#paleoart is amazing i love paleoartists so much

[shift-shaping]

"While we understand Reviewer 2's concerns about not having enough material of this species for a life restoration of this detail, we already commissioned the artist like $800 for it so it is. uh. it's gonna go in the paper."

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

I saw this and felt immediate catharsis

[awannabepaleoartist]

Just found your page, and in in absolute LOVE. What are your preferred books/resources for practicing and studying dinosaur anatomy?

Thanks so much!

Apologies for the late/long reply. I can’t say that I’m “classically trained” in dinosaur anatomy, I’ve just kinda drawn them a lot over a long period of time and followed/taken mental notes from artists far better than I am lol. But, in terms of resources I AM aware of, these are pretty good:

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SkeletalDrawing.com, run by Scott Hartman, has a lot of really well done dinosaur skeletal diagrams to give you an idea of the proportions of different species (as viewed from the side) as well as a few diagrams showing the musculature of theropods like T. rex and Allosaurus and some basic anatomical terms.

https://www.skeletaldrawing.com/

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Matt Dempsey has a lot of spectacular drawings showing the musculatures of various kinds of dinosaurs, and as seen from the side, as well as from the front, back, top, and bottom to boot! They also have some skeletal drawings and some 3D renders of the dinosaur’s life appearances using those musculature diagrams.

https://www.artstation.com/sketchy-raptor

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The Paleoartist’s Handbook: Recreating Prehistoric Animals in Art by paleontologist & artist Mark Witton is available if you’re especially interested in accurately drawing dinosaurs and other extinct life. It’s a book I’ve read, it broadly goes over anatomy for many prehistoric creatures as well as many different aspects of the art form.

https://www.amazon.com/Palaeoartists-Handbook-Recreating-Prehistoric-Animals/dp/1785004611

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Books like Dinosaur Art and Dinosaur Art II showcase a lot of great art by many talented artists, and work great as some general guidelines/inspiration for your own art. They also work pretty well as coffee table art books!

https://www.amazon.ca/Dinosaur-Art-Worlds-Greatest-Paleoart/dp/0857685848

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In terms of some more general references,

RJ Palmer does nice paleoart every now and then and has a detailed diagram showing the anatomy of T. rex.

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Jacob Baardse has some of my favorite 3D renditions of dinosaurs, they do a good job of showing the underlying anatomy while having the models appear extremely lifelike. His Artstation page also has a few pieces where you can view their models in 3D, giving you a better idea for the body shapes at different angles.

https://www.artstation.com/littlebaardo

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There are many other amazing artists, too many to name here. Some of my favorite artists being Andrey Atuchin, Lucas Atwell, Fred Wierum, Joschua Knüppe, Rebecca Dart, David Krentz, Emiliano Troco, and Tom Parker among countless others. Many of them are quite knowledgeable, and if you look them up on social media you’ll find their art and discussions with other talented, knowledgeable people about similar topics. 

If you can afford them, David Silva is also producing highly articulated figures for the Beasts of the Mesozoic series. These are very accurate and are made in collaboration with some of the artists already brought up here. Good in-hand art references if that’s to you’re liking. Much better than most dinosaur figures you would find at the dollar store or some large supermarket.

I know this was long-winded and maybe more than you were looking for, but hopefully you at least found it interesting and even a small portion of this helps!

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