Your Favorite Artwork(s) of Your Favorite Fossil Species

[HD-man]

Prehistoric Kingdom includes some of my favourite reconstructions of the dinosaurs in the game

Of the dinos you listed, I especially like Acrocanthosaurus & Protoceratops in terms of colors/patterns.

[Gwangi]

I recently confessed my love for brutish and ugly looking sauropods over in the Mattel thread and that got me wanting to share here. I think why I love brutish and ugly sauropods is because it kind of goes against the grain of how they're usually depicted, elegant and graceful. Although I certainly enjoy the elegance of sauropods too, and dinosaurs in general, frankly. Anyway, with that out of the way it should come as no surprise to anyone that one of my favorite sauropods is Camarasaurus, arguably the ugliest of all sauropods.

One of my favorite depictions of Camarasaurus is this one by Mark Hallett.


Then there's also this one by William Stout.


Gregory Paul


Looking at some more modern renditions, I like this one by Arturo de Miguel.


And Mark Witton's Camarasaurus, while not ugly, is certainly brutish.

[HD-man]

One of my favorite depictions of Camarasaurus is this one by Mark Hallett.

Definitely my favorite of the Camarasaurus depictions you posted. Too bad Hallett hasn't done more post-All Yesterdays dino art.

[HD-man]

I had a lot of trouble narrowing down my favorite artworks of Velociraptor. The top 2 by Willoughby & Csotonyi, respectively, are my favorites in terms of ecology/behavior (especially Csotonyi's, which reminds me of famous night paintings: https://drawpaintacademy.com/night-paintings/ ). The bottom 2 by Willoughby & Chuang, respectively, are my favorites in terms of colors/patterns (especially Chuang's, which reminds me of living desert birds: http://www.in-the-desert.com/birds.html ).

For those who don't know, my hopes for PhP's Velociraptor have been high since the 1st teaser ( https://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=7869.msg316851#msg316851 ), & especially since the 1st trailer ( http://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=7869.msg317542#msg317542 ). After Ep3, I can confidently say that Una in particular (as nicknamed by Alteori) is the best, most beautiful Velociraptor I've ever seen (& thus, 1 of my favorite depictions of Velociraptor):

To add to Alteori's video, here's a quote from Dino Dad's PhP review ( https://dinodadreviews.com/2022/05/30/prehistoric-planet/ ):

One easily forgets that we are not viewing living animals here; it often feels as though all of it was all simply shot on location as a traditional wildlife documentary. Velociraptor, for example, moves exactly like a large predatory ground bird, with all the little tics and quirks of movement that characterize the living animals, which does as much to convince viewers of its reality as the high resolution CGI models do.

[GojiraGuy1954]

My friend did this drawing of the Giant Eocene Calyptocephalellid surrounded by regular toads which we coined "Megalobufo magallani"

[Bread]

A book that was always present in my local library was Meat-Eating Dinosaurs: The Therapods by Thom Holmes and Laurie Holmes. Now I really don't remember reading it, more so I looked at the artwork non-stop. One of my all time favorites was Michael William Skrepnick's Tyrannosaurus artwork, plus a few others since he provided the illustrations for the book.

I've mentioned this artist in the past, from wanting Rebor to have his Tyrannosaurus' colorscheme be represented on Kiss or Tusk, to almost having a repaint of PNSO's Wilson having the coloration of the Skrepnick's, I've always loved the coloration and look of this Tyrannosaurus.

Lately, I've been wanting to find Carnegie's Tyrannosaurus so it can be repainted with Skrepnick's Tyrannosaurus colorscheme. I think it would represent it well since it is a 90s rex.

[HD-man]

My friend did this drawing of the Giant Eocene Calyptocephalellid surrounded by regular toads which we coined "Megalobufo magallani"

I can't see it

A book that was always present in my local library was Meat-Eating Dinosaurs: The Therapods by Thom Holmes and Laurie Holmes. Now I really don't remember reading it, more so I looked at the artwork non-stop. One of my all time favorites was Michael William Skrepnick's Tyrannosaurus artwork, plus a few others since he provided the illustrations for the book.

I too am a big fan of Skrepnick's artwork ( http://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=10177.msg317242#msg317242 ) & plan on posting my review of that book later this year

[Gwangi]

I'm also a fan of Skrepnick's work and it seems like he doesn't get as much attention as he should. Offhand I can't think of any of his pieces that represent favorite versions of my favorite animals though.

[GojiraGuy1954]

My friend did this drawing of the Giant Eocene Calyptocephalellid surrounded by regular toads which we coined "Megalobufo magallani"

I can't see it

[HD-man]

I had a lot of trouble narrowing down my favorite artworks of Velociraptor. The top 2 by Willoughby & Csotonyi, respectively, are my favorites in terms of ecology/behavior (especially Csotonyi's, which reminds me of famous night paintings: https://drawpaintacademy.com/night-paintings/ ). The bottom 2 by Willoughby & Chuang, respectively, are my favorites in terms of colors/patterns (especially Chuang's, which reminds me of living desert birds: http://www.in-the-desert.com/birds.html ).

For those who don't know, my hopes for PhP's Velociraptor have been high since the 1st teaser ( https://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=7869.msg316851#msg316851 ), & especially since the 1st trailer ( http://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=7869.msg317542#msg317542 ). After Ep3, I can confidently say that Una in particular (as nicknamed by Alteori) is the best, most beautiful Velociraptor I've ever seen (& thus, 1 of my favorite depictions of Velociraptor):

The following depictions/artworks of Velociraptor deserve honorable mention.

