Ladybug Cover

      My first published illustration with dinosaurs!  I don't know of too many illustrators that wouldn't get exited by a dinosaur themed assignment.  There's so much room for interpretation and invention with this subject matter.
      The publishers were very interested in a cowboy with dinosaurs concept, which I was reluctant to do (I really wanted to do something with flying dinosaurs).  After my first sketch was rejected  (Pteranadon's First Flight) they asked for several very rough ideas including the cowboy & dinos concept. I finally took the hint. Yet I decided that if I was going to do a cowboy, he would be riding a pterondadon; the result was Dinosaur Roundup.  
 

Rejected Sketch: Pteranadon's First Flight

Concept Sketches

     The most challenging aspect of this illustration was determining which species would comprise the herding beasts.  I was originally going to go for something more iconic like a triceratops but I thought they were so bulky it would crowd out the negative space that I wanted to use to to show more of the herd.  So I settled on the Parasaurolophus which I took many liberties with.  Mostly I just tried to make it as cow like as possible by rounding out the features and giving them cow spots.  I'm fairly happy with the results and Carus Publishing did wonderful work with cover layout and color matching.  

Enjoy.

Dinosaur Roundup, Digitally Colored Drawing