Animation is back

I'm still alive, but have had a few board game gigs (that paid) pop up. I haven't given up on my palaeo-animation project.

I have been discouraged by the difficulty of proper CGI pixar style animation (I'm only the one person, and a hobbyist at that).

As I'm aiming for little lighthearted factoid clips, and not full length products, I've started experimenting with a more 16 bit video game technique, which I think is starting to look cool.

Input is welcome.

Old School "T-Rex"

Further work for my upcoming project.

The T-Rex for my short.

Animated Victorian Dinosaur

My first animation test cylce on Mr. Iguanodon. It is too fast, but if the overall motions slow down, it should move with a sense of bulk and mass.

To my knowledge this is the first time a Waterhouse Dawkins style Dinosaur has been animated. I'm not boasting, I'm legitimately curious. Does anyone know of another time this has been done?

Waterhouse Hawkins Dinosaur 2

I'm now pretty set on my first animated project. A little more cornball and whacky. I realized probably best to do a one off, rather then tackle a potential series first.

So I'm going with old school Dinosaurs, in a more whimsical project that draws on my interests in palaeo-history.

Old School Dinosaur

Forget your feathers vs. no feathers. One of my doodle projects of late, is as old school a reconstruction as you can get ;)

I am thinking about animating him at some point.

Does anyone know of any 3D animated Waterhouse Hawkins style Dinosaurs?

By Craig Dylke

By Craig Dylke

By Craig Dylke

By Craig Dylke

Craig's Animation Project- update #3

Been tinkering away on my animated project. I'm narrowing in on my format, and how to communicate some science.

The first step is I've rough recreated my favourite scene from Jurassic World... though when I say favourite one must understand this is very conditional, and only within the context of the film. I found JW to be a very painful waste of time (probably more so than even Jurassic Park 3).

Craig's Animation Project part 2

The more I tinker with my animation for potential Dino youtube video projects, the more ideas pop into my head (kind of how Traumador had very varied adventures throughout his tenure).

So while this one isn't directly related, I'm quite happy with it.

I'm starting to think tiny little "real" Jurassic Park sketches would be a good warm up to bigger projects. We'll just have to see.

Enjoy the Dolichorhynchops animation in the meantime ;)

Upcoming Palaeo-art Project

After a rather long hiatus (at least 3 years overall) from palaeoart, taking on a moonlighting "career" in the board game industry, I've (Craig) decided to travel back into deep time recreation.

I'm looking into making a series of little educational animations about Dinosaurs and other prehistoric critters as they behave/appear in movies vs. what we know in the fossil record.

As this is just for fun I have no strict deadline set. However I'll post some of my progress up here if people are interested.

I'm also looking for ideas on topics. So far I have (thus the previews posted):

• Could T-Rex run as fast as a jeep? (the answer being no)
• Could a "Pteradactyl" carry you off for lunch? (answer no, no again for the actual meant Pteranodon, and worse a Quetzalcoatlus would just eat you for lunch)
• Could a Mosasaur eat a great White Shark? (answer only a unrealistically large one)

I want the topics posed as questions, and typically shaped or informed by movies/TV show depictions of prehistoric life. Adding an extra dimension of difficulty, I don't want to just cover carnivores (in particular theropods), though I'll do several I'm sure. I just want some variety in what I'm animating/modelling.

I'm not aiming for JP level production values, so this is my intended style and level of detail. Think 3D style Hanna Barbera (hopefully with better writing :P)