New Year, New Stuff

Today was like most Mondays.  I got up, got ready for work, sat at my desk, and took care of business. But as I responded to e-mails, took calls, and finished a few projects, I realized that in three weeks, I'll be back in classes.  I'll have a lot less time on my hands to spend away from course readings, writing papers, and the day to day affairs of a home owning nine-to-fiver.  Right now, I have time, and I'd better start to take advantage of it.

So on my lunch break, I grabbed a sheet of "second life" paper, a number 2 pencil, and I drew.  Nothing fancy; just a 30 minute sketch of a stegosaur.  And it was amazing.  Not the sketch itself.  It looked like one of the lumbering beasts from the books I read as a child.  But the act, just going for it without researching, referencing, or even really thinking about it, was something I hadn't done in a long time.  Too long.  It was absolutely freeing, and exactly what I needed to get myself out of the creative slump I've been in for... well, a while.

Another Day, Another WIP

I now have at least a dozen paleo-art related projects that I've been really excited for, started, and then left on the back burner.  This is one of the more recent that I had hoped to have done for the latest ART Evolved gallery, but alas, still just a work in progress.  Meant as a tribute to the recent series 7 episode of Doctor Who titled "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship", I had hoped to surround the TARDIS with lifelike reconstructions of the ornithodirans featured in the show.  Then I realized I left out the fuzzy juvenile tyrannosaur.  Now if I could just figure out where to put it.

"Ornithodirans on a Spaceship", a work in progress.  Pencil on paper. 

Ornithodirans on a Spaceship

Image used with respect to the copyright holders, the BBC.  From their lovely online gallery.

I've been a horrible blogger, artist, and Whovian lately.  But all that will hopefully change soon.  In the meantime, check out what Brian Switek and Marc Vincent have to say about "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" over at Dinosaur Tracking and Love in the Time of Chasmosaurus, respectively.  And check out the Art Evolved: Life's Time Capsule "A 2nd Pop Culture Gallery" while you're at it.  The Doctor has already made one appearance there as well!

Hopefully the Art Evolved Crew are cool with me using this as well!

It's been a while...

... have a placoderm.

Bothriolepis sp., a freshwater Devonian antiarch placoderm.  Man, check out those pec(toral fin)s.

I've been working on a few other projects recently, so blogging has not been happening so much. Nothing major or life changing, but enough to keep me occupied.  Needless to say, once everything else I have going on is finished up, I should have a lot more content to share, so look forward to that.  I mean, if you want.  If not, well no more fish for you.

It's here!

It's the moment you've all been waiting for.  The Feathered Dinosaur Gallery has been posted to ART Evolved: Life's Time Capsule, and it is quite impressive.  People love theropods, I suppose.  Especially the feathered ones.  I can't say I blame them.  The presence of feathers in non-avian dinosaur groups provides another line of evidence to support the fact that living birds are dinosaurs.  When I was a kid growing up, I never would have imagined we'd have so many wonderfully preserved fossils showing filamentous integumentary structures on the bodies of non-avian animals. Once again, we are not only provided an example of evolution at work, but we also see that new information can be added to an existing body of knowledge, and our scientific understanding can change.  I can't imagine a more appropriate gallery for Darwin Week, so thanks to the crew over at ART Evolved for putting it together, and to everyone who submitted.  It looks great!

My humble submission to an excellent "Time Capsule".  Dave and his buddy play a dangerous game!

Draw A Dinosaur Day 2012!

Monday speed sketch of "Dave" for "DADD".

You may know him as NGMC 91, the feathered dromaeosaurid from the Yixian Formation of Early Cretaceous Liaoning, China.  But "Dave" works just fine for me.  You just may see him pop up here again in the next few days.

Run, Cryolophosaurus, Run!

Per the directions over at Don't Mess with Dinosaurs, I am very excited to share the following video with you.

"Cryolophosaurus Running Test Animation", by Brian Engh of DinosaursReanimated, from YouTube.

Having only seen this video and a few of the rough storyboard images, I'm very excited to see how the "Dinosaurs Reanimated" project evolves.  Be sure to follow all the developments (and give feedback if you have any) over at the Dinosaurs Reanimated Production Blog.

Ahoy, Paleo Pirates!

