Groeberia, mixed media and digital era.

Groeberia is an extinct genus of South American metatherians, it is believed that these animals were small and probably arboreal frugivores.

After an intense dialogue with some artist friends about art and the media and the actions we take to achieve our goals, we realized how difficult it is to stay in one pure technique nowadays.
Even if you want to share on the Internet (for example) a landscape done in watercolors, the digitization (including or not the file postproduction) converts our work in mixed media! jeje

Anyway I have no intentions to fight against this … freedom of action (mixed techniques) is an artistic brand in my family =D

This drawing was done with pencils on plain paper, scanned and coloured digitally by intervention of gamma levels and layers of transparent brushes.

Inspired by nature

Looking for sources of inspiration I found an amazing photo of a pelican with hands in the dough (or rather the mouth!) said and done I started drawing this Pterodaustro to try new papers (this time Bristol 110 lbs) and recover a little taste by drawing without many anatomical and technical barriers! Hope you like it!

 

The awesome photo:

And the photo source!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=628743500489697&set=pb.447114988652550.-2207520000.1381804576.&type=3&src=https%3A%2F%2Ffbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net%2Fhphotos-ak-ash3%2F998478_628743500489697_732542490_n.jpg&size=779%2C480

Cheers!

 

Mahajangasuchus reconstrucion

Enjoying with my beloved crocs: this time is the mighty croc from the cretaceous of Madagascar!

Photo by Ryan DeLuca ( from his Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryno720/4750267483/)

After find good references I start sketching…

… and then painting with watercolours!

 

Extra bonus: one of the full body sketches for the final work!

Swim deep to found weird echinoderms

A training subject

During a season of schematic-boring-non-artistic works, my hands start to claim for more action and then in the free times I choose a random animal to draw.

This last days I took the well known Protypotherium as my muse, to revenge the frustrating results of a complex illustration of the past year; which sank (despite efforts) to the short lead time, lack of dialogue with the customer, and the exes of trust in my abilities as a miniaturist …   and, to retake an older proyect of life restoration of this cute little animal, which start after this scientific illustration :

This is Protypotherium sp. as shown at the Museo De la Plata in a cute slab from patagonia, and the illustration was a training in attempt to make more diverse my portfolio (full of crocs and dinos to show to an almost 99% of mammalogists in the division staff) and to be shown at the IV CLPV in San Juan Argentina (2011)

And these are two examples of my “relaxing” exercise:

First one of my “train sketches” (literally between station and station of the Ferrocarril Roca)
Certainly this is the best of a lot ,but the constant moving and shaking of everything, makes the act of grab a pencil a matter of faith, and freedom. So, foreknowing the chances of mistake, there is no fear to make a mess: I just do it!

Finally this is a color study for a watercolour paint that I hope to do before the end of this year! =P

Hope you like it! and feel free to comment!

Manuel

Echoes of the marsupial wave..

Well, after some interesting works (many of them with a lot of discussions and knowledge shared by paleontologists) I keep going on the matter and produce extra drawings about the things that I´ve learned.
Here is one example: this is Thylacosmilus atrox from the Miocene of South America, and many aspects of its anatomy and way of life was kindly explained to me by Dr. Francisco Goin during our drawing sessions.
Although my final drawing for him was only in lines, I just want to get further on this magnific beast!

With a blunt nose, head slightly turned down, sabertooths almost parallel and a more “didelphid“ look!

Drawn on cardboard with colour pencils and a little of digital edition.

Hope you like it!

Less art, more paleo!

Here I go!

There is somethings nice and tricky to do on fossil vertebrates : put them flesh!

So these are two works on crocodiles musculature I made as a personal investigation (although there is no much news on my results), maybe it is the first time that this kind of anatomic treating is performed to both mesozoic crocs:

First a juvenile Araripesuchus patagonicus based on the holotype

And second, a picture that emerged after studies for Araripesuchus:  Lomasuchus palpebrosus

The Marsupial Wave II

Sharpening the pencil, this time I bring some sketches that become good drawings but fall outside the main work (but more in the fun of art!)

Sitting many hours making the same animals in the same stance turns boring, so exploring the form and behaviour like an exercise is relaxing and increases our knowledge about what is drawed.

The marsupial wave

During the preparation of a wallpaper about south american extinct lineages of marsupials, I made a considerable amount of sketches who´s in general I don´t discard but don´t show because the incompleteness or mistake nature

In this case all was made on ballpen to get a good and strong line and at the same time to be able of a variety of textures.

So this is the background of one of my current works:

reasoning upon life-reconstructions 1

After a long absence, while I had eyes on the heads of the xenarthrans (a difficult and interesting issue that I will post when the results be properly publish..)

Making life reconstructions turns a huge work of science, if what  we are looking for is more accurate results, so depending on deadlines and client requirements, results fall into the wide (and safe) paleoart boundaries.

An important factor is the availability of information and / or the nature of the animal to represent wich without some living relatives turns pretty speculative…

Like this approach to the synapsids (that “proudly” I name: Ulemica invisa)

Drafted only with a couple of photos and some knowledge about how they may look like…

Cheers!