Reign of the Dinosaurs

Do you like dinosaurs? Of course you do. Because they are that awesome!

I've been lucky enough to be a VFX artist onboard this fantastic upcoming Discovery mini-series for about a year now. I'm having a great time modeling and painting dinosaurs all day long:) And working with great people too!

So if you love dinosaurs, or even just a great adventure you will love "Reign". Watch for it this year, dinosaurs are so awesome!

:)

Edmontosaurs Model

Edmontosaurus is one of my fav dinos. How awesome is this guy?

I'm uploading him to Shapeways along with the Gryposaurus. I've ordered both models first to make sure they are indeed printable. Sometimes they slip thru Shapeways testing phase and I have to fix them.

Anyway, they will both be available ASAP, along with some others. AND I will be selling the models I get and paint:-) So look for those on my Ebay store in the future. I'll of course post them here first.

Cheers!

New Shapeways dinos!

Well, I got around to completing a bunch of new dinosaurs in Lightwave. I've already uploaded a cool looking Gryposaurus at my Shapeways shop and more will be on their way within the next week or so. The models are built, I just need to pose them which can take awhile.

Anyway, Gryposaurus for now. Soon I'll have a Corythosaurus, Edmontosaurus, Maiasaura, Saurolophus and others available. Then I'll move on to making some Stegosaurs.

My Shapeways Store


Enjoy!

Painted figure

Alrighty, got to paint up one of my figures (Brachylophosaurus) that was printed from my CGI model. And here she is:) I was happy with how it turned out and plan on putting her in a diorama. I'm pretty sure she is screaming at a Tyrannosaur...telling him where to stick it :-D

My CGI Dinos turned into figures...

Okay, so I saw this link posted by someone over in the dino figure forum and had to try it. They turn your CG into REAL models!!! OK, as awesome as this sounds, it takes a little getting used to modeling for a real figure. Plus, it isn't that cheap to do. Reasonable, but not cheap.

I tried it with 2 of my dinos. I had to pose them so that they would stand in the real world, make them watertight and hollow to cut down on the cost. It took me awhile.

Then I ordered them up (had to redo the Brachy once as there was a problem with it while printing) and they made it from the Netherlands to my doorstep today:)

They are about 1/75 in size, comparable to the dinotales figures for those of you that collect figures.

They feel a little delicate, but not to much so, just don't drop them! And they are paintable!!!

I'll hopefully get to painting them soon. Anyway, here they are.

If you want to buy one here is my store:

My Shapeway Store!!

They come in large and small and I'll be adding new dinosaurs to my store as I am able. After I make them, I order a small for myself b4 I make them available, so I can make sure they are printed well.

Anyway, tell me what you think!

Later!

Nothing like Last Minute-itis...Cryolophosaurus

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!!!

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:-)