A few sketches

One of my favorites, Carcharadontosaurus! I've been so busy lately I haven't had much time to just draw some dinosaurs, and the ones I have drawn are, well not ment to be seen yet. Just a rough sketch, need to move the legs forward a tad.

Rugops, legs are a bit long, but easily fixed and I think move the arms forward a tad, I have another more recent layout I might go with instead.

I might get a the chance to draw some dinosaurs in some comics again, stay tuned for that:)

Oh, belated Happy Christmas and Seasons Greetings. I drew a whole Christmas comic this year so I'm sort of Christmased out. We sat home and watched Doctor Who all day:)

Best!

Brett

Some dinosaur comic art for fun

Sometimes I hate drawing comics, I have to draw what others have written down, which means my ideas and desires are left at the door. Right now I'm working on a novel adaption that I enjoy but I still have to stick to the script. So every now and then I like to bust out and do something on my own. Thus this, pages 2 and 3 of a 7 page mini story. Thought the followers here might like it since it's got lots of dinosaurs!

Best,

Brett

Abelisaurus

Dino Dump

Some of these are now outdated. A Chilantrasaurus with a carcass. This beast is now thought to be related to Megaraptor. See I told you this was outdated;)

My first Austroraptor, I didn't like the feathering on this one.



Eustreptaspondylus with a baby/young pleisiosaur.

Rugops, an early Abelisaur from Africa.

Crylophosaurus with a more Dilophosaurus feel.

My first Therizinosaurus, I have a new one that I need to scan, hopefully in the next few days.

Best,

Brett

Carnotaurus and Bumps

Blogger is acting funny so I hope this turns out right.

I was told by a friend of mine that several people have said that my style is 'comic booky'. To that I say, Duh!, I'm a professional comic book artist, that's my job! I don't switch to a more realistic style because sometimes it's hard to switch back, and like it or not, comic book anatomy isn't always the same as real life. I do try to keep the anatomy on the dinosaurs as correct as possible but I'm sure some sort of comic style shines through.

I'm only bringing this up because on these people said that the 'bumps' I do are completely without reason, I just make it all up! And since someone in the comments also asked about it, I thought I'd do a post on it. Sorry it took so long, the new computer screen is playing havok with my head.

So on to the reasons, and the reason is the beastie, Carnotaurus. Well, he's part of the reason, the other things are the current feathered dinosaurs finds from China. Carnotaurus is one of the only decent large theropod skin fossils, they have most of a side (I can't find any of the info online, for some reason it's so common knowledge that it isn't important enough to put on the internet!) I do remember an article I read about the fossil impressions, typical dinosaurs skin, circular scales with occasional larger scales, with larger bump like scales in rows down the length of the animal. I don't draw all the little scales, it would take forever and I have yet to find any filter in Photoshop that will do it so I just concentrate on the larger stuff, following the Carnotaurus skin that's been found. I do a few longer scales on the heads of some of the theropods in keeping with current reptiles scales and bird feather placements. Since it is now believed that scales did not lead to feathers, these 'scales' are sort of a feather precursor, made up but not out of the realms of possibility. I'm quite sure feathers didn't just pop up fully formed and ready to go;).

As for the feet and hands, For those I use actual bird reference, or chicken if you want the absolute truth. We feed our dogs chicken and sometimes they have feet still attached. I've seen plenty a chicken foot so I use those for theropod feet.

I hope that makes sense.

Best,

Brett

Megalosaurus 2010

Old version

New version

Recently a new paper has re-examined the first described dinosaur, Megalosaurus. Some of the changes appear to make the head much shorter and taller, unlike the longer Torvosaur like head used in the past. So based on that and one of those skeleton drawings with the flesh shadowed on the outside I decided to do a more modern drawing. After workin gon it for a bit I noticed that it looked a lot like an Abelisaur. Now I'm not saying it was, just that it had that sort of feel. Convergent evolution, an early attempt or something more? Spooky, yes?!

Up next a new Carontaurus and an explanation as to why I do the bumps I do;)

Megaraptor idon'tknowwhatasaurus

I think I might have figured out how to put text above the first image (yeah!) Anyways, I wanted to put up strickly colored stuff here on Carnosauria. But I'm a bit behind work wise and so here are a few scene type drawings of the pencil/line art before coloring. These are both images of the mysterious Megaraptor....

