Adam_RL

@adamrl.bsky.social

1375 Followers 407 Following

I draw creatures (he/ him) email: adam.rl.artwork@gmail.com Commissions : Open NO N/F/T's or A/I "Art" https://linktr.ee/adam_rl

Line art/ sketch of the two rabbits before colour is added.
A vibrant, stylised study of two small rabbits sitting in a meadow of purple, pink and white flowers. I used textured brushes to make it look ask traditional as possible.
Line art of the dragon design. I wanted the line work to look as much like traditional pencil as possible, hence some of the sketch lines.
A fantastical dragon design, inspired by seahorses and leafy sea dragons. The dragon's body is long and sleek with fin/ leaf-like wings and an ornate tail. The colours ion the dragon range from orangey-yellow to green on the leaf-like fins to red/magenta on the feet and tip of the snout.
A vibrant, stylised study of a silky anteater mother climbing along a tree branch with her baby cliinging on to her back. Silky anteaters have hook-like grasping claws, similar to sloths. For this piece I used bold, sketchy linework that is is filled in with vibrant, highly-textured brush strokes.
A vibrant, slightly stylised digital painting of two dolphins breaching the ocean with Roker/ Sunderland coastline in the background. The orange/ yellow hues of the lighhouse and buildings are in stark contrast to the deep blue water and blue/ purple/ pink-ish sky.
A series of spooky sketches that I'm going to use as the basis for the pumpkin carving I'm doing this year. from left to right: creepy grimace face; scribbly smile; Cyclops/ Beholder; Vampire Bat; Clown; Vampire; Werewolf and Mummy.
From left to right: Dinocon Vendor badge; postcards and original drawing by Ivan Kay; Moganopterus print by CM Kosemen; Dodo and Anchiceratops by KakapoJay; sticker sheet by Jay Eaton; Ex Terra 3 (book) by DragonsOfWales/ Andy Frazer; keychains by AugustJosephCo; plesiosaur keychain gifted by RoAR board game; ammonite pin by the Introvertebrates; Marine reptile prints by EmilyHiggsArt; Ankylosaurus and Dunkleosteus stickers by SpeedThief; T-Rex sticker by SketchyRaptor; Stegosaur keychain by WightCoastFossils; Duria Antiquior by Phoebe Ginger; Spinosaurus Skull by Nathan Dehaut; Skeleton coasters and postcards by Katrina Van Grouw
A collage showing all of the original traditonal paintings/ drawings that I will be selling at #DinoConUk. Everything from acrylic paleoart paintings to pen and ink cryptid illustrations and extant animal studies.
A paleoart piece depicting the Rhomaleosaurid plesiosaur Atchodracon. The animal is calmly swimming through shallow waters, with the surface of the water visible at the top of the piece via lighting/ distorted water effects. Dark kocks and the sandy seabed can be seen underneath the large animal. Atychodracon, similarly to Rhomaleosaurus is very robustly built for a plesiosaur with a large (although not as large as a pliosaur), triangular head filled with sharp teeth and a stout/ turtle-like body (minus the shell). . Atychodracon was originally found in the UK, with specimens that date back to the Triassic-Jurassic boundary (early Hettangian). It was a fairly large plesiosaur at 5 meters long. The holotype specimen was housed in Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery (see second image) but was destroyed during world war II. casts of the head and a flipper were preserved however, with features unique enough to be assigned to its own genus (separate from Rhomaleosaurus), erected in 2015.
a vibrant digital painting depicting two Ancyloceras (ammonites with a long, hook-shaped shell as opposed to the typical spiral) in the foreground. The coral reef, along with crinoids (sea lillies) and more typically-shaped ammonites can be seen in the background. An ammonite is classified as heteromorph if its shell is shaped like anything other than the typical spiral/ coil. There is a huge amount of diversity in the shell shapes of hetermorph ammonites, from almost perfectly-straight cones to shells shaped like paperclips!
A spread of the prints (and stickers) that I will be selling at #DinoConUK! There's everything from paleoart, to illustrations of extant animals (e.g. sharks) to gritty photomanipulations of your favourite cryptids (Mothman and Nessie).
An advert page for my stall at DinoCon 2025. Social media handles across the top: adam_rl_ (instagram); @adam_rl_art (X/ Twitter); adam.rl.artwork@gmail.com (email). . Bottom Text: Adam RL Illustration and Concept art Paleoart, Nature and CryptoZoology Themed Art Prints DinoCon 2025 DinoCon is a Palaeontology/ dinosaur themed convention and will be hosted at the University of Exeter on 16th-17th August. As well as the stalls there will be talks from palaeontologists and palaeoart workshops. For more info/ tickets visit www.dinocon.co.uk
Macro photo of the ammonite tattoo.
