Pictured: me, reading the registration email for this year’s SVP meeting, knowing full well that I can’t afford to go. Maybe next year…

So cool to see my art attached to a peer-reviewed study again!

The dinosaurs have arrived at Blank Park Zoo, so here’s the project I’ve been working on this week. I was commissioned by the zoo to draw 23 silhouettes for signage comparing their animals with dinosaurs as part of their new “Dino Park Zoo” branding. Species labels in alt text. #paleoart #sciart

24 If any, or hopefully all, of this is interesting. They you might want to know that c. 6 months from now I'll have a book about all this and much more, written with, and illustrated by @markwitton.bsky.social. It's available for preorder now in all the usual places online. Thanks for reading.

With the trailers for both #WalkingWithDinosaurs and #JurassicWorld Rebirth apparently showing swimming Spinosaurus, I thought it might be time to go over why I think these animals were not good swimmers. After all, it's something I've written a fair bit about (with @arctomet.bsky.social) 1/many

I see what they did there… #WalkingWithDinosaurs #WWD2025

Tonight on Unsolved Mysteries: it’s one of Adobe’s flagship programs. With a powerful desktop workstation and as much memory freed up as possible, there should be no limit to what you can create with it. So, why does After Effects still run like complete ass?

Jumping on the latest trend.

Spent my morning covering the groundbreaking for the new lion conservation center at Blank Park Zoo. After 10 years without a visit, I’ve somehow ended up at the zoo 3 times this month. Guess I’m making up for lost time. Anyway, time to flex with some shots I got of the kitties.

Somehow, Troodon returned.

Being a paleoartist with a social media following is fun, because you get to have people who don’t understand your field accuse you of lying and tell you that T. rex actually had wings and was a dragon. #paleoart #paleoartist #meme #skit

#WIP Sketching some obscure canid that I definitely haven’t had any strong feelings about recently. #paleoart

Looks like I’m officially adding “Iowa Broadcast News Award winner” to my resume!

Shamelessly using the new Deinosuchus paper as an excuse to share my illustration of it again. I did this for Adam Cossette and Chris Brochu back in 2020. It was my first commission out of college, and while there are some details I wish I could correct, I’m still really proud of it. #paleoart

Apparently paleoartist Jan Sovak has passed away. Growing up in the period between Jurassic Park and the soft dinosaur revolution, I don’t think anyone captured the way dinosaurs FELT when I was a kid as well as he did. It’s a hard feeling to describe, but Sovak nailed it.

Colossal’s bungled wolf announcement isn’t a conservation win. It’s a sad reminder of how the offensively rich want to foist their vision of the future on everyone. My latest for @slate.com

Everyone who told me "what's the harm in hyping de-extinction technology that doesn't work" can choke on a bag of black-footed ferret dicks www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Reposting some obscure theropod I drew last year, with colors based on some obscure show, for no reason in particular. #paleoart #WalkingWithDinosaurs

ARTISTS! I'm sharing my contract template with simplified language and easy to fill in sections This will be most helpful for smaller clients bc corps have their own contracts But providing the contract will help protect you from giving away rights to your art! docs.google.com/document/d/1...

traitors✨

in case you're wondering, "what's the harm in claiming an extinct species has been brought back from the dead" when it most certainly has not, our interior secretary is already using it to justify taking animals off the endangered species list

The company can’t get basic skeletal anatomy correct but sure let’s trust them to “deextinct” species 🧪

“DIRE WOLVES”

Of course mainstream media keeps rolling over for Colossal, providing uncritical hype and coverage in exchange for exclusivity and “wow.” What Colossal is doing is wrong and they can’t even deliver what they promise. How many times do we have to go over this?

Dire wolves were not close relatives of gray wolves. They last shared a common ancestor more than 5 million years ago. What Colossal has done is make something new and slapped a dire wolf sticker on it, as if an organism equals a hypothetical genome.

