Chasmosaurus

Well been slacking again on the blog so thought I'd put up my latest dinosaur illustration of a Chasmosaurus.

This was a ceratopid dinosaur from the late Cretaceous (75-70 million years ago) and would have been about 4.5 metres long and weighed about 1.5 tons.

They had a particularly impressive elongated frills. It has been speculated that this may have had bright colours used for display during mating and other communication and species recognition.

Like with other ceratopid dinosaurs it also made them appear larger and more threatening to potential predators.

IF: Tall

Well after another long break form illustration Friday Seeing the topic I thought I’d get back into it with this image I’ve just completed as it seemed appropriate.

Yes back to the dinosaurs.

This is a Jobaria a sauropod dinosaur discovered in the Sahara Desert in 1997. It is thought to have been about 18 metres long. Not the largest of the sauropods but still pretty tall:)

Torvosaurus

Here’s my latest Dinosaur image. This is a Torvosaurus on the prowl with a group of Ornitholestes in the foreground.

The Torvosaurus tanneri was a large theropod dinosaur that lived during the late Jurassic period, about 145 million years ago, in North America and Portugal.

It lived alongside the more famous Allosaurus which it equalled and even exceeded in size at up to 11 meters (36ft) in length.

It was related to the earlier Megalosaurus but was more advanced.

The Ornitholestes was a small theropod of the same period and location. It was about 2 meters (6.5 feet) long.

IF: Shadows

I've always been a fan of Chiaroscuro and dramatic light and shade. I've been experimenting with the effect in some images and recently did this which I thought would fit this weeks topic.

This is a Deltadromeus. yes its back to the dinosaurs for this one. seemed like as good a subject as any to practice the dramatic light on :) It was a large theropod dinosaur from Northern Africa late Cretaceous about 95 million years ago. It had long,slender hind limbs for its size, suggesting that it was a swift runner.

IF: Duet

A bit of a last minute entry this week. I had a few ideas but not much time then came up with this.

A pair of Parasaurolophus. This was a large Hadrosaurid dinosaur from the late cretaceous of New Mexico and north America.

For a long time it was believed that this dinosaur lived an amphibious lifestyle perhaps using its crest as a type of snorkel! This is now known to be completely wrong and Parasaurolophus was a land animal living in herds.

Three different species are recognised each with differences in their head crests though it is also possible that this indicated differences in the sex of the animal.

It is now thought that the crests were used for display and in the production of sounds for warnings, mating and general communication.

IF: Prehistoric

As you can no doubt tell from some of my other illustrations this subject was right up my street:) I already had lots of images I could use for it but decided it would be fun to do a new one.

So In the end I settled on a Megalosaurus (well 2 actually)

This was the first dinosaur described from a bone in 1676 and the subject of the first ever scientific description of a dinosaur on record published by William Buckland in 1822.

Megalosaurus (meaning great lizard) was a large meat eating theropod that lived in what is now the south of England , France and Portugal during the middle Jurassic period, nearly 170 million years ago.

Despite being famous for being first it is still not that well known and no complete skeleton has yet been found, though with what is available and comparing it with other more complete fossils of other related dinosaurs it's possible to arrive at a reasonable idea of what it may have looked like.

It also shows how our understanding of dinosaurs has changed over the years, the early reconstructions depicting it has a large heavy four footed, crocodile headed type creature. Though this may seem strange now at the time with very little evidence to go on, no other dinosaurs to compare it to and the only large reptiles known being crocodilians it was a reasonable assumption.

It is in fact surprisingly recent that the dynamic view of dinosaurs we have today came about. I remember books in the 60s and 70s (I've still got few, I love old dinosaur books)still portraying the large , dull witted tail dragging monsters and long necked swamp bound sauropods.(and even more worryingly I still see the odd kids book today that gets lots of things wrong!)

IF: Savour

In the film Jurassic park there's a great scene where the T-Rex chomps down on a lawyer and seems to really enjoy it. Taking this to the obvious conclusion James Farlow in his book 'The complete Dinosaur' worked out it would take 292 lawyers each weighing 68 kilograms 150 LBs) to keep a 4 ton T-Rex fed for a year.

Though lawyers are one option I would prefer to start with politicians as they tend to be fatter, more stupid and cause most of the problems in the world.

Even as a long time vegetarian I think its a great idea and we should be making every effort on the cloning front to bring them back, we could even keep one at the houses of parliament, it would really bring in the tourists.

Anyway I thought this called for a ‘new scientist' type diagram to really bring home the benefits.

IF: Double

Well due to doing other stuff and a few computer problems I didn't get anything out for the last few IF topics.

Sticking with the dinosaur theme as it happened I'd been working on this so thought it would fit in with the with the double theme.

Well if you had these two after you it would be double trouble. These are a pair of carnotaurus one of the stranger looking dinosaurs but for some reason one of my favorites.

IF: Giant

Well one of the main reasons for starting this blog was to take part in illustration Friday. With one of my interests being dinosaurs the subject of giant and having just completed this image it seems to be the time to start.

This is an Argentinosaurus and they don't get much bigger than this (as far as we know so far!)