Status

I am still offline, but I want to mention (if I don’t remember doing before) that I’m quite uncertain if I’ll ever be so much as expertise, accurate and up to date on palaeontology as well as a realistic illustrator as I used to be, without the internet now. These days the internet is pretty much the working horse when it comes to accessible information on prehistory, but for me it had also become a bucking bronco as you’ve all known, which is unfortunate, because the only information now are my leftover knowledge and the many books other media I have, yet even the biggest and most detailed palaeontology book I have (that being Dorling Kindersley’s Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Life) is still incomparable to social media. My prehistoric knowledge was tested when I first entered palaeontological Discord servers three years ago, often so dedicated to graphic double integration and skeletal reconstructions of dinosaurs, which is very random (and also why I made a lot of popular videos about dinosaur statistics akin to The Vividen), and there were lots of obscure, thought-provoking facts and opinions, such as Deinosuchus being up to fifteen metres long, Tylosaurus being larger than Mosasaurus, and Tarbosaurus having a relatively large head among other tyrannosaurids. Were these neglected but even truer reconstructions of prehistory, or just opinionated ideologies viewed by one’s self? The problem with palaeontological social media that I had come to learn and regret is that it’s a most-awful, zoomer-infested realm in which prehistory is only the core of in discussion, surrounded by immature and sometimes offtopic controversy and ideology (as well as awful humour) from the horriblest monsters of netizens I’ve ever met, and it is gruelling when I see their irrelevant art in my search results for reference. In fact, it’s almost more like the smaller community of some game like Minecraft or Pokémon than a much truer zoological community. The skeletal reconstructors involved in these servers are little any different, and are not as professional as the likes of Gregory Paul, who is highly anticipated by the scientific community for his reconstructions. Unfortunately I have yet to know of a less hostile, much truer community that’s into palaeontology where I can fit in. The Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology is also one thing I’ve only recently found out about, and its annual journals have presented some obscure facts I could barely know of without it, such as Thescelosaurus having spurs on its hands, a Diplodocus skin impression with yellowish/ginger pigmentation, and Saurophaganax being misinterpreted (diagnosed as a jumble of different dinosaur bones and of what’s allosaurine later presented a new species of Allosaurus). I wish there was a perfect field guide for palaeoartists that you could use for referencing prehistoric animals so truly without the internet. The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs by Gregory Paul might be the closest thing, but even with a third edition from last year the dinosaurs still look emaciated, there are strange opinionated species, and sometimes newer data isn’t taken into account. I’ve recently been looking into buying more realistic dinosaur models (such as PNSO and CollectA) for reference, also since that they’re three-dimensional I can view them from any perspective. The thing is, do I have to be this precise reconstructing the past? Is it nescessary even more so than one with little more than a DK book? What tips and advice could I take as a palaeoartist off the internet? Thanks again.

The image here also shows up a new screensaver I made with the Ambient Mode feature of our Samsung smart television, with beautiful paleoart from Zdenek Burian and the like, that set me into the mood, as well as playing a playlist I assorted of classical music, as well as the relaxing background tracks of games like Minecraft and Gran Turismo Sport.