Finally got to doing another sketch at the Idaho Museum of Natural History. Here's their oviraptorosaur mount from a different angle because ovis just have the most lovely profiles.

(Also because - to my deepest shame - I only recently learned that scleral rings are actually located inside the eyball, not outside of it, and thus most of the eyes on my life restorations are actually too small. My hunger for scientific accuracy compels me to therefore re-draw every fossil mount with correctly proportioned eyes. Alas, this is the sort of thing that happens when one majored in animation in college instead of paleontology.)

You may notice that I don't usually restore a dinosaur the same way twice. That's because I don't really have a "headcanon" for how any particular dinosaur ought to look, outside of what's been confirmed by fossil evidence (for example, Borealopelta was reddish-brown with a lighter underside, Microraptor was extensively feathered, etc.). So I enjoy experimenting with different looks, including feathering extent/patterns, pupil shape, and the like. Honestly that's one of the fun parts about paleoart for me, is that there's a considerable amount of creative wiggle room.

More sketching fun from the Idaho Museum of Natural History! They've got a Protoceratops mount in their current fossil exhibition about fossils from the Wayan Formation. While no fossils from the Wayan have yet been identified as Protoceratops, there are a few fragments of ceratopsian fossils that may have belonged to a close relative, as around that time there was a land bridge between Asia and western North America, and the fauna of the Wayan is very reminiscent of parts of Asia (including my homies the oviraptorosaurs).

I gave it whiskers because Protoceratops remind me a bit of pigs (in a good, cute way). It could have happened!

Another thing that's fun about sketching paleoart from fossil mounts in real life is that you can choose whatever angle you want; most photos of fossil mounts on the Internet are side views, sometimes face-on, but in this case I was standing right next to something about the size of a golden retriever and wanted to try drawing it from my vantage point looking down at it. I think the result actually gives more of an impressions like you're taking the family pet out for a walk; much more nonthreatening than dinosaurs are often portrayed. 

More sketching from the Idaho Museum of Natural History! Have I mentioned lately how much I love living five minutes away from a natural history museum?

This one was inspired by a chat with Dr. L. J. Krumenacker at a recent museum event where we discussed the mobility range of Oryctodromeus tails (pro tip, if you come give a paleontology lecture at the museum I will badger you with weird questions afterward). Oryctos, like most ornithopods, had tails that were strongly reinforced with tendons, limiting up-down flexibility (so no, no tail-dragging hadrosaurs like you see in older art), but Dr. Krumenacker said these tendons didn't affect lateral movement. I was seeking to understand how it is that oryctos had tails longer than their bodies but lived in burrows only 25 centimeters in diameter, and I suspect they curled up rather like this.

If you'll notice, a little friend is peeking in to say hello; fossil orycto burrows have indeed been found with much smaller burrows off to the sides, strongly suggesting that mammals co-opted the tunnels like a Cretaceous apartment building.

 

Another sketch from the Idaho Museum of Natural History! Went for a portrait view of Oryctodromeus this time.

Had another sketching day at the Idaho Museum of Natural History! Here's Oryctodromeus, Idaho's state dinosaur, and interestingly enough the only (currently) named dinosaur from Idaho. Quite a few dinosaur remains have been found in the Wayan Formation of eastern Idaho, but they're mostly so fragmentary that not enough material has been found yet to establish any new species. Except for the oryctos which were evidently everywhere.

Oryctodromeus means "digging runner", and most illustrations show their burrowing habits, so I thought I'd draw one living up to the other half of its name and running! They actually had rather long tails that this illustration doesn't do justice, but I ran out of room on the paper.

Did more sketching at the Idaho Museum of Natural History! One of the things I've really been enjoying about sketching fossils from... erm... life...? is the ability to actually view them in three dimensions instead of being relegated to whatever angles are represented in imagery available online. It gives me the ability to pose them much more dynamically and understand their physiology better.

Maybe I made their tyrannosauroid a bit too happy, but I just can't help but imagine him living his best dino life.