#FossilFriday Two sketches of the delightfully scrungly didactyl therizinosaur, Duonychus. One of them has naturalistic colors, while the other is inspired by another bird with “Duo” in its name (thank you @justinandell.bsky.social for the suggestion). #paleoart #sciart #dinosaur #duonychus

While I love the news and paleoart careers I’ve carved out for myself, I won’t lie, a part of me will always regret not going into paleontology proper so I could become Dr. Stone, paleontologist. It would be so perfect…

Gonna rework the drawing of Duonychus I started last week now that the paper is out, because boy howdy, it is scrungly. In the meantime, I went ahead and drew this over the skeletal. #paleoart #sciart #dinosaur

Wow, what an amazing specimen! Look how much of the skull is preserved! Wait a minute...

#WIP Exhaustion from my day job has had me stuck in a serious art block lately, but Duonychus has me excited enough to claw my way out of it. #paleoart

New Adobe Photoshop survey is up, it sure would be a shame if it was flooded with artists leaving anti AI sentiment survey.adobe.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Since @naturescompendium.bsky.social and @skeletoncrewpaleo.bsky.social both put out videos about #Carnotaurus this weekend, I figure I might as well jump on the bandwagon and reshare this one I did last year. Commission for a private client based on the #PrehistoricPlanet design #paleoart #sciart

New walk cycle animation I did for @naturescompendium.bsky.social. His new video on Carnotaurus drops TOMORROW and is going to be awesome! #paleoart #paleontology #dinosaur #carnotaurus #animation #aftereffects

Just finished this redo of my first walk cycle animation for @naturescompendium.bsky.social. The old one wasn’t bad per se, but I hadn’t animated anything in a few years when I did it, so it was kind of clunky. This new version will be a base for related species in future videos #paleoart #animation

We’re still getting cloned mammoths in 2028, right? Right? #mammoth #colossal #deextinction #coproliteposting

Well, I’m feeling embarrassed and ashamed to be an American, but on the bright side, at least it’s a nice distraction from feeling disgusted and ashamed to be an Iowan right now.

(1/2) Rebecca brings up an important point I’d like to tack on to my previous thread. I think there a lot of people in the dinosaur “fandom” with big chips on their shoulders because they aren’t “professionals,” which leads to them lashing out if someone corrects or disagrees with them.

(1/?) Paleontology (especially dinosaurs) turning into a “fandom,” with all the hyperbole and drama that entails, is exhausting for those of us directly involved with it (scientists, paleoartists, sci-commers, etc). I do think there are solutions though, or at least things we can do to lessen it. 🧵

The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology has issued an official statement regarding recent executive orders from the current administration & the effects of these attacks on vertebrate paleontology and the scientific community in general, w/ a request for input from affected scientists. 🧪

Women want me. Fish fear me. Fish want me. Women fear me. Women are fish, fish are fish. Phylogenetically, all vertebrates are fish.

Decided to take a swing at the #JurassicWorldRebirth Spinosaurus before bed last night. Photomanipulation isn’t my forte, and it’s still not super accurate, but I wanted to show that the design could be good with just a little more care for the underlying anatomy. #paleoart

(1/2) I’m a paleoartist, doing work for private clients and publication. My work has appeared on the cover of JVP. I also do animation work for Nature’s Compendium on YouTube. I’ve drawn all kinds of animals, but whales are my favorite, and my dream would be to help announce a new archaeocete.

Get yourself a friend who will send you vintage papers on fossil marine mammals as a birthday present (even if they send it two months late, lol oopsie).

#FossilFriday all the whales from my college animation project that started my little paleoart career. I’m planning to redraw all of them + a few others I had to cut from my project for some future YouTube videos. #sciart #paleoart #paleontology #prehistoric #whale #cetacean #evolution

My next TikTok compilation is up on my YouTube channel. I went to Elkhorn, WI for a wedding this summer, and I think I think I may have solved the mystery behind the original Beast of Bray Road sightings. #cryptid #cryptozoology #werewolf #dogman

The folks at Blue Star Press were kind enough to send me a copy of the new book by Ray Troll and Kirk Johnson, Alaska Dinosaurs. I’ll post a full review this weekend, but for now I’ll say that it’s a delightful book for paleo-fans of all ages! Highly recommended!

The Germans press is not having as much trouble discerning what happened as the American press. www.zeit.de/kultur/2025-...

Update: the actual temperature is now -2 and the windchill is -19. My breath started freezing in my nose hair when I left work. I would like to go to Washington DC to warm up.