This effort is still in its infancy, but please pop over to my post and let me know what you think thus far.
I also throw this question out to you, what are the key elements and steps you would to take to recreate an ancient palaeo-environment?
So stay tuned as more updates on this rather large project will be coming your way...
What we now need are people's thoughts on these emails and the issues Mr. Paul raises! If you have an opinion on any part (or all parts) of Mr. Paul's emails we want to read them!
We are accepting essays from anyone and everyone on the topic! If you are not a member of ART Evolved simply type your "essay" up in a word processor and send it our way at artevolved@gmail.com.
A brief breakdown of Gregory Paul's emails include the issues of:
People copying his artworkOwning what he is calling the "Gregory Paul Style" of palaeo-artClaiming ownership of his exact pose of skeletal reconstructions.Calling for people to cease basing their live reconstructions on his skeletal reconstructions.Here are the links to Mr. Paul's emails for your specific reference. The first, second, and third
"The basic rule needs to be that that an artist produce their own
skeletal restoration based on original research. This would include
using photos of the skeleton, or an illustrated technical paper on the
particular taxon. This then goes into your files as documentation of
originality, and you can publish it. Do not pose it in my classic left foot pushing off in a high velocity
posture. Not because I am inherently outraged -- it would be rather
nice if not for some practical issues. For one thing I have succeeded
in getting some big payments for unauthorized use of this pose by major
projects that should have known better. Aside from the financial issue,
there are other concerns if you think about it. It is widely assumed that
any skeleton in this pose is mine, but what if it does not meet my level
of accuracy? The trust in and value of my work is degraded. There are
gigillions of poses a skeleton can be placed in. Be original. Lots of original skeletal restorations do not look much like mine -- I
suspect because they are not necessarily as accurate. If someone's
original skeletal restoration is close to mine that is OK as long as
they have the documentation of originality....
"...Perhaps you are thinking that it sounds like a whole lot of work to have to go to the trouble to do original skeletal restorations for all these dinosaurs, all the more so when a set of excellent skeletal restorations is already available. Exactly. That is the whole point."
We now need files to make sure we can defend our work in case we get sued? Isn't that a bit far to go? I personally have lots of papers on file and photographs too, so when I draw bones for a restoration it's from the original research and actual photographs, not Greg Paul's products. But not everyone has access to these - and not everyone can tell the difference at a glance between well-researched skeletals by two different artists. Of course I try to document my own research on this blog; I've always tried to avoid relying on anyone's previous skeletals as references (including Greg Paul's) and I was fortunate enough to have friends who hooked me up with huge numbers of rare source papers on dinosaurs that have been enormously helpful in my research, but the potential that anyone can get sued if their work merely looks like something Greg Paul could have done is frightening. In other words, give up, NOW.
"So the choices are these -- Do your own researched and produced skeletal restorations in an original pose. If some of these turn out it is very similar to mine that's OK as long as the documentation exists. Do not do your own skeletal restorations, but do not copy my art either
(i.e. stay away from the Greg Paul look). There are some current artists who do this and they are not violating my copyrights. I of course prefer to think such work is not as accurate as mine but what do I know."
Greg Paul's posts have garnered a polarized array of responses. I don't really want to add to the cacophony of people addressing specific legal claims, but regarding the issue of skeletal poses I'd note that Greg did not seem (to me) to be making a copyright/trademark claim as much as a statement on "best practices" based on his practical concerns about branding and such. Note that it came in a section of his post that was aimed at artists who potentially want to do their own reconstructions. Allowing Greg to establish a branding around the poses he popularized is a request I'm inclined to grant; after corresponding briefly with Greg I've decided to embark on the process of reposing my 100+ skeletal reconstructions. I want to be clear: Greg did not contact me about changing my skeletals, nor was he anything but gracious in the discussion. I'm not doing this out of fear of litigation. I've been asked innumerable times by others why I haven't adopted my "own" pose so I'm simply using this as a final impetus to do so. Like Mike Taylor, I lament that the situation has reached the point where commercial concerns outweigh the scientific utility of posing animals consistently. I had earnestly hoped that by adopting the same pose that I would be helping to "standardize" this aspect of skeletal reconstructions to better facilitate comparison.