A scanned sketchbook page showing 5 pen and ink drawings of fossil ammonite shells. The first iteration is the most detalied, with lots of small segments in a tight coil. The second iteration is my attempt at translating the textures/ contrast of a polished ammonite into a condensed pen and ink drawing (I don't think it reads as well as the others). I think that the 5th iteration is the most readable and I think that the subtle shading on the segments looks pretty.
A vibrant and stylised digital painting of a black labrador sitting on sand. I used shades of dark purple, blue and burgundy to exaggerate the tones of her fur and very painterly/ textured brushes.
A fairly loose and stylised take on a coastal landscape in the North East of England. I was aiming to make this one look as traditonal as possible so all of the brush strokes are heavily textured and easily visible. Pink and purple hues dominate the sky while the rocks that jut out into the sea have warm earthy tones.
A stylised, vibrant nature study. A pair of (what I believe to be) White Rhinoceroses in a national park in South Africa. The brushowrk in this piece is fairly expressive and loose. The colour palette makes use of a variety of warm pastel hues (yellow, orange, lilac) contrasted against a dark and saturated purple which makes up the shadows/ outline of the two animals.
A vibrant and slightly stylised digital painting of an ichthyosaur swimming in the foreground and her young calf just beside her. The animal's body is a pale, pinkish-grey with brown mottled spots. The young calf has fewer spots as they are yet to develop. Both individuals have the ripples of the ocean's surface reflecting off their dorsal side (water caustics).
A vibrant tudy of a Common Octopus sitting/ walking across a coral colony/ reef. The bright red/pink of the octopus' head transitions to a dark orange with flecks of gold/ yellow and then eventually to a dark blueish purple at the ends of the extremities/ arms. Each arm is dotted with rows of regular white spots. The animal is outlined with a bold dark purple while the brushwork is loose, resembling oil pastels/ watercolour.
A vibrant study of a juvenile Giant panda sleeping in a tree. The brush texture/ style is meant to evoke the effect of watercolours, with the sketch/ line art being purple ink.
A loose, stylised sketch of a capybara in profile view sitting in a pond with green water plants. The colours (typically reddish brown) have been exaggerated with vibrant shades of orange, pink and purple.
A vibrant, stylised digital drawing of a Binturong chilling on a treebranch, lying on its front with its arms and legs dangling. The colours in this drawing have been heightened so that the typically black and brown coat of the animal appears purple and gold, contrasting against the grassy-green of the background.
A grainy, slightly stylised study of the Great Northern Hotel on its cliff above the waterfall from Twin Peaks (1990-1991, 2017).
A 3x3 grid of selected artworks that I made this year. From Left to Right: Chinese Pangolin graphite study for World Pangolin Day; Ocean Sunfish Acrylic painting; Mandarin Fish digital study; Iguanodon in a Ginkgo forest (digital, paleoart); some bloke playing guitar; Crystal Palace Park Megalosaurus sketch/ observational study; Pliosaurus kevani front view (orthographic); The titan Cronus (Kronosaurus), King of Gods, devouring one of his own kin (digital); Rhizodus hibberti snatches an Embolomere from the edge of a swamp in Carboniferous Scotland (acrylic paleoart painting).
A gigantic (10+ metre-long) Kronosaurus has its huge jaws around the lifeless, freshly decapitated body of a juvenile of the same species in the dark gloom of the Early Cretaceous ocean. . This piece is a (very unsubtle) homage to this incredibly iconic and terrifying painting by Francisco Goya; "Saturn Devouring His Son" (1819–1823). In Greek mythology, Cronus, a.k.a Cronos, Kronos or Saturn (Roman equivalent) overthrew his father, Uranus, and became king of the Gods. After learning that he was destined to be overcome by his children, he devoured them as soon as they were born.
A roughly 2-hour study of a pair of dromaeosaurs in a snowy mountain landscape from Prehistoric Planet (2022), S1 Ep4 (Ice Worlds).
A tonal pencil sketch of a Rhizodus hibberti lunging towards the shore to snap up an unfortunate embolomere that had been sent flying through the air from the force of the impact from the huge predator.
An acrylic painting showing an enormous predatory fish breaching out of freshwater with a salamander-like animal caught in its' jaws filled with fang-like teeth. Rhizodus hibberti (along with all other Rhizodonts) is classed as a basal tetrapodomorph. It is a sarcopterygian fish (similar to coelacanths and lungfishes) which means that it is more closely related to modern tetrapods (such as amphibians and reptiles) than to non-sarcopterygian fish (e.g sharks or salmon).
