I am still working away at the prehistoric alphabet book
I teased a while back. With most of the animals illustrated, I'm working on backgrounds, working out how much detail to use. Some seem to work better with little more than abstract color and shape, while some seem to call for a bit more detail. Such was the case for
Vainglorious Velociraptor, who seemed to need a desert backdrop against which to display his fine crimson plumage.
Clearly, I'm going for something fanciful, and they get even goofier than this, depending on the adjective pairing I chose for each. Rest assured that I'm not sticking to popular dinosaurs; I've got plenty of phylogenetic variety in the mix. I'll definitely be sharing more as I get closer to completion of the project!
Out of curiosity, why is your Velociraptor flat-footed? Also, shouldn't we be able to see the palm of its right hand (as opposed to just its thumb)? Sorry if I sound nit-picky, it's just that those things seemed weird to me, given your previous work.
ReplyDeleteHand thing was a layer issue in Illustrator that I somehow totally missed when I brought it to PS for shading, thanks for the catch. Feet an aesthetic choice; in a book that starts with an Ankylosaurus sitting at a painter's easel, I take some liberties.
ReplyDeleteAs a bit of a word-nerd, I'm so glad that you've gone with "Vainglorious" instead of the rather more obvious "Vicious". That's now got me thinking that you could use a series like this to introduce people to less common words as well as less common dinos. I'm assuming that it's "Ambidextrous Ankylosaurus" since he's using both hands!
DeleteI just noticed that the easel forms a fairly obvious 'A', and that there is a 'V' pattern on the Velociraptor's rectrices - is this intentional or just happenstance?
Lastly, I'm assuming that's your stylised signature in the lower right, presumably the upper halves of you intitials.
I have attempted to use interesting words as well, but my main criteria was something that gave me a neat visual idea. Some are quite simple, some will stretch the vocabulary a bit more.
DeleteI am indeed "hiding" the letters in the compostions, nice catch! For many, it will be part of patterning and coloration, but there are a variety of ways they'll be included.
That is my sig in the corner (I know those symbols have a name, but I'm completely blanking on it). It was the result of months of casual sketching and play. I rolled it out on my site (http://www.davidorogenic.com/) last year.
Thanks for the kind words!
Is 'monogram' the word you're looking for, David?
DeleteAs another word nerd, I completely agree with Mark R about your adjective choices. I'm thoroughly looking forward to this book.
Brachiosaurus balancing on a ball?
ReplyDeleteQuite close, actually...
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