Dr Matt Dempsey

The majority of scientists with whom you work with directly for palaeoart projects can be trusted to not modify your work like this.

But use of GenAI is becoming increasingly common in companies that produce display content, and we need to be aware of this to protect our assets.

I strongly encourage my palaeoart peers who work in the museum display sector to write explicit "no AI modification" clauses into their contracts.

Even if your employee contacts at a given museum are trustworthy, you can't rely on outsourced 3rd parties to not butcher your work without said clause.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Quickish Nanotyrannus lethaeus anatomy study.

Really cool to see two papers more or less back to back that very conclusively reestablish NanoT as a distinct taxon.

...muscle insertions. In other ceratopsians, the ornamental fringe above the neck muscle insertions is taller than in Triceratops, with very large window-like holes that would have been covered by skin & other tissues, but could not have supported the musculature & dense tissues of a hump (2/2).

It's definitely not a hump. While the layout of cavities suggests thick neck muscle insertion, the frill would still be a very prominent ornamental fringe. The vascular surface textures indicate tight intergrowth of skin to the bone, including a broad area on the rear surface above the... (1/2)

Skinny-necked Triceratops are my single biggest palaeoart pet peeve. Many otherwise pretty great illustrations and models from top-tier talent fall into this trap, and it's a real deal breaker for me. I almost feel a genuine discomfort in my own neck when I look at them, no joke.

(Triceratops prorsus holotype skull from Hatcher's original monograph, interpreted muscle insertion layout from Tsuihiji 2010, 3D reconstruction by yours truly, built atop the Smithsonian's composite skeleton)

Well-preserved Triceratops skulls have a sharp falloff on the rear frill from a vascular texture to "scooped out" cavities. It is likely these cavities were filled out by neck musculature. Many reconstructions overlook them, ending up with necks that are prorbably far too skinny.

Going to invent time travel specifically so I can go back in time to 2017 and laugh with vicious mockery in the face of undergraduate me as he very confidently gave a presentation on the case against Nanotyrannus.

Oh young Matthew, what a fool you were.

Toe time

Arms finished!? Next focal area for 100% manually sculpting will be the feet.

In any case, I don't necessarily think that strong bony landmarks on the face of T. rex is strictly wrong, but that's besides the point of this piece.

It's an exaggerated character, not a "real" T. rex. The overall shrink-wrapped, emaciated look is both for the aesthetics and is part of the "lore".

This one isn't meant to be strict palaeoart! It's more of a character pitch for how I'd handle a T. rex in a horror-like setting, rule of cool and aesthetics taking some priority over what my actual palaeoart life appearance opinions would be.

Keep chugging through it Blender, I believe in you!

Hands

Similarities are expected even in ethical dino art.

But what I'm speaking about here is down to the level of very specific outline work & stylisations that couldn't have been created independently, couldn't be unintentional cultural osmosis, and couldn't have been done via ethical reference use.

What it is about dinosaurs that seems to turn off artist's brains when it comes to acceptable levels of derivativeness? I am so, so sick of seeing commercial/comissioned dinosaur artwork that in any other sub-field of illustration would be considered extremely blatant plagiarism.

Two cinema visits today!

Good Boy was a creatively spirited little horror that I think probably would have been better at half the length, & the Perfect Blue restoration was a masterpiece, until it wasn't (even considering different ways to read it, I really dislike the ending).

No, *you're* spamming a T. rex WIP too much.

There's some messyness around the lower jaw that needs cleaning up and ironing, but pretty happy with this portrait overall.

The dewlap is finished... I can foresee a very stupid universe full of poor choices where I also decide to manually sculpt the individual scales across the full body. But I do think it's time to commit to some custom alphas, now.

Almost done with the dewlap

Alright, we're working again. I thought I might have switched to alphas by now, but the wrinkled throat needs a more specific flow.

Was just doing a quick test to make sure the mouth could close, and accidentally created a monster.

Obligatory "I can't decide which MatCap looks nicest for posting WIPs" post.