I've finally been able to get cracking on these illustrations! Here is my latest in Heterodontosaurus illustration. Heterodontosaurus (and kin) was a small plant-eating dinosaur positioned at the base of the family tree of Ornithischia, the group of plant-eating dinosaurs I research for my dissertation. I have a bunch of lateral views of the skull/head created with both pen and ink and graphite/Photoshop. It is proving to be a lot of fun (and addicting)! The Photoshop painting is fun, but I feel that the pen and ink gives it an extra bit of detail as far as the individual elements. Both are great, though!
As I showed in my previous post, I started off with initial sketches of a Heterodontosaurus skull including sutures of the visible bones in lateral view. From top down, it is the skull, the lateral view of the jaw, and the medial view of the jaw.
Then I decided to transfer it to pen and ink! This is a really fun process and it is cool figuring out what lines to use where. It could be better, but I kind of like its simplicity here.
Here I combined the skull and lower jaw to make a whole skull that I could add jaw musculature onto later!
Next is the Photoshop painting of that illustration. I was able to experiment creating form with color and highlights. Very cool!
Finally, I leave you with a quick Photoshop painting I did of a Heterodontosaurus head in life because, hey, why not?
I will post more soon!
~ Ali
