Live Blogging in February

With so many early submissions arriving for the Therizinosaurs (thanks to all those who've sent them in ALREADY!... this is the first time in ART Evolved history we've had pieces well over a month in advance!) it is time for those of us who haven't quite got there to remedy this situation.

As of such prepare for some...
LIVE Blogging!

The schedule for this round (so far) is as follows:

•  Tricia now has her "evolution" of Therizinosaurs live-blogged up on Tricia's Obligatory Art Blog!!!
• 
  Anthony live-blogged his Therizinosaur on Anthony Contoleon’s Posterous!

• Sometime in this week both Craig and Peter will be starting what they are hoping to be a most epic (and first ever) duo person Live Blog. They will be starting up at about 8-9am Pacific Coast time.

It is not too late to live blog, or more to the point have your live blogging effort added to the list above! If you are planning on live blogging just let us know where (your site or blog that the updates will be appearing on) and when (with the date and rough time zone). You can either tell us in the comment section of this post or send us an email to artevolved@gmail.com.

Till then happy live blogging!

ArtEvolved in DinoDay

Its draw-a-dino day, and some of us have sharpened our pencils!

PeterBond:
Brett Booth did two (follow the link for the other):


And I did a quick paint with content to counteract the majority of "cute" toonasaurs:

Anyone else?

creature art; lessons and offerings

As you know, I'm new to paleoart. I work in illustration, animation and concept. A series of weekly creature challenges at cgHub provoked me into writing here. Check out the jelly bubbled broad back here.
What's the difference between creature design and paleoart? At the worst of times, its a film creature that causes laughter instead of fear, because of its obvious inability to exist - or perhaps a life reconstruction that ignores the potential to fascinate an audience and instead opts for dried-out clinical presentation.
What do these disciplines share? Everything from a disciplined observation of anatomy and ecosystem to a imaginative yet responsible creativity in presenting fascinating creatures within a restrictive framework of either scientific knowledge or story plot.

ART Evolved in Prehistoric Times

Here's a scan of the last Prehistoric Times. Craig and Peter also on this spread, as well as Gregory Paul. Phil Bronlow and Louis Lavoie round off the page. Congratulations, everyone. Anyone else elsewhere in the magazine?

Those interested in getting a copy can subscribe or order here. Interested in contributing to future editions? Keep an eye out on the upcoming submission topics.

Going Pro: types of copyright

Q: What kinds of copyright are there?

A: Let's have a look at a few definitions, remembering I am not a lawyer, but a fellow freelancing artist-illustrator trying to learn about these things. Despite the fact that it can contain inaccuracies, I will be linking to Wikipedia a lot in this Going Pro: I suggest confirming information with the useful citations and links found at the bottom of the entries.

1) Intellectual property
Most types of copyright fall under intellectual property laws. You'll often hear creative types discussing protecting their IP. What they generally mean, is it's not enough to protect the idea, you have to protect the execution of that idea. Intellectual property as a concept deals with the intangibles of the idea in the mind, and tangibles or artistic creation.

2) Copyright
Copyright refers to the legal right of a creator over their creations. You don't have to register to have copyright (though there may be good reasons to register, covered below). By creating a piece of art, you are now a copyright holder in most countries under the Berne Convention. Congratulations!

Copyrights are usually indicated by the © symbol. You can easily type this into your work in Photoshop or even blogging platforms by typing "[hold down alt]-0169".

3) Moral copyright
Moral copyrights refer to the right to have artwork credited to the creator, even if the economic rights to use the artwork is sold to a client. In some cases, moral rights can also extend to not altering the work.

In an important case in the city of Toronto, Canada, artist Michael Snow had been commissioned by the Toronto Eaton Centre to create an installation sculpture of a flock of Canadian geese, titled Flightstop (right). (Good info on Wikipedia, Jan 2010.) The Eaton Centre placed red bows on the geese for the Christmas holidays, and the artist successfully sued, contesting that they did not have the moral right to alter his artwork, despite that they had paid for it. This is an important example to artists, and I would suggest having a mention of moral rights in any contract.