"Figure 4. A live individual of N. rhombopteryx with three large L. fluviatilis attached to its body. The animal appears to have sustained injuries from a boat collision which attracted the lamprey." A photo-composite piece depicting a large, plesiosaur-like creature with 3 lamprey feeding on its body. The animal has a long, thin neck and four paddle-like flippers. The photograph appears to be taken in dark, murky water.
A stylised study from Jurassic Park 3. This scene shows 3 of the main characters scrambling to stay afloat on an old river boat while a huge spinosaurus is terrorising them. The scene take place while it is pouring with rain and has blue, night-time colour grading which I have pushed even further to become almost purple. I decided to slightly tweak the Spinosaurus' appearance to be more in-line with our current scientific understanding of it's life appearance (here this can mostly be seen in the skull proportions and sail shape). Although, the exact life appearance of spinosaurus is still currently up for debate.
A gigantic (10+ metre-long) Kronosaurus has its huge jaws around the lifeless, freshly decapitated body of a juvenile of the same species in the dark gloom of the Early Cretaceous ocean. . This piece is a (very unsubtle) homage to this incredibly iconic and terrifying painting by Francisco Goya; "Saturn Devouring His Son" (1819–1823). In Greek mythology, Cronus, a.k.a Cronos, Kronos or Saturn (Roman equivalent) overthrew his father, Uranus, and became king of the Gods. After learning that he was destined to be overcome by his children, he devoured them as soon as they were born.
A view of the jack-o'-lantern with the lights on. The teeth were incredibly fiddly to carve.
A design carved into a pumpkin made to look like the skull of a plesiosaur, with many needle-like teeth that interlock between the upper and lower-jaws and jut out from the mouth. I used a fair amount of artistic license in order to make the design look good as a jack-o'-lantern, so this isn't based on a particular genus or anything like that.
a slightly stylised digital study based on a classic shot from Walking With Dinosaurs (1999). A giant pliosaur grabs a foraging Eustreptospondylus from the shore. The animal anatomy/ proportions have been tweaked to better reflect the scientific consensus on life appearance. There is no real evidence for this kind of hunting strategy in pliosaurs, and it seems like they are much better adapted to hunting other large marine animals.
The Titan Cronus (Kronosaurus) devouring one of his own kin
from left-to-right: Nessiteras rhombopteryx (original and sepia version), 1920's nessie photo-composite and mothman photo composite.
A digital artwork depicting my take on an 'Oceanic' dragon. I went for a somewhat grounded take, imagining that the dragon would be a highly divergent and unusual marine turtle (most closely resembling the Leatherback Turtle) but with a very long neck and highly-adapted wing-like flippers.
A gigantic (10+ metre-long) Kronosaurus has its huge jaws around the lifeless, freshly decapitated body of a juvenile of the same species in the dark gloom of the Early Cretaceous ocean. . This piece is a (very unsubtle) homage to this incredibly iconic and terrifying painting by Francisco Goya; "Saturn Devouring His Son" (1819–1823). In Greek mythology, Cronus, a.k.a Cronos, Kronos or Saturn (Roman equivalent) overthrew his father, Uranus, and became king of the Gods. After learning that he was destined to be overcome by his children, he devoured them as soon as they were born.
A page of 5 sketches depicting the pliosaur in a few different poses and angles. Pliosaurs are a sub-group of plesiosauria (plesiosaurs) known for their incredibly large sizes (with many having total body length estimates of 10-12 metres) and proportionally large skulls (often more than 1/5 of the total body length!). unlike their long-necked plesiosaurian relatives, these animals were adapted to hunt large prey. Plesiosaurians in general had a fairly wide range of motion in their flippers, which makes them interesting subjects to draw.
A page of drawings depicting the late Jurassic Pliosaur; Pilosaurs kevani, in orthographic views (left lateral, dorsal and front view).
A series of 3 different colour/ pattern iterations for the giant Late Jurassic Pliosaur; Pliosaurus Kevani (know from the holotype specimen DORCM G.13,675. displayed in the Dorset County Museum). Pattern A shows a classic countershading pattern, very common in marine animals, with olive green (with darker stripes) on the dorsal side and off-white on the ventral side of the animal. Pattern B is inspired in-part by marine iguanas. The base is a very dark brown with dappled white on the ventral side and orange-brown accent patches. Pattern C is inspired by cetaceans and leopard seals and is very hight contrast. The animal is predominantly off-white with a large band of navy coming over the shoulders and onto the fore-flippers. Areas that are white have dark spots on the dorsal side (the head especially) and areas that are dark have white spots on the ventral side (the neck).
a loose and grungey portrait study of Feyd Rautha from Dune Part Two. The original is very starkly lit with the character's face spotlit, emerging from a black void. I took quite a painterly approach and added in some grungey brush textures as well as hints of green and purple.