Here's mine. Didn't want to have some small little thing gettin' stomped, a full-fledged adult. I'd love to see if anyone can guess the species. Even if it's all painted rather quickly, I'd be interested to see if I got a likeness across.
1. The darker blue version
3. The Black version
I'll be dedicating a few speed paints to the Sauropod stomp session. Let me know what you think and if you're also doing something. Here or at my blog.
So Carrara people, you're going to have to create spline objects to follow my technique. The necessary icon is show above when starting in the overall modelling window of a new project.
Once you create a spline object you should pop into here, the spline editor. Welcome to my workshop of wonders...
Taking a closer look at one of the extrusion paths (there are two out of the three possible planes. Here I'm looking at the Y path... you will also in the long run want to get to know the Z plane path as well), the key thing are the extrusion points. Those are the black dots you can see on the purple line.
So let's start with cross section points, as 1. their the most important and 2. you can't start really creating an object without cross sections.
Again a new Spline object starts with a single cross section point at the back of the extrusion path.
Tip: Sadly there is no display difference between a cross section point and an extrusion point. They both are displayed as black dots. You'll just have to try and remember which are which. If you loss track (don't worry we all do) swap to the director's camera point of view which will let you easily and quickly see which are which.
Selecting one of the shape primitive options from the top icon bar, draw an initial shape on the cross section.
If you stick with the initial format of a new spline, you're object will be determined from its back end. While in some cases this might be handy for some types of models, in my experience it is not so good for organic parts.
We're going to want to customize your initial setup.
Grabbing the add point tool, shown above, you can click on either extrusion path (side or bottom) to add a point. Remember to press the ALT key if you want a cross section point. Just left clicking with the add point will give you a standard extrusion point, NOT a cross section!
That should give you an object like this. Note how I now have 2 cross sections (both circles, but this will not be the case for long) out of 4 points. Those other two points, while not defining my objects overall shape, will be important to close the object with a solid end point.
Next I personally like to get rid of the cross section at the end of the path. The reason being that cross section have a greater effect on the objects shape, and in the ends I like to have a more easy and subtle means of controlling my object.
This now leaves us with a perfect starting point for ANY body part of a Dinosaur you might want.
Again so you understand what is happening the cross section (red) is defining the extrusion points (blue), and at moment as I haven't modified any attributes of the extrusion path or added any more cross sections I'm getting a perfect cylinder.
First we're going to want to change our cross sections. I personal like to start with a single customized cross section (as opposed to a generic circle of square), and work off this on all new cross sections.
So to easier see how we're changing a cross section we'll want to switch viewpoints. Selecting our view point option pick either Front or Current Selection to get a clear view of a cross section.
Okay so here is your cross section up close and personal. Again this is the best when to manipulate a cross section. At least at the start of modelling.
To more easily customize our circle we're going to want to add points. For this select the add point tool again, and add some points to your circle where ever you are going to want to pull, distort, or reshape the cross section's shape. 
Pulling the points around the cross section plane, and modifying the curve with the vector points you can start to make Dinosaurian looking cross sections.
In any envelope your points will suddenly appear above and below your extrusion path alone both extrusion axis. The points will all be connected by blue lines. This is simply a visual means of seeing how your objects points are connecting to each other.
You can grab any of these points and move them along the extrusion plane. Depending on the type of point and the envelope you have selected different things will happen.
Lastly you can curve and smooth out the connections between points. To do this you'll need to select the vector tool as shown above.
With this you can give any point along the extrusion path vector handles that will allow you to curve the connection lines and thus curve your object.
Applying multiple cross sections along the path, modifying their shapes individually, and finally editing their connections along the extrusion path is exactly how I create and modify my Dinosaur parts.
This just requires multiple rounds of all the steps I just outlined for you in this lesson. If you found this useful or interesting let me know in the comment section below, and I will do more if people want more.
Till then happy 3Ding, and good luck with your own three dimensional prehistoric creatures!
