Paleo Petshop

Critter of the Week: Pliosaurus

| Patricia Bujard

Meet Tigger. This big guy is always ready to flash a big, toothy smile, especially at mealtime.

 

Tigger plio.png

Tigger sure has a big appetite.  He’ll eat anything that fits in that giant mouth of his.  Don’t mind the teeth though, because he’s just a big softie.

Speaking of teeth, I’ve made a few changes to his smile.  I’d originally chosen Liopleurodon, the marine predator famous in Walking With Dinosaurs, as the critter for Tigger.  But I decided to change it to Pliosaurus for a few reasons.

  1. Pliosaurus is the pliosaur!  It was the original critter discovered that gave the whole group its name
  2. Pliosaurus doesn’t seem to be as well represented as Liopleurodon, probably because of Walking With Dinosaurs.  
  3. Pliosaurus is easier to spell and say than Liopleurodon.  I have to sound out that name in my head every time I write it. 😛 Kids are awesome at saying long dino names like a boss, but come on, that one is just plain hard unless you’ve heard it. *cough*Walking With Dinosaurs*cough*

What’s the difference between this picture and the last one?

I’m glad you asked, because here’s where I get to geek out on you. 😀  But first, a quick disclaimer.

I don’t pretend to be an expert, because I’m not.  I’m just a hardworking mom doing my best to make a scientifically accurate picture book based on prehistoric animals.  I’m just sharing what I learn in the process, so if you happen to be an expert, please let me know if I’ve got something wrong! I’d be happy to hear from someone more experienced. 🙂

Liopleurodon sketch.
Pliosaurus skull diagram, note the smooth, sloping forehead & shape of the lower mandible. I found this picture by searching the web, but don’t know who to credit. Any help there would be great, because I want to give proper credit to whoever illustrated this helpful diagram.
Pliosaurus sketch
Liopleurodon skull. Picture was found on Pleasiosauria.com, where credit is given to Markus Felix Bühler

Now, Top left picture is the original sketch, which is based on liopleurodon.  Compared to the bottom picture of the skull, now I see where I got the teeth wrong a bit.  Shows what happens when you use a toy for reference. A very well sculpted Wild Safari model, but still a toy. 🙂

Comparing both skull and sketch to the top right and middle pictures, you can see a few big differences.  You can really go into technical detail, but the basics are…

  • the slope of the forehead
  • the shape of the mandible, the bottom jaw.
  • the size and arrangement of the teeth.

So a casual glance looks like I didn’t change much, but a closer look shows a much different animal. 🙂

 

Making progress…

I just want to say thank you for stopping by to chit chat with me on my little corner of internet. 🙂

It truly is humbling (and awesome!) to know that I get visitors all the way from Spain and Indonesia.  I have no idea who came from where of course, so there’s no way I’d ever know where you live unless you wanted to share your address with me.  It’s just cool to see the little map and which countries are colored in. 😀  Isn’t technology amazing?

Thank you for taking the time to read.  Life is busy and time is irreplaceable, so I hope I’ve done what I can to make your stay enjoyable.

If there’s anything I can do to make things better around here, then I’d love to hear from you!  I know there isn’t a lot on the site so far, but what do you like best?  Why do you like it?  I’d love to hear your answer in the comments. 🙂 

 

Coming Next Week…

Two thrown in for the price of one this time around.  This pair are always happy to meet new friends. 🙂

Share your guess in the comments! They’ll be a couple of the critters over on the critter page. 🙂

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. 🙂

All American Dinos

| Patricia Bujard

Happy 4th of July everyone!  I hope you are enjoying the hotdogs, fireworks, family time, and the all around patriotic spirit of the day. 🙂

I really love my country, and everything the founding fathers worked so hard to cultivate in the early years.  So here we have some American dinosaurs to help us celebrate.

From left to right…

That’s all for now!  Thank you for dropping by, and I hope your day is fun and safe. 🙂

 

Behind the Scenes: From Thumbnail to Draft Sketch

| Patricia Bujard

It’s time for a behind-the-scenes sneak peak on the first installment in the series of Pete’s Paleo Petshop, where anyone can go to find a prehistoric friend to take home.  Time has stopped in the Jurassic Period, the “golden age” of dinosaurs, and Danny and his family have come to the shop to find a quiet, little dinosaur.  Hard to find in an age of giants!

