Dani Mays

@danimays.bsky.social

360 Followers 497 Following

Paleoart, among other things. Bringing life to that which we cannot see, with digital and traditional media. Author of the webcomic Falling Leaves. KCAI 2023 - #art - #paleoart - #sciart - #webcomics - #fantasyart -

Watercolor painting of a great blue heron standing in shallow water, underneath branches of live oaks.
A grayscale painting of a chickadee sitting on a branch.
A grayscale painting of three whistling ducks.
Work in progress of a painting of several Ediacaran species. So far, there are pencil outlines of two Dickinsonia (flat, ridged organisms resembling wide worms) and several Kimberella (smaller egg-shaped organisms resembling mollusks)
A long, horizontal watercolor painting. The painting is mostly green and gray. Seen from below, looking up through the water, an adult unenlagiine picks a mollusk up from the riverbed. Behind her, her three chicks swim, chasing after minnows. Near her foot is a salamander trying to stay inconspicuous.
An unfinished drawing of a Microraptor. Its wings are semi-folded, and it looks over its shoulder.
Illustration of a fantasy character reaching toward the camera with their hand wreathed in blue-green flame. The character wears a hooded capelet, within which their face is two glowing eyes and a sharp, pointed grin. Below the capelet their torso is an exaggerated ribcage with a blue-green light at its core. They wear a belt made of bony, diamond-shaped plates.
WIP of an oil painting of a Deinonychus. The Deinonychus is underpainted in reddish brown; some foliage is blocked in behind it in greens and browns.
A watercolor painting of a deceased microraptor, iridescent blue-green-to-purple, resting in a bright green bed of gingko leaves. It has a thin white halo behind its head.
A cartoon drawing of the pterosaur Dearc Sgiathanach in flight against a gray background. The pterosaur has a blue body wirh orange wings.
Reimagining of a Hideous Zippleback dragon from How to Train your Dragon. Its head is viper-esque in appearance, with pits in its snout and a large slit-pupil eye. Its neck is long (shorter than the canon design). The drawing only goes to the chest, but also shows the tip of the dragon's tail, which is a display with patterning superficially resembling its face. It's green and blue, with yellow eyes and belly and red spikes along its back. It has a horn on its snout and a fan of feathery structures on its chin and on the tail display.
A reimagining of the Whispering Death from How to Train your Dragon, as a stocky lizard-like dragon with large blank eyes, small wings and legs, spines along its head and tail, and a large fleshy nose. Its teeth face inward, and when it opens its mouth it stretches to the side and exposes bright green oral tissue. The dragon is blue-green and green; its nose and spines are red.
Watercolor painting of an Ichthyosaur floating in calm water. The painting is blue-green, the ichthyosaur is gray.
A picture of me standing by the Deinonychus cast at HMNS, pointing toward it and smiling, holding my sketchbook. I'm wearing a shirt with the mRNA-amino acid chart on it.
Ninea, the protagonist of Falling Leaves. She's an alien designed for this comic; she's humanoid, with vibrant green skin, large blue-green eyes, large mouse-like ears, and yellow frills on her head, shoulders, and long flexible tail. She has clawed, three-toed feet, resembling a theropod's, and her tail has large scales on its ventral side, like the scutes of a snake. She wears a gray tunic with a blue-green border, baggy brown knee-length shorts, and a lighter gray scarf. She holds a piece of paper in her hand. She stands on a patch of grass; at her feet sits Mem, a cat-sized gray-brown robot with a triangular head, a long neck, a long prehensile tail, and limbs resembling a pterosaur's. Mem looks up at Ninea.
A panel from the webcomic Falling Leaves. Several crouching masked figures hide behind a large boulder, out of sight of a pilot (wearing a different, more complex mask, and a semi-armored uniform) who controls a mech meant to resemble the "shell" of a paper nautilus/argonaut. The mech has large scythes on its forelimbs, which drip ominously with vivid pink blood. All characters are an alien species designed for this comic, with tails, large mouselike ears, and frills on their heads and shoulders. Their coloration varies; the central figure here is blue. (Dialogue: "....hold.")
A colored pencil drawing of a dragon the size of an amoeba, eating a smaller cell. It's legless, translucent and full of cell organelles, with an open spiky mouth and large round eyes. Essentially, a cell in the shape of a dragon. Flagella form fans along its sides and back, on the back of its head, and on its tail.