Idaho's giant oviraptorosaur! (I know the neck is a little wonky, I was trying to fit the whole thing on the page and maybe didn't succeed.) I suspect these guys had a little more of an upright posture than the average theropod, because with those relatively short tails, spending all their time with their necks extended more horizontally may have presented some balance issues. Their tails were also probably heavily feathered, which helped to provide more weight to counterbalance the front end.

Took a stab (pun intended) at Dinogorgon, one of the species featured on the museum's cool timeline wall that gives a great picture of the history of Earth's biota over the past 400 million years. I've drawn plenty of gorgonopsids before, but Dinogorgon is a rubidgeine, a subclass that were more heavily built. They also have these wide bony flanges on either side of their skulls that probably helped anchor powerful jaw muscles because they were bitey boys. I probably make my gorgonopsids look too mammalian but that's okay because it's cute.*

*This is why I am banned from professional paleoart.**

**Just kidding. I think.

Did more sketching at the Idaho Museum of Natural History! They've got a lovely mount of an oviraptorosaur that hasn't been described yet. It was fun to put flesh on the bones. I took a lot of cues from cassowaries in this reconstruction because the similarities are quite striking. Maybe this fellow had bright blue skin too?

Also, something I've just now come to consider and appreciate is that, excepting their feet, birds do not have scales--under their feathers and in non-foot featherless areas, they have skin. So that's been getting me thinking that it's very probable that at least some maniraptorian groups had limited scale coverage. I find it fun to play around with different ways to reconstruct prehistoric species. Birds themselves actually have quite a range of feathering schemes, so maybe non-avian dinos did too?

Did some sketching at the Idaho Museum of Natural History! They have a lovely little mount of a native tyrannosauroid that I don't think has been named yet.

While "tyrannosaur" is popularly synonymous with "enormous", early tyrannosauroids were actually quite small. T. rex had to come from somewhere!

Sat outside and doodled today! Don't you just love the smells of summer? I love summer except when it's too hot. It will probably be in the triple digits here by July, so I figured I'd get my actually-enjoying-summer in while I could.

Anyway, here is Quinny being her epic lucent mage self! She's casting the bifrost spell, which creates a rainbow bridge that she can skate on. I needed a way for her to get around quickly and I felt like sprouting wings was boring.

Blahhh it's been a super long time between posts and I'm sorry! :( I am trying really hard to finish this Neopets fic so I can move on with my life and start writing that next novel, but life keeps getting in the way. It's almost done, though! It's at nearly 30,000 words and we're coming up on the big climax. And then I'll have finally felt like I've sent my Neopets cast off fondly.

But in the meantime, the other day I did something I haven't done in ages and sat down and just doodled! Here are some of the results (click for larger size).

Sometimes I like to doodle human versions of my Neopets characters! Purely to play around with character design and see what they would look like as humans--I don't think they'd ever actually work as human characters because there's a lot of instances where their Neopet species' physiology comes into play in the stories. But anyway it was just a not-too-serious thought exercise.

Also this was the point at which I realized I'd like some better sketching markers--the ones I was using were in a limited range of colors, and I imagine human Kass would have a darker skin tone but I just could not get myself to give him bright orange skin. Next time I'm in the vicinity of a craft store I'll have to pick up some more neutral colors.

Also, trying to tinker with a suuuuper old character design (I'm talking high school here) and I think I came up with something pretty cute. I actually might use this design in a science fiction novel concept I've been tossing around (maybe the novel I'll work on after this next one). That one will be a lot of fun--it's about spacetime going haywire and quantum entanglement and what do you do when you were en route to the Moon and suddenly you're in the middle of the Andromeda Galaxy with a motley crew of alien space pirates???? Should be good times.

And why not, here's some older Neopets art that I like too. :)

I drew this for my Neopets user profile back before Photobucket egmsploded and disallowed direct linking. :( Maybe someday I'll try to find another image host. This picture encapsulates everything my Neopian family is about: adventure, hijinks, and magical weapons of questionable origins. (Not pictured: Werelupes.)

