Jul 24

“Cousin, imprisoned”, Daniel D. Brown, 2012, Pencil

This gorilla drawing is based on a photograph taken by Rick Horton. I chose to draw it for the simple reason that I think the gorilla’s pose perfectly captures both the beauty and similarity to ourselves, as well as the sadness of the decline of our cousins, highlighted by his facial expression and presence in an obviously captive setting. All gorillas are either endangered or critically endangered (though I’m not sure the exact subspecies of this guy).

Gorilla, Daniel D. Brown, 2012, Pencil
“Gorilla”

Gorilla, Daniel D. Brown, 2012, Pencil - framed

Jul 12

Eastern Screech Owl (Megascops asio), Daniel D. Brown, 2012, Pencil

This is a drawing of an Eastern Screech Owl (Megascops asio) of the “rufous morph” variety. The photo on which it is based was taken by a very nice man named Andy M¢ on Flickr who kindly gave me permission to use it in this artwork (here is the original photo).

Thanks to advice from the talented artist Glendon Mellow, I switched to using mechanical pencil for this drawing instead of traditional wood-encased lead pencils. The level of detail I can get is significantly better with the more-or-less constant diameter mechanical drafting pencil, and will be even greater once I buy a smaller diameter (I used 0.5mm for this one, but kept wishing I had a smaller one).

Side note: in high school, my zoology teacher Mr. Bob Ross once took our class out to the woods around Beaver Lake in Arkansas. There he taught us to actually call screech owls (as well as barred owls). I can’t call the screech owl very well any more, but I can still do a good barred owl. Mr. Ross was also one of my primary inspirations to eventually get my Ph.D. in biology.  


Eastern Screech Owl, Daniel D. Brown, 2012, pencil - Framed

 
Jul 06

Dippy & Friends, Daniel D. Brown, 2012

I made this earlier this year but didn’t get around to posting it. This is the famous “Dippy” diplodocus sculpture that stands outside the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, which is easily my favorite place to visit in Pittsburgh, PA. Some new friends just strolled in from Schenley Plaza.

I modeled the diplodocus dinosaurs in Blender, photographed the museum and statue with my iPhone, and did texturing and compositing in GIMP. This was an exercise in integrating a 3D computer model into a real world photo with at least somewhat realistic lighting and shadows.

Dippy & Friends, Daniel D. Brown, 2012
“Dippy and Friends”