Nessie

The Art & Science of Pete’s Paleo Petshop

| Patricia Bujard

So there’s a long and a short way to go about this.  I do something really tedious and boring, and pull out the scientific papers, fossils, diagrams, anatomy jargon, and articles written by people much smarter and more knowledgeable than me in all things paleontology…

 

OR

I can save you the big snore (because the technical stuff is tough to read, and I like this sort of thing!) and have an excuse to draw yet more cute critters, while sneaking in a few quick fossil facts in a bite-size post or convenient picture. 🙂

Why am I doing this?

The truth is that I got a little frustrated.  All the dinosaur books for kids fall into one of two categories-

Super cute story and dinosaurs, but no science.  For example, “Pteradactyls” lumped in with the dinosaurs, and dinos stuck with the appearance of rubber toys from the 80s.

OR

“Educational”, but tough to read.  Because after reading a list of names like Tyrannosaurus rex, Euplocephalosaurus, and Parasaurolophus 20 nights in a row, I know that book is going to put aside for “some other time”.  Plus the computer graphics always look a bit unpleasant to me.

Pete’s Paleo Petshop is the best of both worlds.  A cute story with illustrations based on the latest scientific research I can find.  But I also want to make clear what part of the illustration is something we actually know as fact, or really just an educated guess.  Speculation.  A hypothesis. 🙂

So this is the start of a new series called The Art & Science of Pete’s Paleo Petshop. That’s super long though, so I’ll have to shorten it somehow. 🙂

For your convenience, I’ll keep a list of all posts in the series here on this page, and I’ll update the list with links as we go along.  I’ll begin with the main cast, and we’ll see where we go from there. 🙂

 

chibi critters color.jpg

Main Cast:

 

Bonus Question: Any special requests?  I’ll be going over these critters in no particular order, so if there’s one you really want to see first, let me know.  First one to answer in the comments gets first pick! 🙂

Critter of the Week: Plesiosaurus

| Patricia Bujard

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. 🙂

Nessie.png

Look at that smile, I think she wants you to chase her!

Nessie loves hide & seek, especially seeking.  Better watch out, because she’ll sneak up on you from below.  She’s really good at that.  It’s hard to see in the picture here, but her eyes are almost on top of her head and point upwards a lot.

It’s kinda funny, because I made the mistake of doing more research while I was coloring her, and ended up making changes!

Now here is my original sketch…

Plesiosaurus

 

Notice all those little bumps and wrinkles in line of her spine there?  And that little line that marks her jaw line at the back of the skull?

Turns out that what I thought was a beefy, well fed Nessie, was actually 2 weeks from starvation.  No kidding.

The article I read compared two pictures of orca whales beside each other.  One starving, the other healthy.  The healthy one had a perfectly smooth torpedo shape.  The starving one had a defined spine and faint lines defining the shape of the skull.

I didn’t even know whales could get that skinny!  But apparently they do, and when they do, it doesn’t end well.

But I’m not sharing random sad stories.  My point is, that this whale showed the same marks as my Nessie.  And she’s a marine critter perfectly adapted for life in the open water.  It’s reasonable to think she’d have similar adaptations.  Thick layers of insulating fat to keep her warm. 🙂  And less wrinkly, because that just makes it harder to glide through the water.  Essential for predators.

So yay for the magic of contour forming shadows and highlights!  Nessie is now a happy and well fed marine reptile. 🙂

I could experiment more with an even smoother and more blubbery profile, like sea turtles, seals, and orcas- and there’s this neat speculative thing about a stumpy skink tail- but that’ll have to wait until the next sketch. 😛

 

Making progress…

I’m having fun with the blog posts, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. 🙂

This week I have a special goal to update the about page.  At the moment it’s too much about me, and not too clear what Pete’s Paleo Petshop means for you.  I love what I’m doing, but ultimately I want it to be for you, and not make it all about me.

It’s important that you get to know me of course.  Who wants to have a one-way conversion with the nameless and faceless website?  I just think the about page could be better.  I could still have the stories about how I got here, just not take center stage. 🙂

Coming Next Week…

This quiet softie loves nothing more than to spend time with his special person.

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