Day three of "But what if trilobites had colors like my fancy pillbugs?" Have changed page layout three times. No graphite lines on a single trilobite yet. Am glad I am not a professional with deadlines.
This was supposed to be a sketchbook page that ended up with a little watercolor for my wall. Now I also want to do an in depth study of their anatomy, research and illustrate their eyes, see this trilobite in yellow duckie pillbug and zebra millipede colors, and bring out my toned paper. Guess I want to make this a whole thing for a little while.
Can anyone spare a grand so I can get me a museum quality piece to study?
Finished studying pics of fossils. I had fun straining the old eyes trying to figure out how this thing was pieced together the way someone did when they were first discovered. Just looked at an actual diagram of the thing and it wasn't too far off. Definitely done with that though, it's time to study diagrams and models, to really see how these guys fit together instead of guess and wonder :).
Finished studying diagrams and using them to adjust my notes. At this point, I want to see what happens if I use only my notes for the next page :).
When I started working on this, I watched "David Attenborough's First Life", which has a great discussion of trilobite eyes and how to tell something about it's behavior from them. It helped me make connections. When I started drawing this, I thought the horns were to protect from predators above, then I realized the design would be better if they were straight up for what I was envisioning, these are bent for ramming, to turn and fight back. Now I feel all sciency.