fabricious' sketches and concepts~

[fabricious]

It definitely is! If I am going to turn this into a full illustration, though, I will most likely be making it a daytime scene, since even big, nocturnal animals occasionally move to a different position during the day or seek shelter somewhere else. But it might work well with the (almost) sleeping individual on the left.

[Yutyrannus]

Still during the day? Okay, I actually do think it would look better at night, though.

[fabricious]

So I followed a couple of interesting posts on Julius Csotonyi's facebook wall and this happened. I was a bit sceptical at first about the 'new look' of Spinosaurus, but now I am far more intrigued by the actual WEIRDNESS of this unusual animal. So for now have a quick sketch of a cretaceous scene from Africa, with a male Spinosaurus having just caught a kind of polypterid fish. The water surface will be covered in Lemna-like plants and those pretty water lily pads over there. Any ideas on other animals/plants I should include, IF I were to finish this?

[fabricious]

Enough procrastination for one evening...

[DinoLord]

Awesome drawing! Maybe have some small Carcharadontosaurus off in the distance.

[fabricious]

Thanks! Haha, might do! Although Carcharodontosaurus seems to be drawn next to Spinosaurus a lot...
Maybe some bird-like dinosaurs from that area/time? Or birds, even?


Scepticalosaurus is sceptical.

[DinoLord]

IIRC the fossil beds from which Spinosaurus is known have mainly preserved fossils of large animals. However looks like there may have been some smaller stuff like dromaeosaurids and azdarchids; check out this page. If Carcharadontosaurus is too cliched then maybe some generic rebbachisaurid sauropods?

Also maybe the prey animal could be larger? Every press release I've read mentions a 25ft sawfish which sounds awesome.

[fabricious]

I've read about (and seen) quite a few depictions of Spinosaurus hunting Onchopristis, I felt like showcasing a bichir-like fish from that time, maybe not even an adult one.

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out! Sauropods definitely might be a nice 'background filler'.

[DinoLord]

Good call on the popypterid. Look forward to seeing this finished.

[fabricious]

Thanks, that might take a while, though! A lot of other projects need finishing first (like my Albertosaurus sculpture) and university starts again next month. I'll keep you updated, should I refine this one more.

[EmperorDinobot]

These are very nice fabricious! Thanks for sharing! Are you on deviantat? (which seems to be down at the moment)...

[fabricious]

Yes, I am! My devArt name is FabrizioDeRossi, thanks!

[fabricious]

Refined the Spino a bit more and added a loosely sketched herd of sauropods to the background (I rarely ever draw sauropods, so this will be a challenge). The whole thing will be a big task, though, since I am not really good at backgrounds and/or finished full illustrations.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

I think it's looking great. This very similar to my concept for building a 1:1 Spinosaurus eventually..and it avoids the whole " leg" issue..

[fabricious]

Thanks Chris. Yeah, I am quite happy that I don't need to worry about the legs with this one. The whole discussion really inspired me to do a sculpture, though... so I might get my hands on that once there is more evidence and/or more reviews to the whole thing.

I am quite curious about your concept now, are you going to build a swamp in your park?

[fabricious]

Put on some base colors, what do you guys think? Might add more dark dorsolateral stripes, especially to the sail and maybe darken it more on the top part. The sort of 'rosette'-like pattern that is barely visible on the front part of the animal might be a remnant of a juvenile coloration. I also might make him a bit more brownish instead of so VERY green, haha.

<a href="http://s252.photobucket.com/user/Arbraxas/media/Bildschirmfoto2014-09-13um225728_zpsffa9bb3c.png.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh3/Arbraxas/Bildschirmfoto2014-09-13um225728_zpsffa9bb3c.png" border="0" alt=" photo Bildschirmfoto2014-09-13um225728_zpsffa9bb3c.png"/></a>

[DinoLord]

I think the green suits him well. The pattern is very natural-looking. Maybe have the lower half be more of a yellow or maybe a brown instead of the dull green it is now? Also perhaps the sail could be a brighter color like red?

[fabricious]

I agree on the lower half of the body, that might need a bit of a tweak. I am not really sure about the sail, though. I wanted to go with a more camouflaged version here, but I might add eye-patches on the sail (similar to those on peacock's feathers) which could have been 'brightened' for display, like in many extant reptiles. What do you think of the more purple-ish tone of the eyebrow region?

[fabricious]

Here's what I meant, basically:



The bigger beige section on the front of the sail has a bit of an aberrant pattern, which tends to happen naturally in the wild. Might make it more obvious.

[DinoLord]

The patterning on the sail looks plausible. However I'm not sure if purple would have been possible for this species - as far as I can find purple coloration comes from carotenoids which are usually plant-based.  That inspires me to make another thread actually...