Originally thought to be a large dromeosaur, the claw turned out to actually be from the hand, as an almost complete forearm and hand were found. So that tosses this animal out of the 'raptor' clan (sorry Jurassic Park fans!) But were does it go now? That's the probem. I've seen several papers on it, but it appears to have anatomy similar to 2 lines of theropods. The spinosaurs and the carcharadontosaurs. When I was originally told about the change from foot to hand I was told it was, most likely, a spinosaur by several people inthe feild, it was also mentioned as a possible spinosaur in the Holtz/Rey dinosaur book called, simply enough, Dinosaurs (I completely forgot the name and had to google it, I feel like such a tool;). I liked the head design Rey used on his image so I kind of took that and modified it a bit, kind of a more robust Suchomimus.) But after I posted that image, I was told I was wrong...

I received several comments that a new paper would show that Megaraptor was, in fact, a late surviving carcharadontosaur. I actually read the paper, it still seemed up in the air to me, but not wanting to get even more comments telling me I was wrong I decided to draw it as a carchardontosaur for a book I'm working on (images seen here and some new ones with a few comic like scenes showing possible behaviours...)

I then recieved new comments that I was wrong and that another new paper showing that Megaraptor was related to a new spinosaur from Austrailia would prove it. I read that paper as well.... And to be honest. I have no fricken idea which group this thing belongs to. So until more fossils are found it's an idon'tknowwhatasaurus.

But what to do with the comic page..? I decided to modify it and changed it to a Mapusaurus, easy enough, I used that as the base for the restoration. But since Mapusaurus is older than Megaraptor the Carnotaurs are now fromthe wrong time... So I contacted a few fellow bloggers, Darren Naish and Brian Switek. They had some excellent ideas and Darren mention a few new animals that were comming down the pipeline. I'll post the changed image when I get that drive up and running but I wound up using Skorpiovenator, I just like the name;)

Best,

Brett

Kryptops

Right now this is the oldest known abelisaur. It's possible that this animal had some sort of beak
on it's face. It's an interesting idea, I might have to do a drawing of that;)

SO the dinosaurs have been a bit sparse lately. We ran out of room on the computer so we had to dump a bunch fo stuff onto a portable external drive. Unfortunately it take all the USB ports on the laptop so I have to unplug the tablet and I can't use the track pad. We have ordered a new USB hub thing but until we get it all the drawn dinosaurs are locked away on another drive.

I need to do a few new dinosaurs. So maybe I'll get some new ones scanned before I get the new hub;)

Best,

Brett

Carnotaurus sastrei

One new and the other old. A late cretaceous abelisaur from South America. There are actually skin impressions of the this animal so we have a good idea of what it actually looked like. Well, except for the color;)

This animal reached a length of 30 feet, and had one of the strangest heads on any theropod so far discovered. But the strangest thing would be the 4 fingered hands. Only 2 of which had claws. The fore arm bones have been greatly reduced to be virtully non existant.

Best,

Brett

Skorpiovenator

A Cretaceous contemporary of Mapusaurus, this is another of those funny looking abelisaurs. It's nae means scorpion hunter, due to the fact that there were lots of scorpions around the dig site;)

Best,

Brett

Deltadromeus

Deltadromeus is now thought to be a noasaur, off the abelisaur family tree. From Africa, it's another really big theropod around 40 feet. But this one is differnent, it's very gracile, built for running. The head is based off of the other known noasaur species and might be incorrect, it's a best guess at this point.

Being an ableisaur it's strange in that it has long arms and is larger than any of it's other known relatives. I beleive Carnotaurus would be the second largest at around 25+ feet. So this animal was a giant for the group. It's theropod contemporraries include Carcharadontosaurus and Spinosaurus, also giants, so there seems to be a trend of giant theropods in mid cretaceous Africa. There are a few other large theropod remains fond at the sime time and same area but they are too scrappy to make good identifications. So perhaps there is a fourth group of large theropods running around Africa that we don't really know about;)

Best,

Brett

Aucasaurus

A medium sized abelisaur from the late cretaceous of South America. Very similar to Carnotaurus but with no 'horns'. Around 13-15 feet long, and found at the bottom of an ancient lake. Some skin impressions were found around the pelvis area, but I can't find any pictures on it online (I did find a picture of dinosaur skin, but no named along with it.)

Best,

Brett