The result of suing or contesting a disagreement may not always be for money, unless damage to the artists' reputation has occurred. You may be only seeking legal action to restore the artwork to its original state. As a thought experiment (I know of no such examples), what if you were commissioned to paint a barosaurus, and later discovered the client lied about their affiliations with their institution and were now using your work prominently to promote creationism? That may damage your chances to get future work within the scientific community and you would need to redress what has happened to your moral rights.

4) Trademark and registered trademark
Trademarks are a way of identifying an image or product as representing a badge or symbol of a company. You may be a freelancer who incorporates their job, and uses a small symbol to denote your art - that could be your trademark. It's basically a way of identifying your brand, and trademarks refer to a brand.

If your trademark has been infringed, you can sue, but it may be difficult to do so out of a legal jurisdiction to which it originated.

Trademarks are generally noted by the ™ symbol. There's a similar symbol, ℠ for services rather than goods.

Registered Trademarks are usually allowed if you can prove your brand is distinct from all others, and register it with an agency, such as the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Individual countries will have similar agencies.

Registered trademarks are noted with the ® symbol.

5) Patent
Patents generally refer to created or invented goods, so are not likely to be relevant to illustrators here at Art Evolved. Unless you invent a spiffy new brush for doing delicate scale work and wish to market it, patents don't need to be covered too much. If you do create a patent, you may want to register it to your country's patent office.

Interestingly, the Danish company Lego has taken legal action in a number of countries against upstart Canadian company MegaBloks. In most cases, Lego has failed, due to the shape of their bricks belonging to patent law and not trademark law, and the patents have expired in many countries. In Canada, I believe the decision was that you could not trademark or patent a geometric shape. Picture at right shows a MegaBlok on the top, and Lego brick on the bottom.

6) Fair-use
So say you are sitting in a lecture at a university about dromeosaurs. And lo and behold, a piece of your artwork appears on the screen, illustrating a species' long running legs. You haven't granted any use to the professor: what's going on? Fair-use is an exception to copyright, allowing educational institutions to skirt the necessity of paying or procuring the right to use artwork for the sake of a single example, in lectures or talks. It may also come into play in journalism, such as a magazine article covering your art show and including a photograph.

Fair use can be a bit of a grey area, and in most districts, something like re-printing your artwork on a handout for a class is still considered a violation of your copyright.

7) Transferred copyright and licencing
In some cases, a copyright can be transferred. When this occurs, the client may ask the artist for unlimited use of their tyrannosaur cartoon for mugs, t-shirts, stuffed toys and so on. Typically, artists charge up to a few hundred percent more than their usual fee before surrendering unlimited, transferred copyright to a client (I would suggest looking at the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook to get an idea of what you should charge - great book).

In some cases, an artist may be hired to make all of their drawings while working for a company. Tim Burton created his Nightmare Before Christmas characters while under a contract to Disney: when he wanted to make the movie, he did it with Disney's Touchstone label, since they had rights to the works. Similarly, Barbie-rival Bratz is alleged to have been created while the Bratz creator worked for Mattel, so Barbie may effectively own the Bratz.

A common licencing arrangement artists may want to consider in any contract, is to grant unlimited rights for a specified time period. If you create that tyrannosaur for unlimited rights, you may want to specify it as only being for the next two years, after which the client's use expires or needs to be re-negotiated. This is useful in case the image you've made becomes a runaway hit, and gives you another shot at further monetary compensations, such as royalties.

In most cases, I would not advise my fellow Art Evolved illustrators to transfer their rights, or grant unlimited licences. It's generally better to work use by use in my experience.

- - - -
I hope this has been a useful reference, and thanks for joining me for another Going Pro here on Art Evolved. Cue the theme music.

Pliosaurs and Giant Sloths

Rhomaleosaurus cramptoni (Tate and Blake, 1863)
Rhomaleosauridae; Plesiosauria; Sauropsida; Chordata
Graphite pencil illustration on A5 paper
January 2010

The above illustration is of a cast of the holotype (original specimen) of a species of pliosaur, a marine reptile closely related to plesiosaurs, which generally have longer necks. The cast is one of the two main focal points (in my opinion) in the Fossil Reptile Gallery (the other one, see below, is not even a reptile) at the Natural History Museum, London, where I tend to spend a lot of time. Today, I felt compelled to sit and draw two beautiful specimens, and am quite proud of my effort.

