Meet Bowser. Those horns may look intimidating, and his toothy grin can be downright fearsome.  But you know what they say about books and their covers… 😉

There we go, he smells it!  See these nice big strips of jerky?  He’ll love it.  I brought some for you too if you want to give him a special treat.

See him cock his head off to the side a little?  Bowser can see a little bit in front of his nose, but he has trouble seeing very much past those bony ridges in front of his eyes.  He still has better binocular vision than his cousin Alfred though!

Here you go, just take a strip of jerky with these tongs, and we’ll get to see the size of Bowser’s chompers.  Bowser’s teeth are some of the longest for a dinosaur his size.

Yep, hold the tongs just like that, so we keep our fingers out of the way.  There we go!  Good boy Bowser!  Listen to him grunt. 😀

Oh he wants more.  Ok big guy!  Wow, look at the size of those teeth!  Personally, I’m glad he usually keeps his mouth shut…

 

Bowser always reminds me of a pit bull.  Kinda short (compared to Alfred), thick muscle, big head…he’s the pit bull of Jurassic predators.  He’s buff, he’s tough, and he’ll stop at nothing to protect his special person.

He has an unfortunate reputation for being aggressive and nasty, but animals are only as bad as their owners train them to be.

Give them a good home and healthy training- you’ll have a loyal friend that is sweet and adoring.

Well, I’m not sure how adoring Bowser can be…he’s not exactly the sharpest tack.  But Pete’s trained him well, and he never shows his teeth except when he’s chomping down on a meal.

That’s a good boy Bowser, here’s another piece of jerky for ya. 🙂

Making progress…

One row of pages is done!  Almost to the halfway point…but it sure looks nice to have one whole side on the chart done! 😀  Gotta be grateful for every little step of progress amiright?

 

I learned a lot from working on the page where the family enters the shop. Here are a few things I noticed that need adjustments for the final drawing.

• The store is looking a bit like an empty room with a few objects placed in it.  I’ll need to make a little cardboard room for this one, and perhaps go to a few more pet stores…
• I’m not 100% happy with the family’s position, especially Mommy.  In James Gurney’s wonderful book, “Imaginative Realism”, he goes over a few of his own preliminary sketches for one of the Dinotopia books.  In it, all the characters were evenly spaced out, none too close to anyone else, and I see that happening here.

Why is this a problem?

Knowing how I would be like in this situation, I’d be a lot closer to Brother and Sister on the left.  Especially since Brother is climbing up on the counter.

Since drawing this, I’ve watched how my husband walks with Baby more closely, and they are also a lot closer together than illustrated here.

• Though I’ve liked the “magic time elevator” idea from the beginning, and I’ve always had a fondness for antique cage elevators, I’m still not quite happy with the design.  Especially the spiral thing at the top.  (ignore the weird arrow buttons, I know they’re different sizes 😀 )

I haven’t thought too hard about why one would need a magic elevator to get around the shop…aside from a few influences from Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and the Magic School Bus…and it’s fun!  How else can you have a virtually limitless zoo of animals of varying sizes and time periods?

Aside from the mysterious elevator though, there’s nothing at all strange or “magicky” about anything.  The creatures are all perfectly normal animals, just like your average domestic dog or cat.  And they all require the proper supplies for their standard care.

Some are more challenging than others… 😀

Anyway, the design for the doors need quite a bit more tinkering…Some sort of blend with Victorian-era ironwork and beautifully preserved fossils like ferns and ammonites. 🙂

I hope you enjoy seeing these little behind-the-scenes evaluations.  This stage is when I do all the troubleshooting, so I catch mistakes early!  It’d be terrible to make it to the final coloring stage and notice something totally off!

 

Coming Next Week…

This little flyer just wants a little snack…please?

Share your guess in the comments! He’s one of the critters over on the critter page. 🙂