TRUE GRITT ART
Helping to educate through art
TRUE GRITT ART
THESIS WORK
Description
Dinosaurs could have looked like virtually anything. While there are a few exceptions to knowing what skin texture and some feather colors could have been we will never get it 100% right. Their plumage and skin texture and colors will forever be hidden from us.
Animals today see the world differently from us. They see more of the visual spectrum of light. Meaning they could see ultraviolet (UV) light. It is reasonable to think that dinosaurs could see UV light like most other creatures alive today. Meaning not only would they look one way to us but that they would look another way to each other.
I will illustrate a number of dinosaurs with different colors and plumage as not only how a human would see them but how they would see each other. I will re-illustrate my educated guess on what they looked like if we could see UV.
Creating 4-6 total illustrations of males and females with “normal” colorings and UV colorings. They will be scientific illustrations meant to speculate the science of UV light and dinosaurs.
I plan on illustrating a triceratops pair, a velociraptor pair, and a tyrannosaur pair. This will allow for a variety of colors and textures, from protofeathers, feathers, skin, and keratin. My illustrations of the tyrannosaurs will be based on personal conversations and articles from Dr. Thomas Carr, which will go against a few popular beliefs on the appearance of tyrannosaurus rex.
THESIS ARTWORK
VELOCIRAPTOR MONGOLIENSIS
The bird-like design for Velociraptor is relatively undisputed at this time. I based my design based off of a number of modern birds.
UV LIGHT VELOCIRAPTOR
UV shown is just my own speculation as to how they would have fluoresced. Based on a variety of modern birds.
TYRANNOSAURS REX
I did not include feathers in my design. This is based on my research on scale imprints and the fact that only smaller relatives of rex had feathers. Those relatives also had feathers to regulate body heat, which would be unnecessary with T. rex's size. My design is also lacking lips, which is based on an interview I had with Dr. Thomas Carr about the texture of the mandible which resembled modern crocs.
UV LIGHT TYRANNOSAURUS
I wanted to add more colors than just the oranges and reds shown above in my UV version of rex. My design was inspired by modern birds and crocodilians.
TRICERATOPS HORRIDUS
Similar to Tyrannosaurus, my Triceratops has little feathers. The small number of feathers I did include resembles those of Psittacosaurus. These Feathers are for mostly display. My design is inspired by modern birds and large land-dwelling herbivores.
UV TRICERATOPS
The UV version of Triceratops is loosely inspired by modern mammals that fluoresce but more in light solid colors (such as flying squirrels, wombats, and platypuses).
