Lady with an Archaeoceratops

Lady with an Archaeoceratops ~ Watercolour with touches of gouache, approx. 138 mm. diameter

Happy New Year! May 2017 be kinder to us all.

I promised our regular reader, Andrew Stück, that I would post this piece, after he commented that it's been a while since my saurian incongruities were last seen on the blog. So here we are! 

Happy 2016 from LITC

LITC 2016
Ink on hot pressed watercolour paper, 150 x 150 mm.

A little late, but not yet too late. Happy New Year to our readers from David (Anatotitan/Edmontosaurus), Asher (Dilophosaurus), Marc (Deinonychus), and me (Diplodocus). 

I made very few contributions to the blog in 2015, owing largely to moving house and a number of rather personal issues, but I very much hope that this piece is a good beginning to a more fruitful year ahead (opening the image out in a new tab for a closer view is once again recommended, *cough*). Oh, and I just wanted to mention that the basis of the boat's design was purloined and adapted from an illustration by Franklin Booth.

Many thanks to Marc for holding off his first VDA post of 2016 (a cracking one featuring Ely Kish once again, hurrah!) to allow me to make this 'opener', so to speak!

Welcome... To Waterloo Station

The dust of Jurassic World may have settled too long to warrant sharing these pictures now, but I was in the throes of moving house, followed by a lengthy period without home internet, and lacked the opportunity previously. Still, I felt I couldn’t have these pictures on my hands without posting them on the blog. 

During the first week of Jurassic World’s release, London’s Waterloo Station took part in what can only be described as a promotional extravaganza with a display featuring models of the film’s ‘raptors’. Visitors were encouraged to take their own JW selfie with the beasties and to share them on Twitter. Yes, folks, it had its own hashtag. I had hoped to drag Marc along for this privilege. Sadly, the display only lasted a week and there wasn’t enough time.

 

Brontësaurus‏

Brontësaurus‏. Sepia ink and gouache on Strathmore grey toned paper, 151 x 147mm.

'My literary and palaeo friends and audiences so rarely converge (which is a great pity), but I’m jolly well going to try.'

So I said when I first shared this drawing on my own illustration blog, Twitter, and Facebook page a few weeks ago. It has since gained what was for me quite unprecedented attention for a single piece of work on any of those media platforms.* Why, it's even been spread about on Tumblr without any attribution, which I daresay is about as 'viral' as it gets for me. As usual, I hesitated sharing it here from the first because it offers very little next to the nutritional goodness posted by my Chasmosaurs brethren, but I've been persuaded otherwise. Stay tuned, therefore, for more in this series.


*Except perhaps for Ol' Salty, which was shared by the Stan Winston School of Character Arts' Facebook page, though as they uploaded the drawing afresh instead of sharing it directly from mine, the figures were not reflected in the latter. *Chagrined mutterings*

Pterrible Courier

Pterrible Courier. Sepia ink, sepia powder, white Conté and gouache on recycled paper, 112 x 178mm.

Pterosaurs make terrible couriers. Especially of food parcels.

This is the context in which this drawing originated. I'm hard-pressed to refrain from making another self-deprecatory remark about its silliness, but I had been persuaded to share this on the grounds that pterosaurs figure so rarely among my work (thereby passing the buck altogether). I also realised rather too late how much this resembles the arm-munching T. rex in action and posture. I hope you won't upbraid.


N.

In the midst of our recent featherless Jurassic Park posts, I recollected this drawing of mine, which I now offer as my utterly trivial contribution to the discussion.  

Perhaps it panders too much to the 'Awesomebro' culture so aptly elucidated upon by John Conway, but for the present at least, I think it serves a small, if not especially profound, purpose. 

I posted this drawing over on Himmapaanensis and elsewhere last summer and under quite different circumstances, a while before David very kindly invited me on as a contributor here, so I apologise to those who are seeing it again once too many times. 

N