A digital sketch of three feathered velociraptors watching Jurassic Park on an old crt-screen television. Two of them are holding tubs of popcorn; one has its snout buried in the popcorn as it munches. The third has a large cup of soda.
A painting of an unspecified unenlagiine followed by her three chicks, wading and swimming through a shallow stream.
A painting of a rabbit leaping, with the sun forming a halo behind him. From the right emerges an amalgamation of wings and snapping skeletal canine teeth. The painting is based on the opening mythos of the novel Watership Down: The Prince With a Thousand Enemies.
Business card illustration for Matthew S. depicting a red T. Rex as a games producer, with formatting like the king of hearts playing card.
A painting of an Ichthyosaur in watercolor and ink
Work in progress of a watercolor and ink painting. The legs and snout of an adult unenlagiine are fully painted; behind her, two chicks are still halfway finished. The painting is predominantly green.
A pencil sketch of Velociraptor mongoliensis
Part of a gallery display, showing a photograph of a childhood drawing of a toy velociraptor, the toy in question sitting on a tiny shelf, and a larger watercolor painting depicting it as a more realistic dinosaur. The dinosaur in question is yellow with a red stripe down its back.
A watercolor painting of an ichthyosaur floating in a tranquil, shallow sea. The painting is largely blue-greens and grays.
Work in progress of a watercolor painting depicting a mother unenlagiine hunting in shallow water followed by her babies swimming behind her, seen from below the water. The painting is green and gray.
A work in progress of a watercolor. A partially painted ichthyosaur, with gray stripes, floats in a blue-green ocean.
Another work in progress image of the same painting. The surface of the ocean has been rendered now, in blues and greens on top of a yellow gradient. The ichthyosaur is still just covered in masking tape.
A painting in progress of an ichthyosaurus. The animal itself is blocked out with tape and masking fluid, and the paint is a gradient of blue to white.
Work in progress of a watercolor painting, depicting a reddish brown Riparovenator catching a fish, standing in a shallow river seen from below, surrounded by bright blue-green water. The dinosaur itself is completed, and the rocks on which it is standing are halfway done, needing another layer of shadows.
Work in progress image of a watercolor painting. The dinosaur Riparovenator is pictured from below the water, plunging its open mouth into a river to catch a large fish. The painting is halfway finished.
A business card meant to mimic a playing card, specifically the king of diamonds. It depicts a red and purple T. rex with a necktie, mug, and clipboard, as a games producer asking the viewer "Have you updated your Jira?". Behind him, a blue and purple raptor sits at a desk with a mug and computer. The raptor looks startled, having evidently not updated their Jira.
Two gray and brown hatzegopteryx, large pterosaurs with large heads and long necks, stand on a sandy shoreline. The rightmost one, with orange head crests, has its beak open, mid-sound. The scene is framed by plants and gingko trees; in the upper right, several red balaur bondoc, small feathery dinosaurs, sleep at the base of a branch. One of them, awake, raises its head in curiosity.
A cropped panel from the webcomic Falling Leaves, depicting a character drinking from a glowing vial. The character is in silhouette, while the liquid in the vial--and the background of the panel--is a vibrant pink. In the lower right corner is the logo, reading "Falling Leaves", and the text "Update 04/03"
Watercolor and gouache painting of a bluebird perched on a branch, in front of a gray background. The bird looks off to the right; its wings are folded tightly. The colors--blue on the wings and head, white and orange on the belly, and greenish gray on the branch--are desaturated, almost blending with the background in places.
A small traditional painting. A cardinal sits on a white picket fence, staring directly at the viewer with a blank white eye. Behind it, bare trees stretch into a gray sky. Behind it to the upper right and in front of it to the lower left, two mourning doves fly in a diagonal upper left direction. Most of the piece is in shades of gray, except for the cardinal, which is bright red.
Paleoart of a deceased Microraptor zhaoianus nestled in fallen gingko leaves. Painted in watercolor and colored pencil, the Microraptor is iridescent blue-green and purple; the leaves behind are a vibrant warm green. A bright white halo rings the Microraptor's head.
A drawing of an undead red dragon coiled in the air. Its body is rotting, exposing bone and entrails in places, and a sickly green light emanates from its ribcage. Its batlike wings are in tatters. Above its horned, skeletal face floats a crown woven of the corpses of smaller dragons.