How do you make dinosaurs big? Easy right? Thats what I thought, turns out its not nearly as easy as I thought. Todays topic: Forced perspective and making things BIG.

After working on my previous drawing of a dinosaur for the last couple of weeks (an hour or so every couple of evenings), I began to think that the composition could really use some work. I found it to be un-engaging, borderline boring even.

I have enjoyed working with the contour lines, and it has been fun working with colour, but it’s time to work on some composition.

So, sitting down, I began to sketch out some thumbnail ideas.

I decided it would be a good idea to try and create a dynamic composition where the dinosaur is being viewed from the bottom up, full of dramatic size and imposing frame. The problem? Every time I tried to draw the dinosaur as BIG he came out as FAT. Check these out.

Small dino, thumbnail, and study. Not too tall, but too fat for sure. Getting closer? Still a pretty big belly on him. Huge foot, but thats about it.

I went back and for the between drawing, and looking at these reference images below. These artists did a good job of creating characters that look large, without being overweight. Some even look skinny!

Below is an drawing that I’m starting to feel ok with. The front claws are off, and he still looks a bit fat, but I’m happy with where it is headed. Some things I found helpful:

Placing one leg in the foreground, with exaggerated scale, helps to really emphasize the forced perspective.

The hanging hand, narrowing as it rises, helps to show how tall the dinosaur is.

Adding trees and birds aids in adding a sense of comparison and scale to the image.

Showing the underside of the clouds helps explain that the viewer is looking up rather that from the side.

Let me know what you think. If you have any ideas or suggestions on how to make this guy look LARGE without looking fat, post them! I would love some help.