The TetZoo Colouring Book, a New Project (Patreon)

Some of you might know that I’ve been planning for years to produce a series of animal-themed scenes that can form the basis for a colouring book. I’ve decided to make a definite start on this – a dumb idea, in view of how many projects I actually have going on – and have just finished illustrating the first of the scenes. I came up with an environment (inspired by a place I’ve seen in real life, in the New Forest)..... 

.... and arranged a composition which allowed me to insert some dinosaurs. I knew that the vegetation behind and around the dinosaurs would be complex, so I opted in a few cases to draw the dinosaurs separately and insert them afterwards in Corel. A few images in the sequence are shown below. 

I dropped the group of small ornithischians at lower left.

My plan is to accompany each illustration with some explanatory text, and to finish with a few guidelines for those who want to follow them (I’ll make it clear in the introduction to the book that people don’t have to do this and can do what they like!). I also want the illustrations (which I’ve drawn on A4 paper since my scanner is A4) to be expanded to somewhat larger size for publishing, plus of course the book will need to have paper of the right sort for colouring pencils. Only another 19 or so scenes to do! Here's the planned text...

A Jurassic Day at Lourinhã  

This scene depicts a Late Jurassic day (specifically, a day in the Kimmeridgian or Tithonian) in Portugal, its dinosaurs being from the famous Lourinhã Formation of west Portugal’s Lusitanian Basin. 

This is end of the wet season, and it’s a warm, cloudless day. What was previously a small, shallow lake has now mostly disappeared and just a small ditch remains. Visits by numerous dinosaurs have formed a dry, flattened area free of vegetation, and bare and dry areas have appeared across a large open area previously covered by a fern meadow. The flora is formed of a mix of mid-sized deciduous and coniferous trees, bennittitaleans and large cycads, which together form dense thickets. Coniferous trees – including pines, ginkgos and monkey-puzzles – form the woodland on the horizon. Ferns and small cycads form the understorey and mosses carpet the remaining damp hollows. 

The large theropod Allosaurus europaeus is getting back to its feet after a rest at the edge of a thicket. It has been reclining in the typical theropod rest pose, its hands held with the back of its fingers against the ground. The long-necked stegosaur Miragaia longicollum is browsing at left, its formidable shoulder and tail spines giving it a confidence despite the proximity of the allosaur. A dryosaur (perhaps belonging to the genus Dryosaurus) skulks at the front right of the scene. Finally, right at the back of the scene, two gigantic diplodocids belonging to the species Supersaurus lourinhanensis are walking toward us.

Some suggestions

The bare ground and exposed rocky areas should be pale brown, grey or yellowish. The thickets are dense and full of plants, so should also look dark and shady. Allosaurus might have had stripes or dappling seeing as it was an ambush predator associated with open forests, but its horns and nasal crests were perhaps boldly marked and/or brightly coloured. Miragaia might be counter-shaded and with dappling too, but its plates and spines were perhaps prominently marked or coloured to draw attention to their role in display. The dryosaur should be cryptically coloured. As for the diplodocids… maybe they were earth-toned and dull, but maybe they were prominently marked and patterned like gigantic giraffes or lizards.