Herp Art

Dedicated exclusively to field herping.

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Joseph S.
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Joseph S. »

Awe inspiring work everyone. I'm assuming we have a few professional biological illustrators in the mix. I've toyed the idea of getting into it-but not sure if I have quite what it takes to become distinguished. As this thread shows-lots of people are incredibly talented.

Here is my first color pencil attempt with a reptile...and the first one involving numerous colors.

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Hawksbills are quite variable so I've considered doing another one or two of these.
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Porter
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Porter »

Heres something I drew with widows xp paint: http://s427.photobucket.com/albums/pp35 ... adbday.mp4
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Porter
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Porter »

John Martin wrote:
KUJordan wrote:still a work in progress, may never finish:
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Man, I HATE you guys/gals with all this talent! Just kidding, but I AM jealous. Jordan, you really need to finish this one - I would love to see this with true copperhead colors lying in those autumn leaves. Oh, and when you do finish it, I'd like to be first in line to buy it! :beer:
Cool dude, how did you add the color to this?
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Piglet
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Piglet »

Pen and ink
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Joel
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Joel »

Fine illustrations! Here is some more exotic piece of art, a bronze cast snapping turtle. Lenght of the carapace is 32 cm and the weight of the sculpture is 15 kg. The sculpture is made with the lost-wax method: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost-wax_casting

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kysnakeguy
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Re: Herp Art

Post by kysnakeguy »

Great art every one heres some of mine:
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hellihooks
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Re: Herp Art

Post by hellihooks »

does this count...10,000 yr old glyph of a rattlesnake... :D
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jim
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PNWHerper
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Re: Herp Art

Post by PNWHerper »

Awesome artwork overall from everyone. :thumb: :beer:

Russ_Jones,

That first rattlesnake tattoo design sketch without the markings is incredible. I could totally see wearing that one! I have been trying to do something similar with a sidewinder, but more top view and curled into a spiral. Not much practice with this style, though. :thumb:

Crocdoc,

Holy crap! That gator painting is just so amazing. :shock:


Soulsurvivor,

Love the color work! 2 of your pics did not load, would love to see all of them!

Robbielab,

Wow! You are very skilled. I assume you get paid for your work? If not, you should be!

The colored adder illustration is striking... looks like the eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings. ;)

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This is the only herp pic I have done in a while. It was for an article for the school I work for in WA. Just some mechanical pencil and some colored pencil work. Nuthin' fancy.

Oops!! Did not realize there were 3 pages worth of art...!

Wow, wow, WOW! Amazing work guys and gals!

Crocdoc,

I totally recognize those images from the book. :shock: :lol: :beer:

Joel,

The snapping turtle sculpture is ridiculously cool!!! :shock: :beer: :thumb:
KUJordan
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Re: Herp Art

Post by KUJordan »

Porter wrote:
John Martin wrote:
KUJordan wrote:still a work in progress, may never finish:
Image
Man, I HATE you guys/gals with all this talent! Just kidding, but I AM jealous. Jordan, you really need to finish this one - I would love to see this with true copperhead colors lying in those autumn leaves. Oh, and when you do finish it, I'd like to be first in line to buy it! :beer:
Cool dude, how did you add the color to this?
I actually have an HP tablet. So I drew it with my stylus on my tablet then I added all the color/shading and whatnot in photoshop, not illustrator as backwards as that sounds...

I have the finished version I will post here in a few minutes...
KUJordan
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Re: Herp Art

Post by KUJordan »

Finished:

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soulsurvivor
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Re: Herp Art

Post by soulsurvivor »

Thanks, PNW! Not sure what happened to the other images, but here they are, plus 1 more.

