Dragons of Wales

A photo of my kitchen worktop. Laid out on it are dozens of little squares of paper, with thumbnails of illustrations for my new book.

AI is so cooked.
I just finalised the page layout of my book in minutes, using little squares of paper AND MY BRAIN.

A very old metal dragon.

Really old dragon painted. I hope I’ve done enough to stop any lead rot leaching through. She’s a metallic dragon, so some verdirgis in areas, and also tried to blend metallics into fleshy tones. Will try and take some better pictures another day.

A digital portrait of Pendraig, a small bipedal dinosaur, shown with a long reptilian snout and covering of coarse, filaments on its neck.

Happy St David’s Day from a very, very old dragon. Pendraig milnerae, a 200 million year old dinosaur, was discovered in what is now the south of Wales.

A pencil sketch of a tiny, spiky dragon, curled into a ball with its head between its legs.

Current status:

A digital portrait of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus - a giant predatory dinosaur, distinguished by its long, tooth-filled snout, distinctive head crest and large sail on its back.

Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. This one deserves a little explanation (not about Spinosaurus - we all know plenty about them!) This illustration began a couple of weeks back as a depiction of the newly-described S. mirabilis (because I love a palaeoart bandwagon as much as the next dino nerd). I subsequently became aware of the issues surrounding one of the co-authors of the paper. Until that situation has been properly clarified and dealt with, especially in regard to future research, I felt it would be inappropriate to continue. And so I decided to rework the entire piece to portray the OG spinosaurus - aegyptiacus (turns out there are a LOT of differences between the two species).

I know many of my peers - whose perspectives on these matters I respect deeply - have considered these same issues with care and sincerity, and have come to a different conclusion. I think that is wholly. The only real failure would be to not consider these issues at all, and to blindly allow our natural enthusiasm for a cool new dinosaur to override the bigger picture. Anyway, here’s aegyptiacus for you. I hope you like them.

Aegyptiacus - the OG Spinosaurus.
An illustration for my new book (and a few words of explanation).

And a link to the book here:
dragonsofwales.etsy.com/listing/4457...

Thank you!

I haven’t yet - but I’ve heard so many good things about it, that I definitely will. I loved “Prey”, which had a very different feel to it (and a very cool creature design).

A digital portrait of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus - a giant predatory dinosaur, distinguished by its long, tooth-filled snout, distinctive head crest and large sail on its back.

Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. This one deserves a little explanation (not about Spinosaurus - we all know plenty about them!) This illustration began a couple of weeks back as a depiction of the newly-described S. mirabilis (because I love a palaeoart bandwagon as much as the next dino nerd). I subsequently became aware of the issues surrounding one of the co-authors of the paper. Until that situation has been properly clarified and dealt with, especially in regard to future research, I felt it would be inappropriate to continue. And so I decided to rework the entire piece to portray the OG spinosaurus - aegyptiacus (turns out there are a LOT of differences between the two species).

I know many of my peers - whose perspectives on these matters I respect deeply - have considered these same issues with care and sincerity, and have come to a different conclusion. I think that is wholly. The only real failure would be to not consider these issues at all, and to blindly allow our natural enthusiasm for a cool new dinosaur to override the bigger picture. Anyway, here’s aegyptiacus for you. I hope you like them.

Aegyptiacus - the OG Spinosaurus.
An illustration for my new book (and a few words of explanation).

And a link to the book here:
dragonsofwales.etsy.com/listing/4457...

I think that’s still exceptional value, given the quality of your work. Finding that sweet-spot between being fairly compensated whilst retaining customers is an almost impossible line to tread. Hopefully this will work out for you, and you’ll feel able to raise prices again before too long.

This is such a dilemma, and I’m not going to offer advice, as I’m charging the same for my books as I did 8 years ago 😵‍💫
The honest truth is that almost all of us massively undercharge… but a combination of market forces and crippling self-doubt is hard to overcome.

Thank you. Yes, it’s tough out there at the moment. I hope things improve for you soon.

I will be at DinoCon🙂. You might be right about tariff/customs, but the frustration is that my books are wholly exempt from tariffs and I pre-pay all import fees for my customers…. But it’s impossible to get that message across to people who are being bombarded by lies from their own government.

If you are one of the 183,999,968 other people, you can get your copy here: dragonsofwales.etsy.com/listing/4457...

Survey data shows that 49% of UK and 44% of USA residents “like” or “love” dinosaurs.
By my estimation this means that there are approximately 184 million potential customers for my new book.
So far 32 people have pre-ordered their copy… so we’re almost there 🙃

😂 You’d be very welcome.

Too true!

A photograph showing 3 watercolor paintings of birds, the largest in the center of a blue tit from the back, a smaller blue tit in the right painting from the front, and a red cardinal in the left smaller painting.

I received the watercolor paintings that I ordered from @georginadoodles.bsky.social this week and can genuinely say they look even nicer in person. Now the hunt for the perfect 2nd hand frames begins 🥰

…Anyway, if anyone needs me I’ll be in the garden digging a big moat.

There’s nothing like spending 5 minutes in your local Facebook group to make you realise that most of your neighbours are reactionary fascists. Which, when you think of all the wonderful, socialist things that came from these Welsh valleys, is deeply depressing. People have short memories.

Thank you!! ☺️

A digital illustration of Huananosaurus, an oviraptorid dinosaur with a parrot-like beak, and shown here with its long, hair-like feathers looking very windswept and chaotic.

Huanansaurus having a bad hair day.
Or a good hair day.
These things are so subjective.
#SciArt

Thanks so much 🙏

If you see this, post a monster! 🦖

Thank you!

Thank you!

The book in question is here.
Please take a look (and buy one if you like what you see) 🙂🦕🦖

dragonsofwales.etsy.com/listing/4457...

A digital illustration of the head, neck and forelimb of a tiny feathered dinosaur peering around the tree trunk it is clinging to. It is covered with dark, iridescent feathers, in shades of blue and green, with a scaly yellow snout and amber eyes. Long “whiskers” sprout from the base of its snout.

The littlest raptor.
Microraptor zhaoianus - less than a metre long and weighing around 1 kg - might not be most people’s idea of what a dinosaur “should” look like. Happily, nature doesn’t care about our preconceptions.
This illustration is from my new book, “Ab Antiquo”.

🙂🙏

Thank you. And thank you. ☺️

Thanks Ian. 🙏