Updated: April 20, 2010
Additions/Comments:

Step 2

First of all, collect data on the bone structure of the prehistoric creature that you are going to draw. Search the Internet or use literature and fossils in museums and individual collections all over the world. It is unusual to be able to acquire 75% or more of the data on a restored skeleton. Get a common bone structure from prehistoric creatures of the same classification or family.

Here, I am going to draw the head of Tarbosaurus from a picture taken at the Mineral Fair held in Japan. It is important to prepare several sketches from different angles rather than from one angle only, to use as a base of the drawing.

The teeth alignment of this head skull is abnormal. It is off-balance as a creature, thus I am going to reduce the number of teeth to draw.

From the picture, decide the outline, draw the lines, and make the composition. Leave room to the side of the skull so that the neck can be added later

Enlarge the drawing two to four times of the original size, do necessary work, and reduce the size back to 100% when it is finished.

Construct the neck from the collected data and other illustrations.

Dinosaurs look vigorous with their teeth bared, but it is very important to note that the teeth of dinosaurs should not appear even when the mouth is open. Komodo dragons have sharp teeth, but these cannot be seen from the outside. With bared teeth, the gums would dry out.

For illustrations, I don't usually draw the teeth when the mouth is closed, and make them slightly bared when the mouth is open. This is to make the drawing more decorative.

Select the body color, which is the main color of the drawing. At this point, I have a rough picture of the finished drawing. Lightly add the color to the entire drawing.

Add a texture of tough skin. Create your own brush to do this. You should be able to make your own original brush depending on the software you are using.

When finished adding the skin texture to the entire drawing, add detailed lines of the skin using a slightly darker shade of the same color that was used for the skin. This part seems to be the most mindless, but actually it is not. This is not just adding lines, but putting in the shadings to each scale.

The dot size of a brush varies depending on the size of the drawing. Here, several sizes up to 4-pixels are used. Set transparency and intensity of the dot as you like. Curves are used as a base for imaging the scale layers at the neck.

Make dark and light coloring of the base color, and save it as a new palette for finishing.

Clean up the extra brush strokes and lines. Now all you need to do is to finish. To complete the eyes, enlarge the drawing to 300%, and add details carefully with 1-pixel dots. Use white color effectively.

Add shadings to increase the contrast, and you are almost there.

Use the 200% enlarged image to add more details.

Add nuptial colors, and erase the spots and stains. You can see the lines become shaper when the size of the image goes back to 100%. Adjust the tone curves to make the image slightly darker. When the image looks as you want, it's done; avoid overworking it. Use additional layers for the background, if necessary.

Save the image in uncompressed TIFF or BMP format so that the colors will not blur.

Mineo Shiraishi

Mineo Shiraishi is a Japanese paleoartist born in 1953. While he conducts painstaking research to ensure the accuracy of his drawings, Mineo's primary concern is to capture the natural beauty of these long-dead animals. He seeks to inspire those who see his art, particularly younger people. Mineo has gained international acclaim for his work from well-respected museums, TV stations, and publishers in the USA, Australia, Netherlands, England, Germany and Canada.