Pteroformer: CGI

Showing posts with label CGI. Show all posts

Sunday, 20 March 2016

The Rocky Transition From Paint To Pixels

Orca flies the flag

Last March, noted zoologist and living-encyclopaedia-on-tetrapods-and-selected-fish, Darren Naish, sent me some outlines to colour for Tetrapod Zoology's April Fools article. Cetacean Heresies detailed the bright colouration of extant cetaceans, and how those colours go undetected by the pitifully inadequate human eye. That black-and-white orca in your ornamental pond? Fringewhiner's Chromatic Truthometer shows it for what it really is: a gay rights poster boy. It's rainbows all the way. Rainbows are good.

Peponocephala and killer whale pod. (By Darren Naish and Gareth Monger; CC-NC-SA 2.0)

Special offers on piss-taking

The article was good fun, and was a veritable 2-for-1 deal; it parodied both a well-known fringe science blog, and one of those inexplicably popular (and subsequently internationally famous) internet memes - a photo of a blue-and-black dress which appeared to some internet users as a white-and-gold dress. In one of those bizarre twists, the woman who originally photographed the dress then came into the printshop where I work to run off a few copies of the photo, and STILL wasn't sick of talking about it.

So why am I milking whales, ten months on? In short, it was the first time I'd used a digital package to put together a full-colour illustration, albeit in a rather rushed manner. At the time, nearly all of my work was coloured by hand, using gouache. (If you're not sure what that is, read my article on gouache at ArtDiscount.) If you are an experienced gouache user, you'll know it's no slower a medium to paint with than anything else, the main limitation to speed being how much detail you want to put into your image. It's considerably quicker to work with than oils, it dries reasonably quickly, and can be forgiving. However, there's a basic set-up time associated with it, namely the time taken to stretch paper, which can, if you're lucky, be as short as a couple of hours. There's nothing better than seeing a perfectly stretched sheet of 140lb Arches watercolour paper, ready to receive its first pencil mark. Conversely, there's nothing worse than seeing that your adhesive tape has failed on one side of your paper, and you've got to redo the whole damn thing. (For hints on paper stretching, see my dA post, here.)

Preliminary sketch (top) of a pair of Platecarpus, with soft tissue outline based on Lindgren et at, 2010. Revised outline (bottom) tweaked to reflect social media comments by palaeontologist Nathan Van Vranken. Note the shorter intermediate caudals' section. Pencil on paper. (Copyright © 2016 Gareth Monger.)

Material costs

This time, however, I heeded advice regarding digital illustration, and figured that these kinds of non-commercial, tight-deadline jobs would benefit from employing a more-speedy process. Material costs are also a consideration, and when a single sheet of paper costs upwards of five pounds, digital art offers a cost-effective alternative. That's not to say I've fallen out of love with toxic pigments and plant-based substrates, it's just that digital painting is very, very convenient. Also, I may go a couple of months without breaking out my paints and, inevitably, they dry out. Yes, they're water-based, but they're also awkward to rehydrate whilst in the tubes. The easiest way to get any use out of dried gouache is to slit open the metal tube and use it in the same way you would a watercolour pan. Of course, you're not really using it as gouache, but it eases the pain of seeing expensive paint dry out.

Going Digital, Sorta...

And so, with last year's April 1st in mind, and probably also inspired by seeing Amin something-or-other's passive-aggressive, and generally unwarranted, comments about Nic Grabow's (I think) deviatART mosasaur, I decided to knock out a quick full-colour render of a mosasaur, complete with background. Google's luck-of-the-draw-type results would determine the genus, which ended up being Platecarpus. Back in 2010, Johan Lindgren, Michael W. Caldwell, Takuya Konishi and Luis M. Chiappe published in PLOS ONE a paper on convergent evolution in aquatic tetrapods, focussing on a specimen of Platecarpus which displayed some excellent soft tissue preservation, and which suggested that a crescent-shaped caudal fin was present in life.

