<< Do any of you paleo(life) artists out there in Dinoland have any
suggestions
as to where I might be able to find some good refs for drawing dinosaur
skin? I'm talking about books/websites that show the nitty-gritty details
of reptilian skin and even bird feathers. >>
Just the opinion of an old impressionist
here. Don't worry about it. I've done a lot of bird pictures in my time and
have spent at least some time every day for about forty years observing them.
It's very seldom that you can see even a single feather. Check it out yourself
with your own eyeballs. Spots and bands and various patterns are obvious, but
they function as part of a whole, not an array of individual pieces. In natural
lighting feathers and scales cease to be diagrams and at a modest distance
blend into each other. Wildlife art that depicts every feather or every hair or
every scale reflects an artificial means of attributing value to an artwork
rather than anything that has to do with reality. It's coming from the
intellect rather than the eyes.
In "reptiles" crocs, of course are an
exception with their big scutes and spines. Ankylosaurs and stegosaurs also.
Anything that would serve as a signal would stand out also (like the
tuberosities on the muzzles of tyrannosaurs). In the non-feathered dinosaurs
the basic backround "pavement" is so small that it would disappear as
do the individual feathers of birds. <<
I agree
with Dan. I’ve stood 5 feet away from the mummy hadrosaurs at the AMNH and you
can’t tell the individual scales, except the bigger ones, but at 10 feet away
you can just see them. I use to draw every single scale on some of my drawings,
it’d take hours. It looks cool but if you stood as close as the drawing
depicts, you wouldn’t be able to see them.
Tracy L. Ford
P. O. Box 1171
Poway Ca
92074