Ictonyx artwork

[Ictonyx]

Another ornithomimosaur - the ornithomimid Struthiomimus.

[Jose S.M.]

That's lovely, I like it very much.

[Patrx]

Great reconstruction! Very lifelike.

[Halichoeres]

Really nice work on this one!

[Ictonyx]

Thanks all!

[Bokisaurus]

Great artwork, I like how simple yet so alive they all look, very nice. Keep it up, looking forward to more.

[Ictonyx]

Thank you!

[Charavoitau]

The art style is so soft and cute, I love it!

[Ictonyx]

Torvosaurus tanneri

[Ictonyx]

Kronosaurus queenslandicus

[Digibasherx]

Your artwork's lovely, and I'm really digging the way you shade.  It's subtle, but Your understanding of skeletal and musculature really comes through.

[Ictonyx]

Thanks Digibasherx, that's a really nice comment. Much appreciated!

[Halichoeres]

I think you're holding back a little bit. Don't be afraid to go dark! You can give a lot more depth to, for example, the flippers as they stick out. It's a very nice composition but I have seen you do even better ones

[Ictonyx]

Thanks Halichoeres. For years I only drew flat lateral views, so the challenge with all my drawings at the moment is to understand shapes, and practice different angles and shading. Here is a darker version to compare to the original. Always a learning process!

[Halichoeres]

Yes! Looks like it occupies some three dimensional space now. Well done.

[Ictonyx]

Coelophysis bauri.

Learning to portray extinct animals from different angles is proving as tricky as I expected. Much to learn about perspective, but practice is enjoyable!

[Halichoeres]

I think it turned out nicely! It's really hard to find reference material in anything other than lateral view (sometimes dorsal view for skulls). I came late to the realization that taking photos from weird angles of museum mounts can be really useful. Now I need to revisit all the museums where I took photos in regular old lateral view.

[Ictonyx]

Thanks, and you're right about museum mounts. I'm not too much of an osteology buff, so the two things I like most about seeing mounts are a) they give a visceral appreciation of an animal's size that can't really be gained from just knowing measurements, and b) they allow you to look at (and photograph) a skeleton from a bunch of different angles.

Of course, the caveat with using mounts for reference is that many of them, especially many of the older ones, have obvious issues - pectoral girdles in strange places, no allowance for cartilage between vertebrae, wrists and ankles in unlikely or impossible positions, and - one of my personal favourites - mounts that contain casts of bones from individuals that were markedly different in size - the axial skeleton of a small Iguanodon attached to the limbs of a massive one, for instance. There is a mounted Camarasaurus in the London NHM that has a big cervical vert directly caudal to a much smaller one, giving the cervical series a sudden 'step' like a telescope. This is the sort of thing you notice more and more of, the more you look at mounts.

[Justin_]

.........Much to learn about perspective, but practice is enjoyable!

What would help with the coelophysis is to have less texture detail as you get further along the tail. Also maybe a slightly thicker outline to closer areas and thinner for further away. I guess you could try this out digitally with your scan.

[Ictonyx]

Haast's eagle, Hieraaetus moorei.

A drawing done to work out the proportions of the head, and try out one possible plumage scheme.