Lindgren, et al (2010). CC-BY-2.5

A reconstruction in Lindgren et al (2010) (left) suggested a possible soft tissue outline for Platecarpus, based on the specimen discussed in the paper. The dorsal portion of the fluke is only tentatively restored, as implied by the fuzzy margins, but it's enough to offer a hint on how to progress with an illustration for a palaeoartist. Scott Hartman also writes about this at Skeletal Drawing, in the article 'Mosasaur Tails - Teaching the Controversy', and offers a handful of likely shapes which a palaeoartist may wish to adopt. Whatever the case, the traditional view of mosasaurs as having essentially lizard-like tails, albeit laterally compressed and ribbon-like, is out of vogue, especially for later genera, and shows that a more (superficially) traditionally-fish-like fluke was adopted by secondarily aquatic reptiles in several disparate groups. Oh, and dorsal frills are out too, having been mercilessly copied from Charles Knight's Tylosaurus for decades. Hey, I did it (over a decade ago, mind).

So here's my full-colour illustration of two Platecarpus, swimming around calmly like obedient Seaworld killer whales. The original layout was an evening's work; the colour work took a second evening. On the whole, I'm pretty pleased, and yes, of course, there are things I would change/add. Integumentary structures, for example, aren't evident, but then they might not be at this distance. The foreshortening on the caudal fin caused some confusion, with some commenting that the fluke angles were incorrect. They weren't, or, at least, they were based on the aforementioned reference, and it was the foreshortening causing them to appear unfamiliar. But that's to be expected when most pictorial reference is in diagrammatic, lateral view. One noted mosasaur expert didn't like the blubbery look; another palaeontologist figured it simply denoted healthy individuals. There was a speculative angle to this, which was to show a more fluid outline in an animal which spends its entire life in fluid.

But on the whole, not so bad for a couple of evenings' work.

References:

Hartman, S (2016) Mosasaur Tails - "Teaching the Controversy" www.skeletaldrawing.com/home/mosasaurs-teaching-the-controversy

Lindgren J, Caldwell MW, Konishi T, Chiappe LM (2010) Convergent Evolution in Aquatic Tetrapods: Insights from an Exceptional Fossil Mosasaur. PLoS ONE 5(8): e11998. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011998

Naish, D (2015) Cetacean Heresies: How The Chromatic Truthometer Busts The Monochromatic Paradigm. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/cetacean-heresies-how-the-chromatic-truthometer-busts-the-monochromatic-paradigm/

Want to support me?

If you like what you're reading and you want to help me keep this going, maybe take a look at my Redbubble page? Here's a mostly-relevant mosasaur (Globidens, not Platecarpus, but who cares?):

Globidens, Haida-style, available on t-shirts, mugs, and a butt-load of other stuff, via Redbubble.

Wednesday, 24 June 2015

National Geographic's Antidote To Terminal Monster Saturation

The palaeontology community's members are all in therapy, thanks to Jurassic World's insistence on filling a(n ENORMOUS) fictional theme park with some of the worst reconstructions of Mesozoic reptiles known to man. The TetZoo guys didn't even make it to the end of their own review*, with Darren Naish weeping uncontrollably after only fifteen minutes, and transmission being cut seconds after what can only be described as a muffled thud. Listeners were left to make up their own minds as to what had transpired, with many speculating that they'd just heard Naish's mercy killing at the hands of John Conway. The Love In The Time Of Chasmosaurs blog clearly comprises a masochistic crew, who offered up not one but two reviews on JW. (And they just added a third about an hour ago.)

The point is, you don't have to look too far to find a palaeo community review for this year's main Summer blockbuster. Jurassic World has attracted much attention since people began speculating as to how they might depict some of the film's key creatures. It's nearly two decades since John Hammond demonstrated how you should NEVER EVER run a zoo and, in that time, dinosaur reconstruction has evolved at an unimaginable rate. Would Jurassic World reflect this? Would we get feathered 'raptors'? Would they possess the correct wrists described by Dr Alan Grant RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FIRST MOVIE? And, most importantly, would their T. rex still move around the park, one earthquake-causing footstep at a time, taken every thirty seconds? ("T. rex doesn't want to be fed, it wants to hunt!" Not gonna happen. Not when everything within a couple of miles knows you're coming.)