I rarely used to get the chance to draw specimens at the Museum, as most of my time formerly got taken up by work of some description or another. I’ve been a Masters student, a volunteer and a librarian at the Natural History Museum at different points in the last few years, but now, despite doing some voluntary work in the Palaeontological Department, I have a lot of time to kill. So what better way to murder time than to draw skeletons.

I chose the Rhomaleosaurus to draw today for a number of reasons: (1) its sheer beauty and size; (2) it is one of my favourite specimens in the Museum; and (3) there is a bench placed conveniently opposite the specimen. I started by drawing a sketch of the entire animal, to make sure the whole thing fits on the paper. I am notorious for leaving off ends of tails and bottoms of feet because I don’t tend to plan ahead. This time I made sure the entire specimen would fit on a piece of paper 6 inches across.

Once I had a good idea of how it would fit, I began to detail, starting from the left hand side and working towards the right. I much prefer to draw animals that are facing the left; if you look at most of my portfolio (much of it can be seen on my blog, The Disillusioned Taxonomist) you can see this – it must have something to do with being right-handed. There may have been a subconscious decision to pick this specimen because it is facing the left. I detailed the skull, making sure all the holes were in the right places, and shaded the lower portion (from a viewer’s perspective; it is really the left part of the skull) darker than the upper side. Once the entire skull was shaded, I moved down the body.

Next came the cervical vertebrae, which, varying in state of preservation, were a challenge. There is a definite “ridge” across the midline of the specimen which appeared palest, creating a shadow beneath them to the left side of the animal’s neck. The number of vertebrae may not exactly match the real specimen, as I may have had to miss out a few or add a couple to fit!

The paddles were a fun part to draw, and I started on the top left one, the animal’s fore right paddle. First came the humerus, the ulna and the radius, then the small rounded carpal bones, followed by five digits made up of varying numbers of phalanges. The way that the cast was produced meant that there is a dark matrix around the smaller bones in the paddle, but this can be seen to represent the cartilage which was probably present in life, as whales have.

The rest of the vertebrae up to before the tail were much like the cervical vertebrae to illustrate, same dorsal ridge and shadowing. The ribs were more challenging: I wanted the ribs to appear shaded, like the same colour as the rest of the fossil, but paler than the areas between the ribs. In doing this, the ribs were hard to see, so I took a rubber (eraser) to the ribs and did my best to highlight them.

The hind paddles are very similar to the fore ones, and although the phalanges on one of the feet can’t be seen too well on this scan, they are roughly the same as on the other one. A small portion of the pelvis can be seen above the lower right paddle, and that created shadows on some of the femur, which I tried to indicate with darker shading.

The tail of the animal is poorly preserved, and the individual vertebrae cannot be made out clearly. I gave the entire tail a “base coat” of pale shading, adding darker patches to indicate shadows where I could see them. Some vertebrae could be made out, but only on the darker underside.

I really enjoyed drawing Rhomaleosaurus and want to try some of the other marine reptiles: there are plenty of plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs to choose from, and a couple of mosasaurs, marine crocodiles and a stegosaur.



Megatherium americanum Georges Cuvier, 1796
Megatheriidae; Xenarthra; Mammalia; Chordata
Graphite pencil illustration on A5 paper
January 2010

After lunch, I decided to draw the other focal point of the Fossil Reptile gallery, a mammal. A giant ground sloth in fact, which is a cast of a fully grown animal standing on its hind legs and leaning against a wooden pole. There is no bench on which to sit, so I sat on the floor on top of my jacket.

I decided to go for a different tack to draw this animal; although detail was needed, an outline sketch would show more clearly the shapes of the bones rather than the entire thing shaded in dark greys and black. It is in a dimly lit corner of the gallery, right by the entrance to the Palaeo Department, and it is hard to get perspective of the individual bone shapes.

Having said that, I think I have given a good impression of the specimen, highlighting some bones that may not be immediately visible to those looking at it directly or at a photograph or detailed drawing. Take the hyoid bone, for example, which is at the front of the neck, a V-shaped bone which anchors the tongue and is present in most mammals and is often missed out when reconstructing skeletons in museums. All five digits of the animal’s left hand can be clearly seen, although it was difficult to make out the outlines of each phalanx or metacarpal, so I had to guess a bit. Digits II and III have huge claws, while the thumb is much reduced.

