Life restoration of the pterosaur Bellubrunnus by Matt van Rooijen

My post on the palaeoart that adorns the Lost Worlds banner seemed to go down well and I got some nice comments on the post as well as on Twitter and coming through the tubes to my e-mail. One person in particular was most interested in how one gets into palaeoart and the process between researcher and artist. Having been involved in at least a few pieces being produced and being an avid fan of palaeoart in itself, it's something I'm more than happy to expound about.

As for how people get into the field, well this naturally varies. I know of artists who were working as technical illustrators for scientists and were in a position to have a go at the odd life reconstruction and things went from there, there have been wildlife illustrators who were drafted in because they could do animals properly, "normal" artists who found a flair for it or drove themselves into the field, and those who simply got a call out of the blue and asked if they fancied trying their hand at dinosaurs.

Increasingly though, thanks to the internet we're seeing ever more people being able to gather information on palaeoart and prehistoric animals, get feedback from researchers and push their art in front of those who might pay for it. Where even 10 years ago it was probably hard to get anyone outside of the ranks of publishers and researchers to have heard of you, or seen what you can do, it's becoming ever easier to mail prospective clients and send them a link to your online portfolio and have people share that information.

This is great for those wanting to break into the field, but naturally it has brought tension too. Most researchers have enough on their plates without having to deal with detailed requests for help on tyrannosaur or abelisaur anatomy and while I know of few researchers who would turn such a request down flat, one does occasionally get most unreasonable requests. Moreover, there are now dozens, perhaps hundreds, of budding artists working out their dinosaurs and mammoths and trilobites online and offering their services to researchers and museums just for the chance to have something of theirs used.

Unsurprisingly, at least a few palaeoartists have felt more than a little of a pinch while trying to make a living and have suddenly been faced with a gaggle of competitors offering to work for free. This is a position I sympathise with, but at the same time – as a researcher who has never had the research budget to spend on artworks – those whose only demand on your resources is time are naturally a big draw and I have indeed collaborated with people to help them with their scientific accuracy and development in exchange for a piece I can use to promote and illustrate my research.

And so to the actual collaborative process. Again this can vary enormously depending on both artist and researcher, and even the specifics of the piece to hand. I know of colleagues who are happy enough to let the artist do pretty much as he pleases and those who will commission a piece down to the exact pose and colour patterns, backgrounds etc. Unless there is some behavior or quirk of anatomy that I want shown off, my general take is to try and simply provide scientific guidelines for the artist and let them lead it where they will. So while I will baulk if they want to paint it blue and pink with purple spots and yellow stripes jumping 20 feet in the air, I'd not pull faces if they wanted it green with black stripes vs black with green stripes, or running rather than rearing up and so on.

Where the technicalities come into play and the real expertise is needed is in reconstructing missing parts and especially soft tissues. After all, if the skeleton of the animal shows that the skull is twice as long as the neck, well it should be drawn that way. What is harder to tell of course is just how flexible that neck should be, or how much muscle should be on there, or how large the scales of the skin should be, or how long that missing tail might have been and the like. Is there good evidence that the crest on the head was used to signal to others in which case a bright colour might be appropriate? Was the creature from the plains or the forests? Did it have a good sense of smell and so would a pose of it sniffing the air be appropriate? And so on.

The best artists I know do have a great knowledge of the scientific literature and are excellent anatomists, but equally, they won't know the ins and outs of every anatomical detail (and especially not for new species) or have read every relevant paper. Helping out here is the real side of things from my perspective, I don't want to intrude on the creative process but at the same time as much as possible should be correct. While obviously the vast majority of people who see the finished piece won't know if the wings are too long or the thighs too fat or the mouth open too wide or the scales are the wrong shape, you want to present as accurate an impression of the animal as possible so these should be attended to.

In my case, I like to sit down with the artist and go over the details (ideally in person, by Skype is a real boon) before they even start and advise what can and can't be done (could it run, where did it live etc.). That saves errors coming later that could be hard or impossible to correct. Once they have a basic draft fleshed out of what they want then the conversation continues with checking details and filling in gaps. More conversations happen and I like to print out the drafts and scribble notes on them or redraw (badly) more how things should look, or at least direct them to a specimen that shows the feature in detail, or even another piece of art that shows how it might look in real life.

With good and experienced people it can take as little as a few notes and checking a single sketch before it can go ahead and be done fully. However, I and other colleagues do have horror stories of being lumbered with inexperienced people who had no idea where to start and ignored or overruled suggestions meaning the outcome was something that barely looked alive, let alone like the species it was supposed to represent. One editor asked me to stop complaining about all the errors in the pieces I was looking at which, oddly enough, I felt rather defeated the point of having a scientific adviser in the first place.

This links back to the points raised above – the average person likely can't tell the differences in accuracy between the correct and disastrous art, but the former does cost in terms of hiring a seasoned pro, so again there's a squeeze to the palaeoartist when publishers known they can get away with relatively cheap artwork that won't necessarily affect sales. From my perspective it's obviously unfortunate for my friends and colleagues in the palaeoart world, but it's also a shame that people interested in dinosaurs and the prehistoric world can be given a poor impression of how these animals (and indeed plants) really looked and what the current scientific interpretation of them is.

The rise of the web and the electronic age has had effects both good and bad, and it will be very interesting to see how things develop. Breathtaking and original palaeoart will always be around and new discoveries mean there will always be new things to illustrate. Still, I hope that the plethora of new material appearing and the new methods of developing and sharing art will mean that there is more good stuff rather than just more stuff.

For those looking for a bit more, here is a list of interviews I've conducted with various artists who can provide much insight into their work and how they got into the field. Here's a nice post by a buddy and collaborator of mine, Matt van Rooijen, showing the various stages of his artwork creation and how it changes. Finally, here's a long and involved post on the issues of palaeoart by my colleague Mark Witton who holds an interesting (but not that unusual) position of being both researcher and artist.