(Terra's sword is not actually all that cool compared to her Neopets', but it probably still has at least a few enchantments on it, just to be safe.)

I really like this picture of Isengrim because he looks suitably smug and cocky. Well, when you're the Werelupe King you can afford to ooze confidence.

Concept art for Terra from "Return to Lynwood", which is still one of my favorite things I have written lately. One of the things I really love about Neopia is how there are so many different cultures, and when you adventure as much as Terra's family does, you get to experience all the fun things those cultures have to offer. Terra probably picked up a lot of this garb in Meridell, and it's her go-to outfit for travel in more temperate climes such as the Haunted Woods. Also it just looks epic.

Concept art for Lexora, who went from a one-off character in a short story to a major main character in "Return to Lynwood". Because that's how I roll. The Haunted Woods is usually given a Victorian flair on-site, but I went with a more Edwardian edge for Barrowmere because I like the Edwardian era better, both in terms of society and fashion. (Just say no to corsets!) Sassy Edwardian tiger-ladies are the best.

Celice really rocks mages' robes. Not only does she look awesome in them, but it's actually been established in "The Spirit of Black Keep" that she channels her magic through her robes. Because some sorceresses just have that much style. (This one made it into the Art Gallery!)

More Isengrim looking suitably regal. Maybe he commissioned a Brightvalian artist to draw his portrait? (Or maybe just Terra did it.) I used a bit of a different technique for this one, doing the line art with ink on paper, and then scanning it in it and coloring it digitally. It did make for some lovely line work.

This one's just a random character design... I should not say that I may turn her into a character someday because then I will want to and this is how my insane 12-part series happen. Anyway, I just wanted to try drawing a Grundo Virtupets officer, because my headcanon is that, although mutated Grundos make up a large bulk of Dr. Sloth's military forces, there are still a number of un-mutated Grundos who work for him in various capacities (such as Dothan Reebitz, a former Virtupets communications officer). This gal looks like maybe she's a member of Commander Garoo's void ops strike forces. I write about Virtupets when I feel like pretending I'm a space-military author.

Still really like these portraits of Pharazon and Celice. Pharazon's character arc has been especially fun, as he's one of my more dynamic Neopets characters. He went from someone whose inherent magic was sparkly but ineffective, to someone who realized he could actually do things with his power, and after a few missteps is finally on the path to using his magic the way he feels it was intended to be used. Also, as an aside, note that he usually has his wings folded down his back. Faerie wings, pretty as they are, are also pretty unwieldy if they're constantly sticking out from one's back, so it's my headcanon that most - if not all - faeries and faerie-painted Neopets keep their wings in a resting position most of the time.

And finally, here are some concept sketches for "Worth Fighting For", waaaay back in the day (and by that I mean 2013), because I still love 'em. Dothan is down there in the bottom left--he would later co-star alongside Hyren in "Never Again, Spiced Apple Pie" which is still great. Sophix V is as fun to draw as she is to write. I feel like she just has some ridiculously large 80's hair and it's fabulous. Must be an Alien Aisha thing.

Also, yes, I bothered to design Hyren's and Terra's swords, because swords are an important part of life. If you're curious, on the left is the shortsword that Terra used in that story and Hyren now uses because for his size, it makes a good regular sword. On the right is the claymore he used when he was a 7-foot-tall mutant, and which he later gifted to Isengrim, who, being 8 feet tall, can wield it equally effectively as a mutant Grundo. Both swords are of ancient faerie make and are magically durable and rustproof, so they're treasures in the family, as well as just plain being formidable weapons.

Christmas present for my grandma, who loves giraffes. :) Bird in the background is a palm nut vulture, which are native to sub-Saharan Africa.

Giraffes are fun. The ones at my local zoo are super friendly and like saying hi to people. Sometimes I feel like zoos are where animals get free entertainment every day, watching all of the funny humans pass by.

Micron pen on sketchbook paper.