dontmesswithdinosaurs.com

Shunosaurus vs. Szechuanosaurus (rough sketch)

I inked the whole thing and then realized I hated how the dinosaurs were drawn. So I’m redrawing them (rough sketch above). I’m fairly happy with the gingko, though:

Kem Kem revisited: Cladocyclus pankowskii predates on Diplomystus sp. as undescribed Lepidotes(?) forage for aquatic snails on the bottom. Illustration by Brian Engh.

Did you know that you can buy undiscovered species online?

This piece was commissioned by Mark Pankowski. He buys unusual fossils from fossil dealers and donates them to museums for scientific description. If it weren’t for him the big terrifying fish at the top of the illustration (Cladocyclus pankowskii [named after him!]), and the big ugly fish foraging for snails on the bottom (Undescribed species, possibly Lepidotes sp.) might never have been known to science. Turns out, huge numbers of rare fossils are sold to collectors all the time, and many of them are undescribed or scientifically significant.

Mark found out about me from my Spinosaur illustration which features two Cladocyclus pankowskii. Can you find them?
HINT:

When I did the spinosaur illustration only Lepidotes’ distinctive scales were known from the Kem Kem beds of Morocco (where Cladocyclus pankowski and Spinosaurus aegyptiacus are found), so I reconstructed the Lepidotes referencing the european species L. maximus. The fish featured foraging on the bottom in the new illustration for Mark is based on skull material form the Kem Kem that Mark recently donated and is awaiting description… and it looks very Lepidotes-like. If indeed it is Lepidotes, then it is probably the same species as in the Spinosaur illustration.

If only I’d done the Spinosaurus illustration a few months later!!

Sinraptor dongi life restoration/head detail. Pencil on paper (to be colored digitally)

I meant to post on this a little while back when my plans became official, but I got carried away drawing and I didn’t. Anyway, I’m doing my first gallery show…
and it’s all paleo-art.

That means don’t mess with dinosaurs. In an art gallery.

The show is in September so I’m taking most of the summer off to draw dinosaurs and other paleo-monsters pretty exclusively. The gallery is called “The Bone Room Presents” and it specializes in natural history art. It’s located in Berkeley California, so if you’re in the area between the dates of September 2nd to October 5th I hope you’ll stop by. In the meantime, I’ll try to keep up with regular posts of rough sketches and finished pieces as I work through them. Here’s a rough layout of an illustration I’m doing of a Shunosaurus defending its young from some basal Sinraptorid theropods (“Schezuanosaurus zigonensis?”):

The big tree on the left will be a Ginkgo yimaensis, once it is fully rendered. The big weird things hanging from the ginkgo’s branches are called “chichi” (breasts) in Japan. Very ancient ginkgos get them and I thought it would be cool to draw a huge gnarly ancient tree… With breasts.

Anyway, I’m aiming to finish between 10 and 14 new full color illustrations, and I will be showing both the pencil on paper originals as well as prints of the digitally colored finished pieces. I’m in contact with a few paleontologists too, and they’ve been really helpful giving scientific feedback on some of my rough sketches. In that regard, I’m sort of in a ‘pre-production’ phase right now, doing tons of research, amassing reference and getting feedback from experts on my rough sketches in the hopes that everything I produce is as scientifically accurate as possible.

Speaking of which… if you are a scientist who is interested in having a life restoration done for a species you’re working on (or you know of a colleague, friend or enthusiast who is) don’t hesitate to get in touch with me either by leaving a comment or by emailing me directly
(preferred). I figure it’s more worth my time to produce a series of illustrations that will both be seen in my show as well as serve another purpose, scientific or otherwise. Take this piece for example:

I’m just finishing up this commission for a fellow named Mark Pankowski. He donated the type fossils of the fish at the top to the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian then sent the fossils off to Dr. Peter Forey at the Natural History Museum in London. When he determined that the fossils represented a new species of prehistoric tarpon of the genus Cladocyclus, he honored Mark’s contribution to science by calling it Cladocyclus pankowski. The pencil on paper original and a colored print will go to Mr. Pankowski, and another color print will be shown at my show in September. The colored version is very close to finished and I’ll be posting it very soon.

Thanks for checking in! If you want to leave some critical feedback or if you just want to nerd-out about your favourite prehistoric monsters, I encourage you to leave a comment. Or like, five. I get way amped when I get comments.

Seriously. I draw all day and I don’t get out much.