Meet Flipper.  He’s a happy-go-lucky guy who’s only ambition in life is to cruise the water for a bite of squid.  He loves to greet new friends with a friendly splash.

 

 

It’s a dolphin!  It’s a shark!  It’s a…dinosaur?

Flipper is part of a unique-snowflake group of animals called Ichthyosaurs (think Ick!-theosaurs).

Way back when his great-great-great-great-super-great grandaddy (some lizardy thing at the time) started spending a lot of time in water.  So much time, that he got really good at it, so now Flipper is basically what a dolphin or fish would look like if reptiles started an aquatic lifestyle.

At least that’s the theory.  No one’s found this hypothetical, reptilian, super-great grandaddy so far, and there’s a lot of discussion when it comes to figuring out Flipper’s closest relatives.

Flipper here doesn’t think too much about all that though.  He’s just happy with the bucketful of squid Pete brings him.

 

Making Progress…

This week I’ve been navigating the lovely realm of technical difficulties!

My usual day for writing the week’s post is Tuesday, since the rest of the week I’m working on progress, and WordPress.com was not playing nice.  So I did what I could, and now I’m trying to finish while the kids eat breakfast downstairs.  😀

So enough icky stuff, on to the fun stuff!

Flipper got an update!  It was mostly the awkwardness of critters with very large eyes, like this guy, that convinced me to change eye styles. He looks much better now that his eye isn’t an awkward dot.  See?

 

 

I’ve also been working on what the info pages in the back of the book look like.  The one I’ve made the most progress on is the Meet the Critters page.  Here’s a sneak peak at what the critter profiles may look like. 🙂  I’m rather pleased with it so far, though I want to make it clear which ones are or are not dinosaurs.  Like Nessie here.  She’s definitely not a dinosaur.

 

I’m wondering if I should include the character’s name somewhere, instead of just the usual genus name.  All the critters in the shop are generally based on a particular species, but I’ve given myself a bit of leeway when it comes to precise measurements because they are domesticated.

I do try to be accurate to the best of my ability and research, but I also don’t want this project to take a century.  So if you notice a few tiny errors (not glaring ones like incorrect number of toes, please tell me those!), then the differences are because these critters are of the domestic variety.

 

Artistic license y’know. 😉

So paleontologists and paleo-art nitpickers, feel free to offer suggestions and tell me where I can do better!  I’m always happy to hear constructive critique. 🙂

But now I gotta run!  I hear a little chaos starting to build downstairs. 😀

 

Coming Next Week…

It’s the T-rex before T-rex!  The Lion of the Jurassic!  The terror of…hold on a second…is he napping? 

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