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Piglet
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Piglet »

Do mythical herps count? :mrgreen:
20 X 16 acrylic on canvasboard
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Mike VanValen
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Mike VanValen »

I've been drawing for years but never pursued anything. I'm wondering if there's an online community for biological illustrators?
ADCIII
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Re: Herp Art

Post by ADCIII »

hellihooks wrote:does this count...10,000 yr old glyph of a rattlesnake... :D
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jim
Jim, I never realized you worked in rocks. Cement blocks yes, but those rocks must have been in your earlier years :lol: :lol: :lol: ,Art
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crocdoc
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Re: Herp Art

Post by crocdoc »

hellihooks wrote:does this count...10,000 yr old glyph of a rattlesnake... :D
I somehow missed your post the first time around. I'll add this one:

Cave painting of a goanna/monitor lizard in northern Australia
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Tim Borski
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Tim Borski »

That Goanna/Moniter is incredible!

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Tim
MuayThaipan
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Re: Herp Art

Post by MuayThaipan »

Crocdoc the image of the snakes with odd facial appendages is amazing ever think of doing the tail end with like Lachesis,Pseudocerastes urarachnoides,( which has the most amazing tail I've seen on a snake.) and of course Crotalus.
And to Tim Borski, I absolutely love your style of painting.
Shane_TX
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Shane_TX »

Heterodon contortrix?

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Shane
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crocdoc
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Re: Herp Art

Post by crocdoc »

MuayThaipan wrote:Crocdoc the image of the snakes with odd facial appendages is amazing ever think of doing the tail end with like Lachesis, Pseudocerastes urarachnoides,( which has the most amazing tail I've seen on a snake.) and of course Crotalus.
Thanks, MuayThaipan. That illustration was originally done for a children's book on snakes and I figured funny head appendages would be the go in that instance. If I ever do another snake book, perhaps I'll do heads and tails. I've done longitudinal sections through rattlesnake rattles before, though, to show how they work.
Shane_TX wrote:Heterodon contortrix?
Nope!
Xenodon rabdocephalus
Shane_TX
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Shane_TX »

Nope!
Xenodon rabdocephalus
Damn!

Excellent art.

Shane
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Dell Despain
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Dell Despain »

I'm breathing new life into this old thread.
Over the years I've always found my winter time spent drawing, painting, and fiddling around with three dimensional wood pieces. Primarily fish forms, but I had an idea for an aboriginal Snapping turtle of sorts. Here's a bit of the process and the finale piece.

First I draw it out on a two by 12 piece of redwood, then cut it out with a jigsaw, and then do a small amount of dremel tool work, and filing, finally I chisel some rough cuts in choice places. I put the Joint Pliers in for scale reference.
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Then I burn the whole piece with a blow torch, this brings out the relief of the grain of wood, and takes out any sharp edges, and or slight imperfections by the dremel tool.
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Now the fun part starts, adding the water color. The water color bleeds into the wood, and if I've done a piece well, will look more like heavy stain then paint. Here is the finished turtle. I wish I'd taken a couple of photos of the painting in progress because I really struggled with the painting on this snapper and it looked like hell for a few days, but in the end I think the piece worked out.
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Here are a couple of fish I've sold in the past. There all about 25" to 30".
Rainbow trout.
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Aboriginal fish.
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Brown trout.
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-Dell
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Cole Grover
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Cole Grover »

Dell,

Those look almost as good in the photos as they do in person. Seriously awesome. Add some more.

-Cole
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Berkeley Boone
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Berkeley Boone »

Cole Grover wrote:Dell,

Those look almost as good in the photos as they do in person. Seriously awesome. Add some more.

-Cole
Uh, yeah, please? Those are incredible Dell! I am interested in some of your work- do you have any other species you create?
--Berkeley
Tamara D. McConnell
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Tamara D. McConnell »

It's kind of mind-blowing to see so much talent concentrated in one place. Wow. This is a beautiful thread.
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Dell Despain
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Dell Despain »

Berkeley Boone wrote:do you have any other species you create?
Thanks Berkeley. You have a PM.
Tamara D wrote:It's kind of mind-blowing to see so much talent concentrated in one place. Wow.
Yeah I agree, I've done the above fish for quite awhile but when I saw this thread last year it got me thinking about doing some type of herp.
There are some crazy good artist on this forum.

-Dell
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Tim Borski
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Tim Borski »

Wow Dell, until now I thought you were just another damned good fisherman! (And herper.) :lol:

If it's available, I'll take the "Aboriginal fish." PM a price and an address (if different from the one I have) to send a check to, Ok?