I created depth by using diagonal lines instead of smooth shading. Parts of the specimen in the foreground are not sketched in, and those furthest in the distance (the right shoulder blade, for instance) are shaded with closely-barred lines. This is not to indicate shadow, but distance, so you can tell which ribs are in the foreground, and hence which are on the animal’s left side.

Again, I started with a rough sketch to get the outline. I was a little concerned at first that the head was too large and the hind-quarters a little small, but they seem to be OK. I outlined each bone as I saw them, starting at the skull and mandible, moving down the neck to the shoulder blade, fore limbs, rib cage and sternum, backbone, pelvis, hind limbs, and tail.

I intended to describe my drawing technique in this post, but I don’t know if I’ve done that... if you have any particular questions to ask about this, or the specimens, or anything, say so in the comments! Thanks for reading!

Draw A Dinosaur Day!

We've just been informed of a special "holiday" (though I'm not sure I'd afford it this title) called Draw A Dinosaur Day.

The events organizers have this to say:

Draw A Dinosaur Day is a holiday celebrated on January 30th. The goal is as simple as it's title: Draw A Dinosaur! You don't have to be a brilliant illustrator, just take a couple of minutes with a blank piece of paper, a post-it note or your computer and enjoy yourself. When you've finished scan it, take a picture of it, and upload it here! Then spread the word to your friends. Post your dino to flickr, twitter, facebook, your blog, LJ, anywhere on the internet you can! Posting will open January 29th, and be open until February 2nd. This will be the 4th year of Draw A Dinosaur Day, let's make it as successful as possible!

So in just over a weeks time get your sketching game on, and try to get a Dinosaur drawing in to http://drawadinosaurday.com.

Also if you do submit a drawing to this event, please consider putting a slight promotion/link to ART Evolved with your piece. After all we don't just draw Dinosaurs one day of the year, we draw the 24/7 all 365 days of the year!

Live Blogging Therizinosaurs?

With things hopefully calming down in your life after the holidays, and the calender slowly progressing towards the ART Evolved one year anniversary gallery (on Therizinosaurs) we thought it might be time to mobilize some...

Live Blogging!

For those new to the concept, live blogging (here at ART Evolved anyways) is where the artist of a piece documents the various steps that go into the creation of the artwork. This record can be either posted literally live as you work, or simply recorded and presented in order later.

We will be setting up another live blog central hub for the March gallery shortly (for a sample hub go to our first live blogging event here). So if you are interested in live blogging let us know when (with the day you'll be starting, so people know when to tune in) and where (your blog or website address) in either this posts comment section or send us it in an email artevolved@gmail.com.
Even if you cven if you can't get to live blogging, please consider creating a Therizinosaur piece this March, and sending it in to artevolved@gmail.com

A Palaeo-Environments Gallery

Happy New Year's, palaeo-artists! It's once again time to open another of Life's Time Capsules here at ART Evolved! This time it's...

That's right! Our first Time Capsule of 2010 isn't a prehistoric critter! So, what is a Palaeo-environment? It's a reconstruction of a prehistoric ecosystem based on geologic and fossil evidence.

Start with a fossil site, determine what animal and plant organisms existed through fossils and trace fossils, then use the rocks to determine the depositional environment, the average temperature, oxygen and moisture levels. From this data, relationships can be inferred - predator/prey, food chains, behaviours, migration patterns...

All this research to bring you these final reconstructions: palaeo-environment restorations! From prehistoric Cyprus and Germany to ancient China to New Zealand, this Gallery traverses the World and explores rich fossil sites through art. It also dips into the abstract, where the fossil becomes the environment! (Click on the pics to enlarge them!)

ART Evolved invites you to enjoy this month's Time Capsule: Palaeo-Environment Galley!

A Tarbosaurs attacking a Shantungosaurus by Brett Booth

Late Pleistocene Cyprus by Mo Hassan

An extinct species of genet, Genetta plesictoides, stalks a blue rock-thrush, Monticola solitarius, whilst dwarf elephants, Elephas cypriotes, a dwarf hippopotamus, Phanourios minutus, and a greater flamingo, Phoenicopterus roseus, enjoy an early spring morning in Cyprus about 12,000 years ago.