As some of ye' may know, today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day.  For buccaneers, privateers, proletarian outlaws, an' Pastafarians alike, today is a day of celbratin' for any an' all who call themselves pirate.  So if ye' haven't yet done your duty, avast! Get yerself a tankard of rum, put on yer finest hat, an' hoist the colors!

The jolly roger of the original Paleo Pirates, a work in progress for far too long. If you can deduce the five animals depicted here (in spite of my crude representations), perhaps you have what it takes to join the crew.

The Boneyard 2.9 and the ART Evolved Hadrosaur Gallery

Man.  April was intense.  I don't know what happened, but I'm sure at least a few of you noticed my complete lack of blogging for pretty much the entire month.  Things got a little quiet around here, and for that, I apologize.  But now it's May, which means three important things.

The new "Bone Wars": Greg Paul, science, and the art of paleontology.

*Let me start by saying that I have been sitting on and rewriting this post for nearly a week now. As the conversation has been taking place in e-mails and on the web, my opinions on the subject have been all over the place. But I finally feel that I have something to add the conversation, so here it goes.*

The only time I ever met interacted with Greg Paul was at SVP in Pittsburgh in October 2011. I had picked up a copy of his new book, the somewhat controversial The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, and was thumbing through it, when a voice from behind said, "I hear it's terrible." As I turned around I said, "I don't know, I've always been a fan of his work." I nearly fell over when I realized it was Mr. Paul whom I was speaking with. My girlfriend, who was with me at the time, can attest to this fact. I was speechless for a few seconds, but in the end, I was glad to see that he was capable of having a laugh at himself, and I admired his dry wit as much as I admired his work.

For those of you who don't know Mr. Paul, he is a dinosaur illustrator and researcher who has been influential in establishing the "new look" of dinosaurs over the last several decades. He has published a number of books, scientific papers, magazine and newspaper articles, and illustration guides. He has also hand drawn an extensive collection of skeletal restorations, muscle studies, and life reconstructions that are unparalleled in their accuracy. As is indicated above, I have the utmost respect and appreciation for the work he has done over the years. But my opinion about him started to shift around

a week ago, when he sent to an e-mail to the Dinosaur Mailing List regarding the use of his dinosaur restorations.

Interweb Science of the Week #8

This is probably long overdue, even if we're only eight Fridays into "Interweb Science of the Week". This edition features a website that, for the last two years, has been "the home of Paleo-Art online", hosted 12 galleries, written over 450 posts, and showcased the work of more artists than I can count. That's right folks; this week, ISW goes to none other than the "crew" over at ART Evolved: Life's Time Capsule.

The recently updated ART Evolved banner, from ART Evolved, by five different, uncredited artists.

And another thing...

If you don't blog, but you draw, sculpt, paint, etc. (or if you blog and create art), don't forget that ART Evolved: Life's Time Capsule has a new gallery coming up on March 1st as well. This month will be dedicated to the "terror birds", so if you have something you want to submit, send it on to artevolved(at)gmail(dot)com.

"He says no one's gonna fancy a girl with thighs the size of big tree trunks."

Well that's certainly not true if the interest the media is taking in this lovely lady* is any indication. Meet Brontomerus mcintoshi, a new sauropod from Early Cretaceous of Utah.

*Note: there is no mention that any of the specimens of Brontomerus are in fact female, but I'm going to pretend it's a girl for the sake of title quote.

Speculative life restoration of an adult (female) Brontomerus mcintoshi defending its young from a Utahraptor. Executed by Francisco Gascó under direction from Taylor and Wedel, from Taylor et al. 2011.

Happy (Belated) Draw a Dinosaur Day!

Man, after all the promoting I did last year, it was only natural that this year, the 5th annual "Draw A Dinosaur Day" would go under my radar. Celebrated on 30 January of each year, it's probably the greatest holiday of all time. Luckily, I just so happened to have a dinosaur on standby that I had been working on for another project.

A new (and slightly cartoony) look for Triceratops, a dinosaur that isn't going anywhere (so stop talking about it!)

Big thanks to Trish Arnold for posting a reminder over at ART Evolved: Life's Time Capsule. And be sure to stop by the "DADD" archive/gallery website to see all of the great submissions!

Another year comes to an end.

