Dinos

Raptor

I've been following the blog, Love in the time of Chasmosaurs. Great blog if you love dinosaurs, Which I kind of forgot that I did. Anyway, there's always lots of talk on there about dinosaurs being feathered, which everyone is pretty certain they were now. The idea kinda creeps me out. Birds have always been scary to me for some reason that I could never explain, so to add feathers to a Raptor or Trex, well it conjures images that are horrifying and fascinating at the same time. So I doodled this little guy- no particular species just something in the raptor vein.

Sniff

I really don't have an explanation for this one.

I was on a kick drawing dinos and dragons, and doodled this little dino down on all fours, looking intently at something. So I figured he needed something to be investigating. I can't decide of this little primative mammal is lifting his arm on purpose or if the dino is forcing his nose in against the little guys will.

Dino-dragons

Just two more doodles from my session of drawing giant reptilian beasts the other day.

Dinosaurs!

Like I mentioned in a previous post, I really am not very good at drawing dinosaurs. A life of drawing cartoons has left me with a poor sense of non-cute proportions- thus my dinos end up looking cute or wacky or mutated, but rarely do they look, well, correct. But I keep trying. Here's one where I tried to be a little more free with it, keeping the proportions caricatured but still trying to give it that creepy predatory look (and you can see I abandoned the idea of giving him a ridge of spikes down his back).

Below I really wanted to depict a scene from the book version of Jurassic Park where the T-Rex follows the heroes into a river. Inspired by that, I wanted to show the moment where he emerges, with water flowing off his great leathery head. Being done from memory, it has none of the strength of the T-Rex from the film, and looks more like the classic Godzilla to me. And I added the small man in the fishing boat- who looks more confused than scared.

Blankenship-osaurus

I love ultra realistic drawings and paintings of Dinosaurs. Having drawn cartoons most of my life though, my sense of proportion is very definately skewed, and so it's tough for me to draw these amazing creatures with anything close to the majesty that they must have really possessed. Generally they come out looking more like Flintstones dinosaurs. However, my friend and follower Brian Blankenship does some amazing dinosaur illustrations, and they inspired me to draw one. Mind you this is nothing like the way he does his, but the effect he captures so well was inspiring nonetheless. I especially like this one and this one. Actually, mine isn't based on any actual dinosaur, so much as just the whole bird/dinosaur connection. It's heavily inspired by a trip to the LA Zoo near dusk a few years ago. Just as I approached the pen, a cassowary came charging out from some foliage and ran past where I stood at the fence. Watching this giant bird lope by I was instantly reminded of the Gallimimus' in Jurassic Park. I've always thought birds were a bit creepy, with their vacant staring eyes and scaly legs. It's not hard to imagine that they are an offshoot of the dinosaurs.