Oceans of Zealandia- Base of the Chain by Craig Dylke

Welcome to Cretaceous New Zealand, 69-70 million years ago. At this time New Zealand was part of a much larger land mass, a proper continent, half the size of Australia called Zealandia. By this time Zealandia was well in isolation from the rest of the world, having drifted away from Gondwana 83 million years ago. It would remain a giant landmass till well after the Cretaceous, but due to its lack of elevation and straddling a very active tectonic zone, Zealandia would eventually sink into the ocean leaving only the scattered remnants of many islands from its entirety. Of these Pacific islands today New Zealand is the largest.

For this gallery I present for you snap shots of life in the ocean throughout the history of Zealandia. Starting with some of the sealife that emerged near the beginnings of this short lived continent.

Off the shores of Zealandia we see a school of Belemnite swarm near the surface of the newly expanding Tasman sea. This activity attracts many medium level predators, the Cryptoclididae Kaiwhekea. The commotion caused by this level of the food chain attract even higher up predators that lurk on the edge of the school awaiting an opportunity. In this snap shot, one can just make out the silhouette of a rather large shark that has momentarily broken its cover.

For this piece I wanted something of an overall introduction to this ecosystem community, which included the food-chain ratios somewhat to proportion. I'd also like it noted that I'm not attempting to imply or convey social behaviour on the part of Plesiosaurs (in particular Kaiwhekea), but that rather like in nature large gatherings of prey would attract large numbers of their their predators.

Oceans of Zealandia- The Squid Eater (Kaiwhekea) by Craig Dylke

One of New Zealand's most spectacular and complete vertebrate fossil finds has to be the single type specimen of the Cryptoclidid Kaiwhekea. This short necked Plesiosaur is among the most unique of the whole group. For despite being one of the last of this group of marine reptiles from around 70 millions ago, it is surprisingly primitive and has a great deal in common with Jurassic forms.

The formal name Kaiwhekea means "Squid Eater" in the indigenous language of the Maori, and it is a very appropriate name. The skull of Kaiwhekea is superbly adapted to hunt and catch mid sized soft bodied prey. The jaws are lined with hundreds of small needle like interlocking teeth, and powered by strong muscles to snap the mouth closed quickly. Its eyes were large set far forward in the skull, and were most likely binocular in vision.

This scene here is based on the conclusions of Kaiwhekea's description, and the remains of fossil Belemnites from the same locality as its skeleton Shag Point (Shag being the local word for Cormorant birds... not what most people think. Though I still laugh every time I drive by the villa's sign!)

Oceans of Zealandia - Dangers Everywhere by Craig Dylke

Despite their fossil remains not being as complete as Kaiwhekea, New Zealand is known to have supported a vast and diverse array of Mosasaurs during the late Cretaceous some of which no doubt acted as the top of the food chain. Among the larger ranger of these marine reptiles was the Tylosaurid Taniwhasaurus. Known from the rear portion of the skull, this carnivore's jaws would be 3/4 of a metre long and had a body 10-12 metres long.

In my piece we see the Mosasaurid ambushing a young Kaiwhekea as it tried to catch squid. To me this is most likely the largest marine reptile prey a Mosasaur would be likely the catch. For one Mosasaur jaws have built in mechanics that do not allow prey to escape being swallowed, meaning they (like snakes and monitor lizards) had to swallow their prey whole. If like in TV shows and sensational media they attacked full grown adult prey animals they'd choke and die.

Benthonic Upper Ordovician Seascape by Sarah Snell-Pym

Stegosaurus of the Morrison Formation by Peter Bond

Sauropods of Dashanpu Quarry (Lower Shanximiao formation, Bathonian epoch, Middle Jurassic Sichuan province, China ~165 mya)  by Nima Sassani

Herds of Shunosaurus lii and "Omeisaurus" tianfuensis feed near the landlocked lake that will one day become the quarry. Both were lightly built compared to later sauropods, and thus had small tail clubs and extremely large thumb claws for additional defense.

A Paleo Environment by Albertonykus

The setting is Late Jurassic, approximately a hundred sixty million years ago, in China. A pair of Anchiornis huxleyi attempt to protect their nest from a Tianyulong confuciusi. To the right, one sends out an alarm call and the other swoops down on the nest raider. Opportunistic ornithischians are by far not the only dangers the tiny troodonts have to face. From the left, a Darwinopterus modularis flies over the scene, a third Anchiornis huxleyi captured between its jaws.