These are by Rey & Witton, respectively. They're very similar scenes, but in very different styles, which I love for reasons discussed elsewhere (Rey: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3626737595 ) (Witton: https://www.deviantart.com/jd-man/journal/SD-Good-Semi-good-and-Bad-Dino-Sources-4-800236863 ).


These are from NHM & AMNH, respectively. Furthermore, they illustrate both some of my favorite dino exhibitions ("Dino Jaws" & "Fighting Dinos", respectively) & some of my favorite dino books (NHM: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3474599046 ) (AMNH: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3496883878 ).

[Sim]

This is a great thread!  Thanks for creating it H @HD-man!  I'll be sharing my favourite artwork of my favourite fossil species after this post.

I love this piece by John Conway (https://johnconway.art/) for several reasons. I like that the art is stylized and recognizable instead of aiming for pure realism. Troodon works as a stand-in for my favourite type of dinosaur, the small, bird-like feathery ones. Finally, we had a huge magnolia tree in our garden when I was a child, which turned into a mountain of pink and white blooms every spring. So, while it might sound cheesy, this artwork is bit like seeing a piece of my childhood in a Mesozoic setting.

@Psittacoraptor I hadn't seen this artwork before, I like it.

Thanks for reposting it, I've now saved it to my computer. It's an interesting piece, really getting a fledgling baby bird vibe from it.

Anytime. I especially like it b/c it reminds me of GSPaul's climbing/perching sinornithosaurs, but better: http://gspauldino.com/PTDromaeo.pdf

Thanks for sharing both the additional Velociraptor artwork and the link to GSPaul's Sinornithosaurus PDF.  The perching Velociraptor image is indeed interesting, as is GSPaul's reasoning and artwork in the PDF.  It's good to see more evidence for microraptorians being volant.

I recently confessed my love for brutish and ugly looking sauropods over in the Mattel thread and that got me wanting to share here. I think why I love brutish and ugly sauropods is because it kind of goes against the grain of how they're usually depicted, elegant and graceful. Although I certainly enjoy the elegance of sauropods too, and dinosaurs in general, frankly. Anyway, with that out of the way it should come as no surprise to anyone that one of my favorite sauropods is Camarasaurus, arguably the ugliest of all sauropods.

[...]

And Mark Witton's Camarasaurus, while not ugly, is certainly brutish.

Er, I find Mark Witton's Camarasaurus is ugly and I don't mean that as an insult.  A few of the artworks I'll be posting are by Mark Witton.

[GojiraGuy1954]

rey went down hard once he started photobashing

[Sim]

I'll start with my favourite species and go down my list of favourites to the end.  So starting with number one, Velociraptor mongoliensis!

By Fred Wierum, the anatomy is very good here and I like how modern it looks.
  (Image source)

By Nobu Tamura, this is an old reconstruction but I find it's still nice.  It was the background of my phone at one point.
  (Image source)

By Mark Witton, I very much like how the wing and tail feathers look.
  (Image source)

By Olorotitan, I find this a very pleasant illustration.
  (Image source)

By dustdevil, I like how realistic this looks!
  (Image source)

By DanneArt, I find this reconstruction amazing!
  (Image source)

[Sim]

Number two, Rhamphorhynchus muensteri!

I'm not sure who this one is by as their name appears to be in Russian letters.  It's pleasant artwork.
  (Image source)

By Willothewasp, a striking piece.
  (Image source)

By MicrocosmicEcology, this piece shows the beauty of dawn and the environment of Solnhofen with Rhamphorhynchus and Compsognathus, I like this a lot.
  (Image source)

By AMNH, a nice restoration of my favourite pterosaur.
  (Image source)

By Mark Witton, I like how it displays the head shape here.
  (Image source)

Another by Mark Witton, showing Rhamphorhynchus in numerous unusual ways: swimming, eating, different growth stages, from the front.  It's an interesting piece.
  (Image source)

By Simon Stalenhag, the environment shown here is very nice and it's a pleasure to see the pterosaurs interacting with it and a part of it.
  (Image source)

By Jaime Headden, I like the expressiveness of the Rhamphorhynchus on the rock.
  (Image source)

[Stegotyranno420]

@Sim i have translated the page for you.
The artists name seems to be DiBGD in Cyrillic (which I am partially familiar) but confused me a bit since Russia orthography does not work like that, so maybe it could just be an "fake" name(like it the way my name is Stegotyranno but it's completely different in real life, his initials, or name shortening.
I am not very experienced in Russian so take my advice with some salt:

Member:DiBgd
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For major contributions to biological papers
-- Congratulations!--Vald 01:52, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit: I also found his DeviantArt page, and the full name seems to be Dmitry Bogdanov
And he makes stunning illustrations
https://www.deviantart.com/dibgd

Also, thanks for sharing all of those Rhamphorhynchus pictures, they make me want to try one myself. : )

[Sim]

Thanks @Stegotyranno420!   Judging by the art style I thought it was by DiBgd/Dmitry Bogdanov but when I did a search of their Deviantart gallery I didn't find any Rhamphorhynchus artwork so I wasn't sure if it was by them.  I think it most likely is by them thanks to what you shared.

I'm happy you enjoyed the Rhamphorhynchus artwork!  I'll watch your art thread hoping you'll do a Rhamphorhynchus restoration.

[ceratopsian]

I especially enjoyed the MicrocosmicEcology depiction of Solnhofen.  Beautiful light.

[Gwangi]

Happy to see you contributing @Sim, this thread needs more attention!

[Gwangi]

I wanted to add that I love that piece by Simon Stalenhag but the site crash when I tried to edit my post yesterday.

[Sim]

Happy to see you contributing @Sim, this thread needs more attention!

Thanks @Gwangi!  I agree this thread needs more attention!  I've got quite a lot more to post!