Alright, so I waited until the very end before deciding to paint a Cryolophosaurus. I had this sudden idea and thought...I need to paint something for PT magazine. The next dino feature is a Cryo. Let's paint it standing on a hill. Sniffing the air. In a sunset. Backlit.
OMG! This painting I was sure would fail from the start. Leave it to me to start it 3 days before the due date. Backlighting is HARD to paint! And throw in a sunset full of cloud patterns and colors. Whoa, it was a stupid idea and from the sketch I thought well...I can always just paint over it.
To my surprise it actually went relatively smoothly and I don't hate it. This is actually my first painting of a therapod. I find them difficult to get inspired by. Not sure why. Plus I'm partial to hadrosaurs, so am always looking for an excuse to paint them:-)
So, thankfully I learned that this guy was more like Dilophosaurus than the more robust Cryo's that are rendered. So I made my Cryo very gracile. To me, dinosaurs were beautiful animals and I want to try my best to portray them that way. Here, this Cryo is testing the wind, maybe has the scent of a female or prey.
I gave him a light coating of feathers on his neck and tail, mostly to break up the outline and add some interest. Backlighting is so hard to paint for me and to avoid the "halo effect" of the subject being outlined in bright light.
I had some problems coming up with a color pattern that would suit the backlight effect. I chose a piebald coloring (finally) so I could paint those gorgeous pinks, oranges and purples in the light colored areas.
So, overall I'm happy with it and happy it didn't fail!!! My first therapod, and sunset painting:-)
Not perfect at all...so I hope I improve as time goes on, but at least I don't hate it:-)
Take care!!!