Great job man, very impressive!

Tim
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MichaelCravens
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Re: Herp Art

Post by MichaelCravens »

Not sure if this counts, but this might be the only hellbender pinewood derby car in existence.

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Michael Cravens
Shane_TX
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Shane_TX »

Not sure if this counts, but this might be the only hellbender pinewood derby car in existence.
Pretty cool. It definitely counts because it contains functional sharp points!

Shane
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Dell Despain
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Dell Despain »

MichaelCravens wrote:Not sure if this counts, but this might be the only hellbender pinewood derby car in existence.
That's really pretty cool, I wish I'd done a salamander pinewood derby car when I was a kid.
Tim Borski wrote:If it's available, I'll take the "Aboriginal fish."
Whoa!! I didn't expect that, thanks a lot. You have an email, thank you.

-Dell
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TravisK
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Fantasy Chinese Dragon

Post by TravisK »

So I am doing a Paper Mache project with my daughter for school and was wondering if anyone else has worked with this medium. We are doing a life sized Chinese Dragon Head.

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Just need to put on more layers of paint now and add some hair like structures behind the ears. My daughter helped some with the sculpture as it is 'her' extra credit project for school but she is doing almost all the painting and is in control of the color scheme.

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*EDIT* I just noticed that this thread was started on the main forum, I thought it was in the Board Line.
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TravisK
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Father/daughter fantasy dragon - FINISHED

Post by TravisK »

Okay, my daughter and I got her project done last night. Once the teacher is done with it I will hang it on the wall in her room. Here is the final product…

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I am decently pleased with the results but I will definitely do things different next time. This one turned out a little more cartoony than I was originally going for but overall I give it a 6/10 rating. I plan on doing some species of smallish flying dinosaur at full scale, one aquatic dinosaur at 1/3ish scale, and a full scale Rex or related species bust.
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soulsurvivor
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Re: Herp Art

Post by soulsurvivor »

That turned out really cool, Travis! I've never tried paper mache....
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BillMcGighan
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Re: Herp Art

Post by BillMcGighan »

Glad to see this post resurrected.
Good stuff.

For us totally artistically challenged folks, this is beyond imagination.

(Of course, there was a time when I could stand in the yard and draw flies.) :roll:
hellihooks
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Re: Herp Art

Post by hellihooks »

Would any of you true artists out there care to have your work immortalized on my arm, for the one and only tattoo i'll probably ever get? I'm the ONLY hellihooks in the world... and I want a pic of my desert-phase helleri in coiled/strike position (his normal pose) with 'helli' above and 'hooks' underneath ovaling the crote in block-rock lettering.

I can post a pic of the snake, and don't care if you put your initials in somewhere either... :D
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Kelly Mc
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Kelly Mc »

Rockin thread!
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mfb
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Re: Herp Art

Post by mfb »

Wonderful stuff in this thread!

The paper mache dragon has inspired me. I haven't used paper mache since I was a kid. Will have to construct something with my kids using paper mache.
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gbin
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Re: Herp Art

Post by gbin »

Such creative people we have here! My applause! :thumb:

Gerry
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Rich in Reptiles
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Rich in Reptiles »

Wow, we've got some great artists on here!

Here's my contribution- a dwarf crocodile skull sketch.
ImageDwarf crocodile skull i drew by Bethany Avilla, on Flickr
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Kelly Mc
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Kelly Mc »

Great Work! Love the skull.

Jim thanks for including old glyphs, its my favorite kind of human art
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Kelly Mc
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Re: Herp Art

Post by Kelly Mc »

This thread has inspired me to re visit some abandoned stuff I started, thanks! I never feel like my stuff is ever really finished.

Does anyone else feel that way?
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TravisK
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Re: Herp Art

Post by TravisK »

mfb wrote:Wonderful stuff in this thread!

The paper mache dragon has inspired me. I haven't used paper mache since I was a kid. Will have to construct something with my kids using paper mache.

Sweet!...

pics or it never happened.
condyle
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Re: Herp Art

Post by condyle »

Wow! Those are all amazing works!!
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