By now you already know the answers. You've either seen the film or read the reviews, so in the interest of avoiding repetition, I'll spare you a long and damning run-through of how bad they got it. Jurassic World was, for me, an enjoyable monster romp - a worthy sequel to Jurassic Park. I got giddy sat at home, waiting to leave for the cinema. I got chills hearing the music. And I nearly wet myself during the tag-team end battle. But it's not a film about dinosaurs. It is, however, a love letter to the first film, as demonstrated by numerous references and nods to Jurassic Park. It also flicks the Vs at the less-well-loved Jurassic Park III, if only by having the first film's T. rex smash through a mounted Spinosaurus skeleton during the final reel. And remember how the JP3 promo art made use of a triple claw-gash to form the III? The only reason I could see for ~~Improbable~~ Indominus rex having four manual digits was so that Universal could use the same trick for this fourth instalment. Pfft. Yes, it's daft, overblown, and it makes scientists cry. But it's fun and noisy and holds children's attention for the duration.

These are the take-home points of the Jurassic Park series:

Revived Mesozoic animals will, upon their release, always, ALWAYS go bat-shit crazy and attack every human in sight, irrespective of their general temperament when confined, or whether they're piscivorous, carnivorous or veggie-saurus, Lex, veggie-saurus!
Large theropods will announce their approach with impact-tremor footsteps. They will then stand and roar, I guess because they're sporting types, and think it fair to offer their intended prey a chance of escape.
A hunting dinosaur has no concern for its own wellbeing. It will happily smash through buildings, walls, perimeter fences and steel doors in order to catch prey. It will go to any and all lengths to catch a person, inconvenience be damned. It has no concept of 'too much effort'. (Extinction hypothesis?)
Indominus rex was originally engineered as a means to retrieve broken-down gyrospheres, hence its enormous gape. Probably.
Jurassic Park films would all end after only ten minutes if ANYBODY had conducted a decent risk assessment analysis. Ergo, in the JP universe, people are really, really stupid.

So will the Summer of 2015 go down in history as the moment when film & television decided that palaeontology ≠ sexy? Not quite.

Thank the flips for National Geographic's 'T. rex Autopsy'. If you've not seen it, the premise is a straight-forward one: make a fully-furnished Tyrannosaurus rex corpse, hire a team of palaeontologists and vets, and set them to work dissecting it. Obviously turning that into a reality was anything but simple, as palaeontologist and adviser-to-the-show Dave Hone explains (here). And they do a brilliant job. The dissection team does not behave as if its members are crawling over a special effect. They do their level best to convince the viewers - and themselves - that the animal is real. For the most part they pull it off, too. Excepting the odd, faked, reflexive cough at smells we know aren't there, their reactions at having been presented with a 'real' non-avian dinosaur are a joy to watch. My seventeen-year-old daughter arrived home partway through the programme; gawping confusedly at the television screen, she enquired as to where on earth the makers got hold of a fully-fleshed dinosaur. That's how good it is. Of course, if you're looking for the tells which betray the animal's synthetic construction, they're there, well hidden. But who cares? Disbelief is easily - and wilfully - suspended. Hats are tipped at those who conceived, designed, and executed this remarkable piece of television. It more than makes up for those well-documented missed opportunities of Jurassic World.

A few weeks ago LITC announced the Jurassic World challenge. In order to try to increase awareness of real palaentology, and perhaps direct some funds back towards it, LITC suggested that if you go to see the film you could spend at least the equivalent amount on something which will benefit palaeontologists, research institutions, palaeoartists and museums. You could buy a book, or a piece of palaeoart, or donate to a museum or crowd-fund someone. There's loads to choose from if you look around.

Since I have bills like everyone else, it would help me enormously if people bought a t-shirt from my Redbubble page. You can show off your pop-culture-savviness with a hyper-daft Guardians-Jurassic-World-How-To-Train-Your-Dragon mash-up, or keep reminding everyone that T. rex Autopsy was the best thing on telly since sliced tyrannosaur.

Juraasic World and T. rex Autopsy fan art t-shirts, available at my Redbubble page, here.

It's good to get that JW stuff off my chest. Normal service will resume soon. There's a stack of stuff sat there in draft, including more wandering sauropod ecosystems, more Yi qi, and more pterosaur quad-launching. Laters!

*Of course TetZoo did the whole interview. Listen to it - its very entertaining.

