Hadrosaurs...the most beautiful of dinosaurs

At least to me. Everyone who knows me knows that I love these things. It pains me to always see them portrayed running in fear, falling over dying at the mere roar of a predator, always colored a dull grey. Always...boring. Just meat for those cool Tyrannosaurs.

I imagine them as very graceful, beautiful creatures. The males may well have been fantastically colored. Brilliant shades of everything to attract females or to show off to a predator that he was a healthy adult bull perfectly capable of defending himself and his herd.

And so I can't stop drawing these color keys. These are just simple sketches meant to try out different variations on color for my 3D models. So just getting my ideas out before I finish my models.

Let grey, boring Hadrosaurs be no more;)

Color Design

While I've been on the project "Reign of the Dinosaurs" I've had the opportunity to create a lot of color designs and found that I really love painting interesting patterns for dinosaurs.

This is something I've done for a dinosaur I am making for my own portfolio (its not for Reign). I love hadrosaurs and have chosen the beautiful species Orolotitan to model and paint.

I went with some nice color pattern to accent the head, possibly this is a male and his colors are meant for display purposes. He also has a piebald spotted pattern for the rest of him. Something I've noticed lacking in a lot of dinosaur design is spotted and piebald patterning. Many people like to use vertical stripes on their dinosaurs so I figured this would be a unique take on dinosaur color.

I'll be trying to model this guy and paint him soon:) Enjoy!

New work

Just a couple new wildlife pieces I finished, a bear "In Forest Haunts" and some wolves, "Run With Me". Both are acrylic as usual.

I've got some more wildlife art in the works now and may try mixing the acrylics with watercolor. I'm also working on some new Paleo stuff:-)

New wildlife and Paleoart

Hello!

So I've been busy with trying to get some more wildlife work done and attempting to perfect my colorful, expressive style:) I still have a ways to go, but am happy painting with all those colors.

I'm trying to get ready for this summers county fairs and an art and craft show I am trying to get juried into that will be over in San Francisco this summer. So I am painting a lot and also started some new felted pieces.

So I have a new wolf painting and a coyote portrait. I may still paint some "details" into these paintings, but for now I have them pretty good. A kaleidoscope of colors to make the painting fun and pop off the wall! I also changed some in the "Lobo" painting as I wasn't happy with it, just added more colors, etc.

Anyway, I also finished up the Hadrosaur painting I had been neglecting. Two Brachylophosaurus find their way to the top of a hill overlooking what must be a beautiful prehistoric landscape. This is the same dinosaur as "Leonardo", the famed dinosaur mummy.

I also have adjusted some things to my Styracosaurus painting that I felt needed to be done. After reading about them on Nima's fantastic blog I decided I could do a little better with the frills, etc. Nothing big, but I like it better now. For anyone interested in Paleoart I highly recommend Nima's blog! It looks like it will be a goldmine of information, plus some great artwork to boot:-)

So, I have got some bear paintings coming up and some new paleoart as well. I'll also put up my new felted pieces when they are further along.

Take care:-)

New fox and Wolf...

A couple more colorful acrylic paintings to show. I finished another wolf and painted a potrait of my favorite animal, the red fox.

I'd like to paint a few more wolf and fox paintings as well as some bears and coyote. I'm also finishing up the hadrosaur painting and need to sketch out some new paleo pieces to start.

Brown Bear Finish

I'm calling this one done or very close to it. Some, but not many problems creeped up during painting it (always a good thing!). A big, old, brown bear strolling through the woods.

Brown Bear WIP

More on the brown bear painting. I'm slowly putting in colors in the background...trying to find what looks best. Also adding and subtracting highlights in the bears coat to get him to stand out. Still a ways to go!

Brown Bear WIP

I've started a new little oil painting of a brown bear. This is how I start them, just filling in the animal with the basic "local" colors. I'll add my accent colors later, but already he isn't really brown. There are reds, greens and purples in his coat.

More later...

Forest Fox update

More work and another update. I just love putting all those bits of bright color in the fox and the habitat. To me, it is a lot more interesting and pretty than painting the fox all orange and red. It is art after all:)