How to Make Paleoart: an Introductory Guide to Depicting Prehistoric Lie

Paleoart refers to pieces of art that attempt to depict prehistoric life in accordance with the existing scientific evidence. Magnificent creatures like Tyrannosaurus rex, Smilodon (the saber-toothed tiger) and Stegosaurus come back to life on paper, canvas, screen, or sculpt. Paleoart can be a challenging yet rewarding genre to work in. Artists must balance creative expression, aesthetics, and scientific rigor. Here I will provide a generalized approach for creating paleoart. 

The supplies you use are up to you and what you are most comfortable with using. For my example piece, I am using Autodesk Sketchbook running on Windows and a Wacom One tablet as my input device.

Paleoart relies equally on the artist’s imagination and their knowledge. To build on your knowledge, consult books, websites, and scientific articles describing prehistoric life. Don’t forget to take inspiration from living animals as well. A Lot of prehistoric animals have modern relatives. 

• If you are intimidated or inexperienced at reading scientific literature, don’t let that discourage you from making paleoart. Reference material can be found easily thanks to your preferred search engine, documentaries, or even plastic figures. 
• For this example piece, I am using this skull illustration of Kosmoceratops as my reference. 

There are innumerable ways for how you can depict prehistoric creatures. If this is your first time, I would recommend choosing whichever medium you are most comfortable with. 

• For this example piece, I will be using Autodesk Sketchbook, a digital art program available for free on macOS, Microsoft Windows, Android, and IOS. 

Once you’ve gathered reference materials for your chosen subject and decided upon a medium, you can begin outlining your creature. 

• How you go about this will depend greatly on your medium and skill level. If you are a beginner, focus on getting down to the most recognizable features. For example, if you are drawing a Triceratops, pay close attention to the size and shape of its three horns, circular frill, parrot-like beak, and robust body. 
• Using a pencil brush colored blue, I drew a sketch of my example piece.

Once you’ve established the pose, proportions, and features of your subject, you add more detail that really brings it back to life. 

• Features such as skin, horn, fur, or scale texture, scars or other pathologies, and shading are added at this stage. 
• For my example piece, I made a new layer above my initial outline. I used a black lineart brush to go over and streamline my starting sketch. Because this dinosaur has prominent horns, I paid special attention to them and their texture. 

While it was once said that we will never know what color dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals were in life, that is no longer the case. Some recently extinct lifeforms like Mammoths have left behind their hairs and even mummies. Even exceptionally well preserved feathered dinosaur fossils still contain melanocytes, cells that produce pigmentation of skin, hair, scales, and feathers. However this is still exceedingly rare and it is the artist’s responsibility to come up with a reasonable color scheme. 

• You can look to modern animals for inspiration. Be mindful of the differences in size, ecology, and relationship between your subjects and reference. 
• I picked a black and white, high contrast color scheme for my example piece. This is because Kosmoceratops had a large frill likely used as a display structure. It evolved to be eye catching. 
• I add color on a separate layer beneath my lineart. 

Once your subject has been completed, you can add a background. A background can be as detailed or sparse as you’d like. A good idea would be to place your subject within its natural environment. During your research, look up what other fossils have been found within the same formation. For my piece, I went with a simple green backdrop that compliments its eyes and underbelly.