Velociraptor mongoliensis pair

Even though it's been finished and on-line for a while now I figured I'd post the final version of my velociraptor painting so I could explain it a bit further. :)

Description X-posted from Deviantart:
Male (background) and female (foreground) variations of Velociraptor mongoliensis. *waves her "artistic license" around*

I have been wanting to paint this since I read an article on feathers having possibly evolved for display, before flight. I liked the idea of a more fluffy crest plumage, rather than scraggly red sticks poking out of the head like they are commonly shown as having on TV. The male raptor would be able to hide his bright feathers and only flash them as a territorial display towards other males or a pick-up line with the ladies. I'm embarrassingly behind on my dinosaur learnin', so please don't beat me if I missed something. I wouldn't mind pointers however, so I don't make the same mistakes twice.

Photo reference of raptor skeletons were heavily utilized. I don't think I'll use this painting technique again. It took WAY too long and didn't leave me much control over the lighting. I kept zooming out and face-palming far too often.

Meet Knuk

I wanted to make a gryphon character of my own to play with Sage's gryphon character Jhator on the Totemlands Forum.


He's still a sketch for now, but you get the idea. Fleshing him out will be the fun part. I will use reference for the actual character sheet so his wings actually look like hornbill wings and such. :p

Selling out to Photoshop

I've been doing a lot of artistic odd-jobs for the school where I take dance lessons. The lady who owns the school (Alina) is a sweetheart and I try to help out whenever I can with show fliers, tee shirt's and even remodeling the website (which has not launched yet). Usually I have plenty of time to work on projects but this time both of us were caught by surprise with a deadline. D:

- Monday I get an email with pictures to use for the new show flier.
- Tuesday & Wednesday I have to drive to Palm Beach for work.
- Wednesday afternoon I get a message: "the flier needs to be done by tomorrow morning or we loose a full page ad opportunity."
- Panic.

Enter Photoshop.

I had two things to work with. A lovely, but low-res photo of Alina. And the previous years flier for the same type of show.
I totally spammed photoshop filters to cover up the fact that the source photo was so low-res. I even threw in pre-made default photoshop shapes.

I really hope I don't offend anyone here but I'm a photoshop snob. So much so, that using any filters straight up like that made me feel like I was cheating. Anyone who's been around me in person for long enough knows that I get grouchy at the idea of someone throwing a colorpencil filter or something over a picture and calling it art. As if no one would notice. Pushing a button does not equal "instant art" in my opinion and if that's what you like to do, that's fine! Refusing filters is just a personal method I insist on for myself.I hate it if I can pick out exactly which filter was used. But on this project there was no time for my stuck up snobby nonsense. I had to make the thing printable at 300dpi and hope no one would notice the total sellout I felt had become.

I think it came out okay, if I may be so bold. It's nothing fancy but it's good for a teaser.

I found out later that it's going to be a full page ad in none other than Yallah Magazine! Needless to say I'm stoked! :D Maybe a little embarrassed too.

New Blog.

Since I don't like talking about myself very much, I thought I'd kick start this blog with a painting I'm working on. It's a pair of fluffly Velociraptor mongoliensis. I thought it would be cool if they had a mobile crest like cockatoos and could flash bright colors for communication/mating.

Thank you for stopping by!