 

Now here we have a few thumbnails.  Thumbnails are small, quick sketches that are used to give the artist an idea for the composition of an image.  In this case, thumbnails are useful for getting an idea for the layout of the illustrations.  Which characters to use, where words might go, how the picture will help the words tell the story…it all starts gelling together in the thumbnail.  Keeping thumbnails small helps force you to leave out detail, which helps to focus on the basic shapes.

flyers thumbnailssauropod thumbnailssteggy thumbnails

Once I figured out which thumbnail I liked best I made it larger and cleaned it up a little.  These drawings are mostly to figure out exactly what I need to find references for.

flyers page

For example.  I looked at a couple of pictures of flying birds to help me with Tango and his buddy on the left here (learn more about him here).  It’s not known if these dinosaurs could actually fly or just glide, so this is speculation on my part.  Short, broad wings are great for maneuvering thick forest, and you don’t need a lot of muscle for short bursts of flight. 🙂

In this case, I needed pictures to get ideas for poses!  And for Terry and her friends on the right…well I needed a few reference pictures to have a clue what I was drawing.  These critters are tough if you don’t draw the classic “silhouette from above/below” pose. 😛

Which makes a great example of what happens in the sketch stage.

In the thumbnail, I had one pterosaur (teh-roh-saw-r) flying past the corner of the page.  An overhead flying view is so overdone I decided to have them perch on the branch instead.  I also changed the species to pterodactylus (teh-roh-dak-tih-lus) since they worked out better for what I needed.  Bonus that these guys are the poster children of the pterosaur group. 🙂

sauropods page

Here we have three famous giants of the Jurassic.

  • Ajax the Apatosaurus (ah-pat-oh-saw-rus)
  • Dippy the Diplodocus (dip-loh-dok-us)
  • Elmer the Brachiosaurus (brak-ee-oh-saw-rus).  Yep, his head is the right shape.  The critter in Jurassic Park is actually a Giraffatitan (giraffe-ah-ty-tan).  I’ll write a post on that at some point.  For now, let’s just say that the Jurassic Park variety is the African breed, and this is the American breed.  They’re completely different species, and have lots of things that make them unique, not just head shape. 🙂

I’ve been doing lots of research on the necks for these guys, so that awesome snakey neck is not random.  And yes, it is an awesome python neck (though this is about the limit of its bendiness.)

Also, can I just say how awesome it is to use a toy as a reference?  Yes, you heard me.  I went out and got a few toys (as accurate as possible) and I’m using those for pose reference.  I don’t have the dippy, but for that one I got pictures of the toy online. 😛

Steggy page

Here we have Steggy the Stegosaurus (steg-oh-saw-rus).  Original name, I know 😛

I used a toy I have for reference here too, but this one isn’t the best model, so I’ll be doing research to make sure I correct those inaccuracies.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this sneak preview!  I’m starting to get an idea of what things will actually look like, and that’s pretty exciting after it’s been stuck in my head for so long!  The words need a lot of work (they kinda suck at the moment), but the gist of the story is there.

I’ll never be fooled into thinking a picture book is easy again! 😀

Now my question for you is…Do you have any questions?  Anything you want to know about what happens behind the scenes? Let me know in the comments!  I’d love to hear from you! 🙂

Critter of the Week: Diplodocus

| Patricia Bujard

Meet Dippy!  A giant with a heart of gold, life is never boring when this big guy is around.  Nothing is out of reach!  He’ll stick his nose into everything until every mystery is solved.

 

Dippy.jpg

 

 

Looks like he’s found a very, very big ball to play with.  That ball is pretty much indestructible, and something that comes in handy when you have curious giants like Dippy around.  He loves food just as much as your average sauropod, but Dippy is…how shall I say?  Easily distracted. 😛

Dippy here loves investigating anything new.  He’s not the sharpest rock around, but when you’re this big, brains aren’t a requirement.  I wonder what he plans to do with that ball?  Pete found his old one flattened out in the pasture a couple weeks ago, so we’ll see how long this one lasts.

What’s that you say?  An accident?  Oh no, I’m sure the ball was squished on purpose.  These guys have an amazing sense of touch.  Dippy doesn’t like stepping on certain things, and he’s very careful where he puts his feet (elephants are like this too).

Dippy seems to like the smooth bounciness.  But who doesn’t like to play every now and again? 🙂

 

Making progress…

Hmm, not a whole lot to say this time around.  Just putting one foot in front of the other.  One step at a time.

Moving forward is the most difficult part.  I can’t even begin to say how frightening this is, leaping out into the unknown.  And if I start to think about it for even a moment, the overwhelming list of things I still need to do threaten to bury me.  It’s suffocating actually.