And what a full year it was. Thinking back to how I started my 2010, it's hard to imagine that 2011 is only moments away. There are several bloggers out there who have already done a wonderful job of gathering up the best of 2010, so I'll keep away from that at the moment. Mostly because I'm working to finish up the public commitments I made for the 2010 Paleo Project Challenge, hosted by Dave Hone of Archosaur Musings and Andy Farke over at The Open Source Paleontologist. I'll admit, my goals were nothing compared to getting papers and manuscripts published, preparing specimens, and writing books. But we all have to start somewhere, right? I figured I should report on the status of the tasks I undertook.

Pink Dinosaurs - The Final Push!

Alright, ladies and gentlemen. On October 31, peter Bond posted an update on the ART Evolved: Life's Time Capsule "Pink Dinosaur" fundraising event, extending it to November 10. This was great for me personally, because it gave me time to finish up and submit all 31 of my pink dinosaurs (one for every day of the month). This was also great for the cause, as it has given everyone more time to submit and raise/donate money.

Happy Halloween!

Ah, Halloween. Spooky costumes, trick-or-treating, haunted houses, and my absolute favorite, jack o' lanterns. Carving pumpkins is something I enjoy greatly, and every year in addition to the standard scary face or two to keep the ghosts and ghouls away, I like to throw a "paleo-pumpkin" into the mix. Last year, I decided the scariest thing I could think of was being attacked by a theropod dinosaur. This year, I found something a lot scarier.

Glendon Mellow's "How Not to Steal Artwork Online"

I woke up Monday morning to an e-mail from Dr. Manabu Sakamoto of the University of Bristol, a respected paleontologist and paleoartist, who blogs over at Raptor's Nest and has a gallery of his original work online. He wrote the ART Evolved e-mail list about the digital theft of some of his work, hoping to alert us all to the importance of copyrighting and clearly stating how you license your work. At first I thought someone had taken something of his and used it without permission - a serious offense in its own right. But as it turned out, the situation was a lot worse.

I won't go into all of the details, as Glendon Mellow of The Flying Trilobite and ART Evolved: Life's Time Capsule has taken the liberty (with permission from Dr. Sakamoto) of writing up a summary of the events in the form of a blog post. I highly suggest that anyone remotely interested in or involved in paleo-art or online rights take a look at it. We all stand to learn something from this unfortunate situation. I also want to say how proud I am of the ART Evolved community for banding together and acting perfectly appropriate throughout the entire ordeal. In less than 24 hours they were able to take a bad situation, and make it a whole lot better. You guys are awesome.

Gearing up for SVP 2010!

There have been a lot of paleo-happenings this week, all leading up to my departure tomorrow morning for the 70th Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Pittsburgh, PA. I am completely unprepared. I probably won't even get a chance to look at the abstract book until I get to Pennsylvania. That being said, I just wanted to do a quick wrap up of the week, considering how many things have been going on. This will be a huge link fest (not that they've become atypical to readers around here), but something is better than nothing, right? Consider it a dry run of my blog carnival hosting skills. Speaking of which, have you seen this months edition of The Boneyard? David Orr, you have my utmost respect.

First a focus on the science blogosphere. Dr. Darren Naish of Tetrapod Zoology has pulled together a collection of posts from Tet Zoo ver 1 and published them in a paper format. This is awesome. For those who don't follow Tet Zoo ver 2, what are you doing with your life, seriously? Tetrapod Zoology Book One is avaliable for sale on Amazon.com. You'd best get to buying it! I want to make sure that enough people purchase a copy to encourage Dr. Naish to put out subsequent volumes.

ART Evolved's Pink Dinosaurs

This has been a very long week. By yesterday evening, I was completely beat, without an ounce of energy left in me. Walking to my car, I felt the tell-tale buzz of my phone, indicating that I had an e-mail. Reluctantly, I pulled the phone out of my pocket and went to check the new message. I was immediately glad I did. It was a message from the ART Evolved Crew! Joy of joys! I clicked on the item and began to read. With each word, I became more and more interested, and I felt the energy returning to my being. It's official: the "Crew" has it going on, and here is why.

ART Evolved's Pink Dinosaur Fundraising Event, a "Paleo-Art For A Difference" presentation. Images used with permission from the ART Evolved Crew.