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#commission #dinosaur #raptor #speedpaint #utahraptor #watercolor
Published: 2015-02-07 22:56:58 +0000 UTC; Views: 5418; Favourites: 312; Downloads: 0
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Description
"I've found a new way to sit!""Speed paint" commission for MistingWolf of her two Utahraptor characters, Aventurine and Cinnabar!
I struggled a bit with scale here (damn, that's a big cycad!) but otherwise this was a ton of fun. I think I'm getting just a little bit faster with these, when I do end up with free time to work on them. Luckily (or unluckily, rather) my schedule is opening up so that I'll have more time to devote to art.
These Utahraptors were requested to be painted sans feathers, so please be respectful! I have a lot of catching up to do in regard to rendering dinosaurs. Whew!
Watercolors on Arches 140 lb hot press watercolor paper, roughly 8.5 x 11" (21.59 x 27.94 cm). Commissions are open, review the price guide in my gallery before inquiring.
Art © April Schumacher. Characters © MistingWolf . Please do not plagiarize, use for profit, etc. For commissioner's use only.
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Comments: 31
the mixture of black and orange looks fantastic!
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Sometimes I miss naked dinosaurs. Feathers can look either really cool or really dumb on them.
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I wonder if it's the fact that a lot of people like to do the fully fledged, fluffy modern day ornamental bird feathers on some? I like sleeker feathers/ partial feathers/ different kinds of feathers, like simple quills and/or bristles! But I don't know, I do really like feathers, even when the critter looks cuddly as a result.
I have seen a lot of badass feathered dinosaurs, so I'm really happy about that.
Perhaps if the naked dinosaurs weren't drawn as being so strangely thin, I wouldn't mind.
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I like feathers if they still look sleek mostly, but don't care so much for chick-fluff or ugly-emu t-rex and the like. Sometimes naked dinosaurs just look cooler, even if less acurate.
Personal preference, is all. Sometimes I do like the feathers a lot.
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Extremely fluffy large theropods do seem a bit much, aesthetically. They are really good for a giggle, and if we get the evidence for the fluff, I'll accept it!
Naked dinos are alright in some cases, though I've noticed now that they do seem to look extremely thin, in a shrink-wrapped sort of way. Maybe I've just been drawing things less lean and more beefy lately? It's hard to know for sure!
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It is hard to know for sure, really. My favorites tend to be mostly naked, but not 'shrink wrapped' as you put it--put some fat on those guys! I like when feathers are used well, and don't skimp out on the cool coloration possibilities. If I wanted to look at a struthiomimus shaped emu, I would just go look at an emu.
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I admit I've drawn my fair share of emaciated looking beasts, dinosaurs and otherwise, but I don't find that aesthetic nearly as appealing anymore. I've been realizing my designs have been reflecting this, most of the critters have a lot more mass than earlier renditions.
Amen on the emu sentiment!
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Wow! These two look stunning! How you matched the colors so well is beyond my comprehension, but I'm glad you were able to! Sometimes I wonder if it was a good choice referencing the colors of the red-footed falcon, but this throws all my doubts out the window! Just so gorgeous and vibrant! Such an amazing speed-paint; there's so much detail! Thank you so much, Pallanoph! I love it and can't wait to get it framed and displayed!
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I'm glad you like how those colors came out! I had feared they might get too muddy at first, but everything fell together just nicely. And bird plumage always makes the best inspiration for color and pattern, I think.
I'm getting faster at these, perhaps by this summer I can really call them speed paints! 
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Three cheers for speedpaints! Huzzah! Huzzah! HUZZAH!
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This is super lovely! I love the color choices, and of course your anatomy. I particularly like the head of the guy on the left; this may be a weird thing to say, but you are very skilled at portraying emotions on non-mammalian faces. (This is something that I personally struggle with, so this is supposed to be a compliment!)
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Awww, thanks! 
Also, my goal is to get a good chunk of Radon and Co. finished this week, now that my week isn't being smothered by Day Job.
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Hey, dinosaurs can be just as awesome without feathers as with them. That's one thing that drives me bonkers, when someone goes "YOU CLEARLY DID THIS WRONG" when drawing dinosaurs. Its not like we know 100% what they looked like, everything above the skeletons and feather-fossils on a few dinos is pretty much strictly theoretical. Unless you're hiding a time machine in your pencil case
Childish arguments aside, now. Beautiful piece. The colors are fantastic, I really love the values in the black. If I may ask, are you using mars black or Payne's grey here? Or something else, my knowledge of dark paints is limited by what I can afford personally XD And the reds are just great, very vibrant, but still nice and earthy. And speaking of earth, those shadows and the way they work with the ground and the grass, for some reason, that's one of my favorite parts here...for lack of a cleverer statement, its just really well...blended? Composited? 
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There's a thing called "phylogenetic bracketing", that is, if a member of a group has feathers (or whatever else), we can assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that other member had it too. It's not as theoretical or hand-wavy as it sounds, saying a utahraptor didn't have feathers, even though other raptor species are proven to, is as ridiculous as saying Sabre-toothed cats were bald, despite the fact that all modern cats have fur.
