Meet Cassie. All she wants in life is to get her feet wet, and perhaps a fish or two. Yes, she would really like fish. Do you have some?
Critter of the Month: Castorocauda
mini-comic
Critter of the Month: Castorocauda
Meet Cassie. All she wants in life is to get her feet wet, and perhaps a fish or two. Yes, she would really like fish. Do you have some?
Critter of the Month: Nanosaurus
Critter of the Week: Camptosaurus
Meet Copper & Daisy. These gentle giants are always happy to meet new friends. They love being part of the group.
Copper is a strapping young bull, and never leaves the side of his lovely lady. He’s very much the gentleman with her, and any friend who joins the herd. Just keep a close eye on your pockets if you have treats! Continue reading
Critter of the Week: Plesiosaurus
Meet Nessie. This curious undersea critter is always looking for an opportunity to nab a treat. You’ll never see her coming! Her favorite game is hide-&-seek. 🙂
Look at that smile, I think she wants you to chase her!
Nessie loves a good game of hide & seek. She’ll find a good spot in the sand, bury herself with those powerful flippers, and wait until an unsuspecting fish or squid comes by…
Snap! Up comes her head, and the squid is lunch before it knows what’s happening.
Other times Nessie likes to be the seeker instead, and come up to a school of squid. It’s hard to tell exactly how close she is…the squid are easily tricked into thinking that she’s further away than she really is, so that long neck of hers can dart in for a quick bite.
Her neck is actually quite stiff, more like a fishing pole for extra leverage than the swan-like curviness you usually see on the Loch Ness monster. But Nessie can put that leverage to good use.
There were more squid and squid-relatives than fish in Jurassic oceans, and one of those relatives are ammonites. If you’ve never heard of an ammonite (am-oh-night) before, then you can think of them as squid with snail shells.
The big difference (aside from not being related to snails)… Continue reading
Critter of the Week: Pliosaurus
Meet Tigger. This big guy is always ready to flash a big, toothy smile, especially at mealtime.
Look at that giant, toothy grin. He’s sure happy to see you! He’s looking for a treat or two (or ten), so that’s what this stinky bucket of slimy deliciousness is for. Tigger has a huge appetite, and he’ll eat anything that fits in that giant mouth of his. Even dinosaurs if one of them decides to go for a swim. (you heard right, dinos can swim, we have tracks to prove it)
Now when I say dinosaurs, I don’t mean swimming critters like Tigger. If you want the nitty gritty on what a dinosaur is or isn’t, you can quiz yourself on “Which One is the Dinosaur?”. 🙂 But even though Tigger wouldn’t mind a dino snack on occasion, it wasn’t usually on the menu, since he has plenty of turtles, squid, ammonites (think squid with a snail shell), fish, and marine reptiles to chomp on.
I say marine reptiles, because that’s what this big guy is. Tigger isn’t a dinosaur at all, but a pliosaur. In fact, his species, Pliosaurus, named his whole group!
The other marine reptiles swimming around here are ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. My little girl calls them “icky-saurs” and “pleasy-saurs”. 😛
Making progress… Continue reading
Critter of the Week: Ornitholestes
Meet Opie. He’s a happy little fella who loves to curl up in your lap, so it’s a good thing he’s about the size of a big dog!
Yes, Opie seems to think he’s a big lapdog, and he loves it when you stroke his feathers. Where is he off to now? It looks like he’s going to show you his favorite toy…Opie carries Teddy around everywhere. He’s gone through quite a few “surgeries” to poke the stuffing back in after Opie nibbled on him.
Oh! That’s Miss Kitty peaking around the corner. She’s a little shy after Opie tried playing a game of snatch with her. He’s just a big softie though, and he only wants to play. He’ll get a little droopy when Miss Kitty doesn’t understand. So he’ll curl up in his bed to snuggle with Teddy, and he’ll chirp happy chirps when he snuggles. He sounds a lot like this…
Speaking of soft and cuddly, those feathers are rather like those on an emu or kiwi. Looks a lot like fur, doesn’t it? 🙂
Making progress…
Getting along spiffily (is that a word?) on my little storybook, Dippy vs. Ball. Here’s what I have so far on one of the spreads. A handy little map so we can take a little stroll around Dippy’s hometown to meet the neighbors.
Critter of the Week: Dryosaurus
Meet Rosie. She’s a bit shy, and might need a little encouragement to come closer. A few treats should do the trick. Before you know it she’ll be perfectly content to snuggle close and put her head on your lap. 🙂
Critter of the Week: Camptosaurus
Meet Copper & Daisy. These gentle giants are always happy to meet new friends. They love being part of the group.
Copper is a strapping young bull, and never leaves the side of his lovely lady. He’s very much the gentleman with her, and any friend who joins the herd. Just keep a close eye on your pockets if you have treats!
You can’t hear him, since it’s a picture of course, but Copper is chirping to Daisy. He’s found a good patch of something tasty, and he’s telling her to follow him. Many dinos could probably make a lot of noise without ever opening their mouths, like the gurgly hum Copper is making here. But you can see his lovely red throat all blown up like a bullfrog. 🙂
I imagine him sounding a lot like this…
Making progress…
I’m making progress like a ninja tortoise on my little project. If you want to see what that looks like, here’s a surprisingly fast tortoise I found on Youtube. 😛 (I love how everyone in the clip makes such a huge deal on how fast this tortoise is)
So here’s what I’ve got…
- line work for the comic is complete. (though it needs a couple of updates, I found a paper describing the soft spines on Dippy’s back, and I’ve been drawing them wrong.)
- first page color nearly complete.
- thumbnails for front and back cover, and a few other pages are done, so I just need to finish the line work there.
Here’s a quick look at the first page. I’m going for a simpler style that’s animation friendly later on, so aside from a few tweaks on the background, this is just about done. Do you prefer the simpler, more suggestive backgrounds, or a little more detail?
Personally, I’m thinking of very minimal background, similar to the Wall-e and Big Hero 6 shorts. 🙂 Those short clips have pretty much no background, but the little scene at the bottom of the page is closest to what I’m going for. Very minimal.
Here’s a look at the Wall-e and Baymax clips, so you see what I mean.
What do you think? I would love your feedback! 😀 Just leave a quick word or two (or three) in the comments. 🙂
Coming Next Week…
This little dino is a bit shy, but she’ll come out of the bushes for a sweet hug and a small treat. 🙂
Share your guess in the comments! She’s one of the critters over on the critter page. 🙂
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