Meet the artist: Jed Taylor

As if you need any further reasons to attend TetZooCon, here's one more. A couple of years ago I ran into a fellow in the post-TZC-pub with a folder full of his own dinosaur drawings. Natee and I had a look, and were suitably impressed; there was room for improvement, but it was a very solid foundation.

Two years later, and the same bloke - Jed Taylor - approached me again in the pub. And this time, I was blown away. His dromaeosaurs are among the best I've ever seen, but it doesn't stop there; he's illustrated a plethora of dinosaurs in a gorgeous, naturalistic style that's very much in the post-Paulian (sorry again), Floof Revolution mould. Even Andrea Cau's heaped praise on his work, and he's very hard to please. I asked Jed if he could write about his work for the blog, and he supplied the following very many lovely words, which it felt quite criminal to edit down. It may be a little 'TL;DR' for some, but it wasn't for me. Enjoy.

Jed's gorgeous Acheroraptor portrait. All art © Jed Taylor, used with permission.

Recent Paleoillustration from David

I try not to use LITC as a way to just share a ton of my work, but I'm in the mood to at the moment, so you'll just have to bear with me. This spring I did a couple of feathered theropods, and looking back at them I'm still rather pleased with the style. I find that I'm finally to the point where I generally like things I create more than I dislike them. That feels like some sort of milestone.

Falcarius by David Orr

Utahraptor by David Orr

So I decided to draw a stegosaur, because I don't often (ever) do that. But I couldn't just pick Stegosaurus because that's a little obvious. So I went with good ol' Kentrosaurus instead.

Kentrosaurus by David Orr

Anyhow, I won't keep you too long. If you're fond of these and would like to support some independent art on this fine day, feel free to check these out in my Redbubble shop's Paleoillustration section. Even though it's a mouthful, I like "paleoillustration" as a term for this kind of thing - less baggage than "paleoart." Feels like it affords more wiggle room for whimsy.