Oceans of Zealandia: The First "Killer" Whale by Craig Dylke

We return once again to prehistoric New Zealand, still in the form of the continent Zealandia, but only just. By Oligocene 25 million years ago, the majority of Zealandia had sunk below sea level, and was not to resurface again. Not that this effected sea life adversely. In fact rather the opposite. Due to the remaining elevation provided by the sunken continental landmass (compared to the off self sea floor) Zealandia provided the basis for a large swallow sea during this time.

This supported a vast array of sealife. comprised of types we're familiar with today. Only much more primitive and ancestral forms. Among these were penguins, which had been thriving in the Southern oceans since the KT extinction event. These early Penguins were much more gracile then those we know today, as the Antarctic was temperate at this time.

The expansion of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica at this time was creating a vastly new and dynamic ecosystem to form with the strong currents that started to whip around the continent stirring up large quantities of nutrients. The drastic increase in avaliable food caused a major radition of Whales in the south.

Among these were the somewhat terrorifying Squalodons, or "Shark Toothed" dolphins. Some of these animals grow to nearly the length of the modern Orca, and would likely have preyed on most medium sized animals it encountered (though fossil evidence hasn't yet be presented).

Despite its large size and furious desposition, the Squalodon was not the appex predator of these swallow Zealandia seas. A far bulkier 9 metre ancestor of the Great White Shark prowled these waters, and most likely would have preyed on (young at least) Squalodons.

Archaeopteryx of Prehistoric Bavaria by Peter Bond

A Quiet Drink by Craig Dylke

Last March of the Breviparopus (?Barremian? epoch, Early Cretaceous Morocco ~ 125 mya) by Nima Sassani

A male and female Braviparopus trek across hot, sunbaked ground in search of water and food. A drought has plagued the area for decades, slowly getting worse each year. The rains themselves sometimes fail to come at all, leaving rivers a muddy trickle, and the land unable to sustain many of these creatures, and most have died since the drought began. These two massive giants are some of the last of their kind, their fat reserves depleted, desperate to survive by eating drying foliage, tree resin, and even the occasional mammal. This is a snapshot from their last few hours on this planet.

Breviparopus was a huge brachiosaur, perhaps even larger than the 100-foot (30m) Sauroposeidon, and is known only from narrow-gauge footprints nearly a meter wide. It may be the same animal as the equally enigmatic giant "Brachiosaurus" nougaredi, which is known from a huge partial sacrum found in Algeria.

Mountain Discovery by Glendon Mellow
"We're gonna need another Order of trilobites!"

For this paleo-environment time capsule, I came up with a number of ideas. This gallery had my mind ticking overtime. I worked for hours on two other pieces, but I'll save them for another time - they'd make a good kids book.

I wanted to try some different things. I created this entire piece digitally, from sketch to completion. I feel I still need practice. This was mainly created in ArtRage 2.5 and a bit in Photoshop Elements 6, using my Intuos 3 tablet.

Inspired a bit by H.P. Lovecraft stories and Frantisek Kupka's The Black Idol, I turned the subject of this gallery on its head. Instead of creating a paleo-environment, I tried to create a make-believe gigantic trilobite fossil that is so huge, it is itself a paleo-environment.

That brings us around the world and back for ART Evolved's next Gallery...

JOIN US in our celebration of all things Therizinosaur for the next two months! If you'd like to partake in an ART Evolved Gallery, send your art along with a small blurb to artevolved@gmail.com. We accept art from anybody and everybody!

So join us for the next Time Capsule March 1st 2010: the bizarre and beautiful Therizinosaurs!

The One Year Anniversary Time Capsule!

It is hard to believe ART Evolved is coming up on the end of its first year in March. In some ways the time has just flown, but yet we've hosted so much productivity it seems like longer at the same time.

Regardless of how this time has passed for you, the fact remains we're coming up on our seventh gallery and so you're probably wanting the topic. Through the results of our most popular poll yet, the clear winner was...

The bizarre plant eating Theropods the Therizinosaurs!

So get those pieces created and submitted by March 1st! Remember to email us your piece to artevolved@gmail.com, and include with it any text captioning you wish to accompany your work, and also your web links for your blog, website, and or other online hub.

