovember Day 26 Ceratosaurus

Draw Dinovember Day 25 Pachycephalosaurus

Draw Dinovember Day 24 Therizinosaurus

Draw Dinovember Day 23 Dilophosaurus

Draw Dinovember Day 22 Cryolphosaurus

Draw Dinovember Day 21 Triceratops

Draw Dinovember Day 20 Archaeopteryx

Draw Dinovember Day 19 Scelidosaurus

Draw Dinovember Day 18 Charcharodontosaurus

Hi all,  just wanted to say thanks to all of you who have been following along with my Dinovember posts.  I wanted to let you know that I will be headed off to CTN Animation Expo tomorrow.  There's a possibility that my Dinovember posts will be put on hold for a few days while the convention is underway.  I will try my best to continue posting but I'm not sure what the internet situation will be like, or if I will have time to sketch while managing my table. 

If there is a pause I will resume the Dinovember posts starting next week.  I would like to have a full set of 30 illustrations for Dinovember so I will be making up for the days I missed whether that means some of these trickle over into December, or possibly doing double posts for a bit I'm not sure yet. Once again thanks to all of you for stopping by my gallery and taking a look at my artwork.  If there are any of you out there who are able to make it to CTN this weekend please stop by and say hi.  I'll be at table 123.

Draw Dinovember Day 17 Apatosaurus

Draw Dinovember Day 16 Deinonychus

Draw Dinovember Day 15 Lythronax

Draw Dinovember Day 14 Stegosaurus

Draw Dinovember Day 13 Spinosaurus

Draw Dinovember Day 12 Saurolophus

Draw Dinovember Day 11 Euoplocephalus

Draw Dinovember Day 10 Acrocanthosaurus & Sauroposeidon

Acrocanthosaurus attacking a juvenile Saouroposeidon.

Draw Dinovember Day 9 Diabloceratops

Draw Dinovember Day 8 Gallimimus

Draw Dinovember Day 7 Baryonyx

Draw Dinovember Day 6 Chasmosaurus

Draw Dinovember Day 5 Chirostenotes

Draw Dinovember Day 4 Kentrosaurus

Draw Dinovember Day 3 Allosaurus

Draw Dinovember Day 2 Brachiosaurus

Draw Dinovember Day 1 Velociraptor

Starting day 1 of Dinovember with Velociraptor

Draw Dinovember

As we are nearing the end of October, I've been thinking more and more about the coming month of November.  Lots of cool stuff is going on next month.  I'll be at CTN Animation Expo on the 20th-22nd sharing a table with my Fiance.  Preparations for that are still underway.     

I've also begun to think about participating in a little something called Draw Dinovember.  Yes, the whole month of November is dedicated to drawing, painting, and sculpting my most favorite things,  Dinosaurs.

I'm not exactly sure where this all started.  After doing a some research my best guess is that it began with Refe and Susan Tuma and a tradition they started to spark their children's imaginations. They convinced their four kids that during the month of November their plastic dinosaur toys come to life at night and have adventures in their house.  In the morning their kids wake up to find these dinosaurs in different scenes and situations.  The dinosaurs tear up rooms, have tea parties, play games, interrogate other toys and generally make a mess of their house.  Each day is a new scenario.  The scenes they create are super creative and funny and a lot of them have been photographed.  You can find photos on their Facebook page or compiled in their books "What the Dinosaurs did Last Night" and "What the Dinosaurs did Last Night: A Very Messy Adventure."

Last year I saw a few artists take this concept and run with it, creating dinosaur sketches, paintings, and sculptures throughout the month, calling it Draw Dinovember.  Unfortunately, I became aware of the whole thing too late to actually participate. I'd really like to take part in it this year.  I've started thinking about the dinosaurs I'd like to draw and there's still some scheduling issues to figure out, but I'm really excited for this.  I'd like to encourage other artists to join in next month.  Also if you have any suggestions for dinosaurs you'd like to see me draw, feel free to drop a comment.  

Pachycephalosaurus In Prehistoric Times Magazine

I just got my copy of Issue #115 of Prehistoric Times Magazine yesterday.  I'm really excited to see that my Pachyecphalosaurus skeleton made it into the issue!  Just wanted to say thanks to Mike Fredricks for including my artwork in such a great magazine. 

 

Pachycephalosaurus Skeleton

I've been working on this reconstruction of Pachycephalosaurus for the past few weeks. I've finally gotten the skeleton to a place I feel comfortable moving forward with.

Most of my time went into  working on the cervical and dorsal vertebrae and the ribs.  I wasn't initially planning on sculpting these at all.  I usually treat the cervical, dorsal and caudal vertebrae as very simple structures, using a primitive forms to represent the general size and shape of the rib cage, and vertebrae. I used to cringe at the idea of having to sculpt each vertebrae individually, especially considering that I was going to cover it all with muscle and skin anyway.

However I came across a couple cool techniques, thanks to Ryan Kingslien and his Artistic Anatomy in Zbrush course at Uartsy.  He had a process that made sculpting the vertebral columns and ribs in humans seem very manageable.  I decided to try and apply the techniques I learned to my skeleton of Pachycephalosaurus.   There were some adjustments I had to make to get everything to work correctly, and as I said it still took a good chunk of time to get everything in place, mostly because dinosaurs have many more vertebrae than humans do.  In the end, I was able to tackle the vertebrae and ribs without having my head explode which is a really good thing.

I may decide to take this further and make the skeleton it's own sculpture, or I may stop working on the skeleton and begin focusing on a flesh reconstruction.  I'm not too sure at the moment so I guess we'll see where it goes from here.   

T-Rex Ecorche

I did this mostly as a test of a new digital painting and sketching program I picked up recently called Clip Studio Paint.  I needed some subject matter to sketch, so I chose to draw a dinosaur and get some studying in at the same time. 

I started with a sketch of a T-Rex skeleton based on a photo.  I decided that I'd go ahead and add the muscle and flesh layers on top of it.  I've become more and more obsessed with finding information on dinosaur muscles since I've started sculpting them more frequently.  I've found that it can be pretty hard to find good references for them.  There are a couple really great drawings, that I use often, by Scott Hartman and Gregory S. Paul that helped a lot with this sketch.

Overall this was a pretty fun exercise, and I absolutely love Clip Studio Paint.  I was able to jump in and get sketching pretty quickly.  It's close enough to Photoshop, as far as menus and things go, that I didn't have to fumble around too much to get to the tools and options I wanted.  The brushes perform beautifully and have such a natural feel.  I especially like the colored pencil brush. I think its definitely replaced Photoshop as my favorite digital sketching tool.  I have to experiment more with the painting side of things, but I've heard good things about it from friends and co-workers.  I'm really excited to continue experimenting with the program. 
   

Anhanguera Santanae

This is my reconstruction of Anhanguera santanae, based on skeletal and anatomical information from John Conway, Julia Molnar, and Mike Habib.  I've also included a few shots of the preparation I did for a 3D print of this model, and some pictures of the final 3d Prints I received from Shapeways and Sculpteo.