It doesn't always work like this, it is possible that the very largest dinosaurs, particularly tropical ones, were almost entirely scaly, for the sake of keeping cool. This is why elephants, rhinos and hippos are bald. Even if T-rex didnt have extensive feathers, it may have had a mane for display, or arm feathers so those tiny arms could actually have a purpose, or perhaps just sparse bristles or down between scales (we know that T-rex had scales, and bald "chicken skin", but these are only small impressions). And of course, many groups (stegosaurs, ankylosaurs, sauropods) may never have had feathers to start with.
I am aware that the comissioner asked for no feathers, and I am being respectful. But dismissing feathers on dinosaurs just known from bones, in the way you sort of did, fails to acknowledge the fact that scientists do have methods for these things. Incidentally, I don't really think all dinosaurs had fetahers, most larger ones outside of temperate or arctic climate would not have been covered with them (maybe some small feathery accents, crests etc, but not a whole covering).
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I like how there is still skin that would support the wings like this is a genetic mutation or a sub species that evolved from ancestors with feathery wings.
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XD I actually just told the last person that said the same thing as you; I wasn't actually referring to feathers (I'm well aware of the science and research behind these, and I love the way artists have adapted feathers to reconstructions of theropods lately) but to other arguments about less concrete/evident anatomy I've seen throughout the internet. About things like, say, whether or not parasaurolophus had a membrane connecting its crest to its neck (which is said to be unlikely, but there's no evidence yet of whether or not it did), and how some people can take an artists interpretation personally in spite of requested style. I just wasn't clear in stating my thought process
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Well, that's fair enough I suppose.
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We have more evidence that dromaeosaurs have feathers than we do they have skin. I don't mind stylization or nostalgia, and no problem with this picture. But I can safely say that it's not historically accurate.
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XD Oh geez, a bad interpretation of thoughts on my end, sorry. I didn't mean to refer to the idea that dinosaurs like utahraptor and its kin shouldn't have feathers. The 'drive me bonkers' statement was aimed towards some other various arguments I've seen out there. I think I related them to this because I've seen people get extremely heated about little mis-representations, even in the sake of style and preference, that even an artist saying "I'm well aware the evidence clearly says feathers, but this is the style that was requested" isn't enough to stem the arguments. My apologies for the confusion ^^
I also apologize if this seems like meaningless word vomit, i'm literally two minutes from going to bed, and my brain is just not with me
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I definitely understand some of their gripes with paleontological illustrations that cling to older tropes (big teeth hanging out of lipless mouths, lumbering awkward anatomy and poses, listless derpy expressions) but yeah, a lot is educated speculation. I do love what people are doing with dinosaur plumage, though, but that's just my bird nerd showing.
The dark tones are Payne's grey with bits of sepia (and a slight touch of raw sienna, I think) for the lighter areas. Payne's grey, sepia, burnt umber, etc. are all my favorite dark pigments, often mixed with deep dark greens and crimsons or ultramarine blue for added depth.
I'm glad you like the tones in the ground! I almost overdid it, and I'm so glad I didn't. It sounds funny, but sometimes I'm really happy when I've picked the right time to quit.
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100% agree with the plumage thing. And the great thing is there's so many different ideas flying out there, and so many birds to pick and choose from for inspiration. It makes artists' works all so diverse
I see, thank you for the insight! I need to start screwing around with my paints more...I have a pretty extensive group of colors in my watercolor case, so I think I personally rely to much on the extent of what's there already, and I usually don't consider "What would happen if I mixed these two unrelated colors? I bet that would just do the trick there." That and I'm a coward and if I get a thought even remotely like that, I stop and say "WAIT IF YOU RUIN THIS YOU"RE A FAILURE AND YOU MUST START AGAIN." I'm awful with doing that 
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Going back to your original statement. I do think that it is pretentious to put feathers on every dinosaur dug up like we used to put scales on all of them and call that science.
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Yep, this entire field of reconstructive illustration is... to put it lightly, hugely intimidating, though still extremely inspiring. I can't pretend to be even remotely competent in comparison, but I can still have fun with the concepts!
I need to use my watercolor sketchbook to make a study of pigments and how they interact with each other. I have some knowledge of what types of pigments do what in my own collection, but some I shy away from because some of the colors are so intense or make something that burns the eyes a bit. I do like mixing up mud, most of the colors you see in nature are quite muddy, anyway. (Though I feel it's unwise for me to be shouting that in the midst of folks who worship the CMYK color wheel. I like my magentas and cyans too, but use too many bright colors and the eye can't rest!) So when in doubt, make a color mixing chart, and write down (or at least use a color swatch) to show which colors went into it. I need to do that for all my studies, especially when I am using acrylics. It prevents me from wasting a lot of expensive paint!
Gaaah, thanks! 
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I legit thought this was work for one of those science dino books omg
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I'd really love to do this sort of published work someday! Though I've got a lot of catching up to do in regards to discoveries recently made in paleontology. (So much reading!
Thanks!
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