The fear of my family reading this is worse than if you’re a stranger.  I’m not sure why.  Maybe because that position is particularly vulnerable.

Anyway, I’m not saying this to mope, because I hate mopey.  But I’m no Pollyanna either.  Life has both ups and downs, and you’ve got to roll with the punches right? 🙂 Perhaps someday I’ll read this and remember how scared I was at the beginning.  Perhaps I’ll realize then that I’m still just as scared, and still take one step at a time.

Even more important, I hope that this will encourage you.  If you are thinking of leaping out into something unknown.  You’re not alone.

Listening to experts who truly know their stuff is very encouraging.  So I’m just going to share a lovely piece of advice from T. Harv Eker, who I was listening to this morning.  (I don’t get anything for this, BTW, it’s just awesome advice I hope you’ll find as helpful to you as it is for me)

“Fear is the anticipation of pain.  Act in spite of fear.”

 

And another awesome quote I’ve been hearing a lot lately…

 

“Just do it.”

 

 

Coming Next Week…

A real sweetie who’ll tolerate just about anything, even dress up.  Just be careful not to spook her.

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

Setting up Expectations

| Patricia Bujard

 

Pete’s Paleo Petshop is set in a world where you can visit the shop to meet your very own prehistoric friend.  At the moment time has stopped in the Jurassic period, the “golden age” of the dinosaurs, but this is only the beginning.  Over time we’ll explore every period of Earth’s history, and meet all sorts of cool critters- even plants and bacteria are amazing if you take a closer look!

The first picture book will look through the eyes of 4-year-old Danny as he goes to the pet shop with his family.  They’re looking for a pet that’s small and quiet- hard to find in an age of giants!  But picture books are harder to make than you’d think, especially since I want to do it right.  So we’ll get to explore the world, meet the characters, and have other adventures (like short stories) while I work on writing and illustrating the book.  🙂

As a reader, I’ve always loved diving into the world.  I was (and still am) a huge fan of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.  I was the sort of girl who memorized all the spells in Harry’s spell book, tried learning Elvish, and pinched my ears in the hopes they might get just a tiny bit more pointy on the ends.  😛 True story.

I fell in love with the worlds between the pages, and I wanted more of that.  I’d like to give you that same experience.  (Ok, I kinda wish I had my own pet dinosaur too.)

I have so many ideas for exploring the world!

  • Interviews with Pete & the critters
  • Adventures at the shop with Pete & the critters
  • Pamphlets and flyers from the shop to answer important questions on prehistoric animal care.  Just like in a real pet shop 🙂
  • Pete’s Postcards from the shop.  Get a peak into Pete’s mailbox and his weekly tips on handling your prehistoric pet.  This way you won’t miss any new posts, and you’ll get a look behind-the-scenes as I work on the book.
  • And more!  I have lots of ideas, but this list is a good start.  Of course, I’d love to know what you want.  🙂

 

It’s always great to learn something while we’re having a little fun.  So the blog will be a place we can chit chat a couple times a week about anything prehistoric or artistic.  But just so I don’t get too carried away, here’s the jist of what I’ll be sharing with you.

  • Learn about prehistoric critters, and why do they matter anyway?
  • Practice art techniques, especially as they relate to paleoart.
  • Cool stuff I find in my research.
  • Updates on my process and (hopefully) progress as I work to success!
  • Reviews on books or other things that I use and love.  They help inspire me and help me do what I do.  And if it’s something you would like too, then all the more reason to spread the love.  🙂

That about sums it up.  But really, I just want to create a little something that will brighten your day.  There’s plenty enough darkness and despair in the world, and life is too short and precious to dwell on it.  I’m not saying to ignore it entirely, but why not take joy in the beauty of life!

What do you like about dinosaurs and art?  What would you like to talk about?  Let me know in the comments!  I’d love to here from you.  🙂

So What is This Anyway?

| Patricia Bujard

My dino pet would probably be stegosaurus

Imagine a world where our childhood dreams of owning a pet dinosaur could be real.  A place where any kid could go to the pet store and choose their very own brontosaurus or T-rex.

I am currently writing the first book of a series, which looks through the eyes of children as they go to the shop to see all the dinosaurs and other prehistoric critters available at the shop.  Which critter will they bring home today?  A long-necked giant?  A sharp-toothed guardian to scare away monsters in the closet?  The pet they bring home may surprise you.

If you could choose any dinosaur or other prehistoric critter as a pet, what would it be?  I would love to see your answer in the comments!  Me?  I think a stegosaurus like the picture up there would be awesome.  Steggy’s always been one of my favorites.