As an added incentive to create a Therizinosaur, the magazine Prehistoric Times is looking to publish palaeo-art of these creatures (for free mind you). So here's a chance to get double the mileage from your art. Preview the piece here at ART Evolved, and then possibly get it published in print next!

Also be sure to stay tuned for discussions on all things Therizinosaurs on ART Evolved. We'll bring you examples of previous Therizinosaur recreations, and tackle some of the more confusing and interesting aspects of restoring these bizarre beasts.

Reconstruction Tips: Flukes Part 3

We present for you yet another edition of...

Time for another installment of Craig's ongoing palaeo-art (mis?)adventure...

Flukes go on Whales... NOT in your Art!

Part:3

Previously on Flukes (imagine catchy suspense music, just like an awesome cliffhanger multi part TV show)
`
Part 1- I decided to try and create some palaeo-art for New Zealand Palaeontologist Ewan Fordyce. This was unrequested art, and this is probably a good thing considering what I first produced! Find out the HUGE mistake I made and the first lesson you should learn from my folly.
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Part 2- After regrouping from my first embarrassing version of the Shark Toothed Dolphin, I proceeded to try and rework it. However with this second attempt my strengths and preferences from usually creating Dinosaurs created an odd reptilian-whale hybrid. This has yet another key lesson to learn here.
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Now the continuation...
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So after two months of playing with my Squalodon, I ended up with this the "Dolphinsauriod"...
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At the time, I just viewed this particular incarnation of the model as just another mistake.

Looking at it now, the Dolphinsauriod marked the end of an era in my art. This was my last truly amateur approaches to reconstructions. As of April 2009 onward I would use one sort of reference or another when recreating anything, and thus have some degree of credibility in it.

However when starting the project in early 2009 I did not have many references for Squalodons. Even now having done extensive research on the family I've only managed to come up with a dozen or so. Of those only a few are worth looking at.
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Bringing me to the first lesson of today's post...
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Rule #3 of Scientific Restorations: There is no such thing as "enough" references. Track down as many pictures, drawings, photos, and restorations of a prehistoric subject's skeleton, body, and fossils. There is always another aspect or idea to be found in a new reference (even if it is just not to do it like a different recreation), so get as many as you possibly can!
`
This can be hard with less popular and obscure critters, like say Shark-Toothed Dolphins. So I'll take you through the useful references I managed to track down, and why I thought they were worth looking at.

There were several overly simplistic restorations, and of these I found this cover page by Alton Dooley for his description of Squalodon whitmorei to be any good.

Though the prey dolphins in this particular piece are a little too minimalist to reference, the Squalodon chomping down on them is surprisingly accurate. The overall proportions of the skull, fins, and body are all perfect. Making this useful for scaling my model.

If for nothing else, this picture also gave me some confidence. If this was among the top 50% of Squalodons out there, then I had a good shot at creating a new addition to this elite group of artwork.

Perhaps the most influential of all Squalodon recreations was this one by Geoffrey Cox. This comes from his amazing little popular science book Prehistoric Animals of New Zealand. (Though sadly out of print, this book is by far one of the best ever released on New Zealand fossils, and definitely has the best palaeo-art to accompany it. So if you are interested in the subject try to track down a copy).

I consider this the "type specimen" artwork of Squalodon from which most other palaeo-art restorations are based. Often in palaeo-art I find that someone will do one key version of an animal, and then 90% of later artists approaching the same subject tend to copy or borrow heavily from this first "type specimen". I'm planning on doing a post on this phenomenon later, but that is the general idea.

One of the most clear examples of this derivative referencing (which is not necessarily a bad thing, I point out, but it is just important to acknowledge) is Arthur Weasley's Squalodon from wikipedia. It is a nice piece, but where it is accurate it incorporates all of Cox's features.

Weasley's body and fin proportions are not very well measured, and so I didn't really use this picutre at all. It is worth crediting this piece with a pretty accurate skull though. At the same time I didn't use it as it rehashs all of Cox's ideas. It has the same skinny long slender snout, and the relatively spherical melon organ (what makes a whales forehead) as Cox's.

My favourite of the "Cox"ian Squalodons is Rob van Assan's version here. Again we see the same general head configuration with the long beak and very small round melon organ.