An observational sketch of the Crystal Palace Park Megalosaurus. I focused much less on foliage detail and more on skin texture.
A vibrant, stylised study (digital painting) of a Basking shark swimming alongside 2 divers in the open ocean. The perspective emphasises the animal's large size (up to 8m long) with the shark facing towards the camera. The divers almost blend into the background. Flashes of pink bleed through in the background and also appear as streaks on the shark, emphasising areas where light is reflected.
A digital painting depicting a hefty-looking iguanodon rearing up on its hind legs and leaning against a tree in a hug-like fashion. A scratch mark can be seen where the animal's iconic huge thumb spike has dug into the bark. The animal is standing in a forest of Ginkgo trees, and as a result the painting is dominated by golden-yellow hues.
A mighty Giganotosaurus patterned in the colours of the progress pride flag.
A vibrant, stylised study of European eel (Anguilla anguilla) in its 'yellow', sub-adult stage. Beginning as larvae in the Sargasso Sea where they spawn, the fish then drift 4000 miles across the Atlantic ocean as tiny 'glass eels' to reach the coasts of Europe. They then swim inland and upstream (at this point known as elvers) through freshwater rivers where they mature and spend most of their life. They are called 'Yellow Eels' at their sub-adult phase (as depicted here), but they eventually turn silver once fully mature, at which point they migrate all the way back to the Sargasso sea to spawn!
Ocean Sunfish/ Mola mola (acrylic on paper)
A stylised and exaggerated digital illustration of an Ichthyotitan, the recently described gigantic (possibly almost blue whale-sized) Ichthyosaur from the Triassic of Somerset, UK. I purposely gave the animal patterning/ colouration which evokes that of cows/ cattle.
An acrylic painting of a Deepsea Lizardfish (Bathysaurus ferox). This painting focuses on the front half of the fishes' body, cutting off after the pectoral fins, in order to emphasise the animals scary-looking face and trap-like jaws.
Stylised and vibrant study of a Sandbar Shark (digital painting). I had a lot of fun exaggerating/ bringing out the colours on this one; adding vibrant flashes of red, orange and purple on areas which would otherwise be percieved as greyish-brown.
A stylised study of a Mandarinfish. The fish has a bright orange body which becomes yellow/ green towards its head and neon blue bands, stripes and spots.
A pixel art study/ painting of a large female Bull Shark with a plastic strap caught around her head constricitng the sharks mobility and causing deformity to her body as she grows. Good news is that the shark in the photograph that this art is based on managed to break free of the strap! The style of the image is most comparable to a SNES 16-bit 256 x 224 pixel display. I always wanted to try out pixel art and with the theme being about plastic pollution, it seemed fitting to use such a noticably inorganic/ artifical visual style.
"As temperatures rise and glaciers thaw, things that were once long-buried become revealed to the world..." A photo-composite/ paint-over piece created for Valdevia's 'Cursed Files' art challenge, based on the prompt "Buried". The strange, alien skull/face/structure emerging from the snowy mountain is an homage to the work of HR giger.
a pen and ink study of a Ghost Bat. This species belongs to a family called Megadermatidae or "False Vampires", hence their somewhat similar appearance to the famous Vampire Bat. These Bats, however, are not parisitic to large mammals and have considerably paler fur on their head and body (hence the name Ghost Bat).
A stylised study of a Robost Ghost Pipefish (Solenostomus cyanopterus). These fish make a striking use of camouflage and mimicry, and have the ability to change colour over the course of few hours. These abilities mean that (similar to cuttlefish for example) their appearance is highly variable. This digital painting depicts the fish as a neon turquoise-blue with subtle green bands and yellow patches. The fishes' colours and plant mimicry combined with the lighting give it a celestial/ alien quality.
A vibrant and slightly-stylised piece of paleoart depicting the early cretaceous spinosaurine spinosaurid (phylogeny is fun) Irritator challengeri from the Romualdo formation of Brazil. The scene shows two individuals (female on the left, male on the right) wading in a coastal lagoon, with the male rearing up, facing the sky to show the vibrant colour on his neck and throat. The painting is dominated by a purplish-blue hue (sky/ water) which contrasts with the vibrant yellow/orange ventral side of the spinosaurs.
An acrylic painting of a medium-sized Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola) swimming (or drifting) close to a reef among a few other fishes (bright orange in colour) which it dwarfs in comparison. The blue tint of the ocean makes the beige colour of the oddly-shaped Sunfish appear almost purple, with a yellowish-white underside. The edge of the rocky reef appears green in colour with hints of yellow. It fades into a deep, dark blue at the top of the painting, where it is further away from the viewer. Particles of snow-like ocean detritus can be seen in the foreground.