Wednesday, 3 December 2014

Jurassic Park 4: Age of Creative, Integrital and Scientific Extinction

Gawd almighty, what is there to say about Jurassic World which hasn't already been said? Probably not much, but it never hurts to summarise - especially if you're blogging. Jurassic World is the subject of much scrutiny, owing mainly to speculation about how the film's designers would render their genetically recovered dinosaurs. Jurassic Park, in 1993, was perhaps the only occasion the franchise could get away with bald raptors. Subsequent discoveries set in stone the idea that many, many dinosaurs were feathered. Much was made of the film's reliance on advancements in palaeontlogy. Indeed, they even hired palaeo heavyweight John R. Horner to advise on their appearance (Horner answers some questions about JW here - warning: it's brief). Could dinosaurs receive the Hollywood treatment AND stay true to the ever-shifting science of dinosaurology? 'Would they?' is perhaps a more appropriate question, and one which the JP franchise would answer several times over.

Jurassic Park's Velociraptor: demonic kangaroo lizards.

(Copyright: Universal Pictures)

And so, a few years later, Spielberg served up another monster movie, and aside from throwing in some different dinosaurs and upping the on-screen death toll, nothing really changed. And that's the snag. Nothing really changes. At all. And not just in Jurassic Park's universe, but in many other films which featured dinosaurs. Such was Jurassic Park's impact that many other filmmakers simply try to emulate it: "If it's good enough for Jurassic Park, it's good enough for us" or simply, "Well, they must know best". It was as if Jurassic Park's legacy was simply to raise the bar for accurate lighting of scaly hides. With its release, Spielberg, Crichton and Winston were elevated to the heady heights of deities and Industrial Light and Magic became the only name in CGI special effects. A flurry of CGI-heavy films followed, including Jumanji, Twister and Casper. Lots and lots of style over substance. Many, many subsequent television and film dinosaurs were similarly afflicted by this SFX approach.


A fully-feathered Velociraptor mongoliensis, produced for Oxford University Museum in 2003. Still too skinny, though, and the feather arrangement on the 'wings' is inaccurate. (Copyright: OUMNH/Gareth Monger)

The dominance of the 'JP dinosaur' style was such that it became the preferred look. Even high profile documentaries such as the BBC's Walking With Dinosaurs failed to take that step and feather their theropods, despite coming several years later, and if ever there was an opportunity to do something special, Hobbit-fancying Whovian Peter Jackson missed the mark by about a third of a parsec and delivered an ecosystem crammed with relics hellbent on going extinct by whatever means possible (but mostly just by getting squashed by wobbly sauropods or running off cliffs). And Jurassic Park's influence here cannot be denied. C'mon, giant tyrannosaurs and dromaeosaurs? The only thing missing was a giant Jeff Goldblum. No, wait... the titular character had that covered.

Of course, time's a great healer, and several documentaries did get it right. Although not the first to do so, 2013's Walking With Dinosaurs film certainly put forward some of the best feathered theropods out there. It stopped short of extending this feathery integument to its Gorgosaurus, and it left its ceratopsians similarly in need of insulation. And this may very well be viewed in the future in the same way that Jurassic Park is now, i.e., they could very well have taken that leap, and future discoveries would probably have proven them right. But, unlike Jurassic Park, the Walking With Dinosaurs film did at least move things along from its initial series fifteen years earlier, so much so that its 2013 troodontids bare little resemblance to their 1999 dromaeosaur cousins.

Troodon from Walking With Dinosaurs
(Copyright: 20th Century Fox)

So, bearing that in mind, Jurassic World might appear to be an odd leap backwards. People might be forgiven for thinking that palaeontology is a rather schizophrenic science. Sure, no one expects scientists to agree all the time, but on one hand we've had ten years of increasingly-feathered dinosaur restorations in magazines and on television, and on the other Jack Horner is putting his name to the advisory role of the fourth film in a series which refuses to acknowledge a tsunami of fossil evidence. But if the mob needs someone to hang, they shouldn't turn the pitchforks towards Horner. I saw him in a lecture, aimed mainly at children, at OUM, back in the late '90s, and he was almost despairing of the film makers' decisions to ignore so much science. He listed palaeontological fact after palaeontological fact, all cast aside in favour of, well, whatever it is that film makers prefer to good, solid palaeontology. Maybe this was a man, failed by Spielberg and co., trying to limit the damage done by JP's skinny monsters to those kids' understanding of 'dinosaurology'. Unfortunately, come June, it seems that he'll have to do it all over again.

The outmoded image of dinosaurs as 'terrible lizards' may have been knocked over with a fossil feather, but the Jurassic Park monster is standing fast.

Jurassic World will be released in cinemas June 12th, 2015.

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