Not that I'm saying one has to reinvent the wheel with palaeo-art, especially if a pioneer artist captures something scientifically critical to an animal in their earlier version. However Squalodons' heads did not necessarily look like this. Dr. Fordyce has directed me to create a completely novel vision of Squalodon compared to the Cox idea (wait for this in Part 4).

Highlighting the fact that the look of Squalodons is not completely agreed upon, you'll notice Mr. Assan has put his own spin on the Dolphin. Instead of a dorsal fin he has added a river dolphin (the closest living relatives of Squalodons) ridge along the back. This gave some food for thought, and prompted Dr. Fordyce's opinion on the fin (again coming in Part 4).

A radical departure from the Cox model, is this rather Bottlenose Dolphin looking Squalodon by the Aquaheart Museum (as the majority of this site is in Japanese which I don't read, I couldn't find an artist's name. If you know the artist who created this piece of art please let us know in the comment section or email us at artevolved@blogspot.com.)

Though pretty much everything about this piece runs against what we know of the Shark Toothed Dolphins (in particular the lack of said shark-like teeth) as it is trying to mimic a modern Dolphin, the extant looking melon organ turns out to make this one of the key Squalodons I came across.

The best two sets of references I found combined aspects of both styles. The one set of pieces by Chris Gaskin I was asked not to post, as they are the property of Otago University. Chris Gaskin created the pieces for Dr. Fordyce in the 1990's, and so I found them a good guide to what the good doctor would want in his renditions (though as I'd find out, Dr. Fordyce's views on Squalodons have changed in the last 15 years).

The other pictures, such as the Waipatia above (a relative of Squalodons), came from a book accompanying a fossil whale exhibit from Japan. Sadly I only had access to Dr. Fordyce's copy, and the majority of the writing was in Japanese, so I was unable to get the artists name. If you know the artist who created this piece of art please let us know in the comment section or email us at artevolved@blogspot.com.

In both sets of pieces the long unusual snout of Squalodon and its enormous teeth are mixed with a much more modern Dolphin face (unlike the basketball Cox look).

Of course had I not been working with Dr. Fordyce my decisions as what to take from these different interpretations would have been difficult. It illustrates the common problem with palaeo-restorations already covered here at ART Evolved. When looking at references with no proper scientific input, it can be tricky.

The most trust worth reference you are ever going to get is the fossil material itself. In my case this was just the skull. Only a few complete Squalodon skeletons have ever been collected, and none were from NZ or easy to access from here.

With each new approach I've taken on the whale since the first (in Part 1 of Flukes) I have ended up referring to the skull more and more. By my last rendition of the Squalodon (coming up in Part 4) the skull was my centre referral point. Which would be my other key piece of advice...

Rule #4 of Scientific Restorations: No matter how other references you find and how much you like other artists takes on a subject, always make sure the original fossils are your main guide. This way you can separate the "facts" in your other references from the "artistic licence and/or style" flavouring the artists may have injected into their piece.

So coming back to my art. This was the Dolphinsauriod. Despite its reptilian flavour, many of the key Squalodon features were starting to take form. I had the long snout, I had the large teeth (though at this stage they were a little too exaggerated), I had something of a melon organ (though not correct in Dr. Fordyce's opinion).

A rough comparison between the Dolphinsauriod and the skull showed that my snout was not quite long enough, and a new factor not mentioned on the other restorations before (as they all got it correct) was the eye was far too high on the face.

The other key issue, causing my whale to look more like a marine reptile, was how I was lacking a proper Dolphin cheek.

After referencing the Japanese artwork and Gaskin, plus some modern Dolphins, this is the fix I came up with.

Though it is quite rough in these early pics, already my Squalodon was looking a lot more mammalian. It was these finer tune details that I would learn much more about in the coming months and attempts.

For the time being (at the time) putting the teeth back into the skull made difference between mammal version 1 and Dolphinsauriod quite remarkable, despite the lack of polish on version 1.

Using my very crude model to fossil comparison, the new model was looking good. This technique however was very crude, and i was going to find out that I needed a lot more fine tune work. You can check out a preview of my new method of art to fossil comparisons here.

Finally I was onto the base of the good copy...

Of course that still wasn't quite the same as having the good copy...

More on that in Part 4!