Voices of Palaeoart - Julio Lacerda
This is the second of our series of interviews ‘Voices of Palaeoart’, in which we interview various artists in the community to hear more about their motivations and creative processes. Today we feature Julio Lacerda! A prominent digital palaeoartist, you can find him on Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram.
What medium of palaeoart do you create?
“Digital Art, it often being a blend of illustration and 3D work.”
What was your impetus/motivation for getting into Palaeoart?"
“For me, becoming a palaeoartist was pretty much an accident. Although I always imagined myself working with either art, natural sciences or both, I never imagined palaeoart specifically could be a viable career path. I started like many kids do, just drawing some dinosaurs for fun inspired by magazines, books, movies and documentaries. Later on, the Internet made it possible for me to discover other artists and become part of a community where I could share my work, get feedback and be as up-to-date as possible with new discoveries and ideas. Eventually I found myself doing some commissioned work, and the rest is history.”
How long have you been involved with Palaeoart?
“Non-professionally, I could say my whole life since I’ve been drawing these animals since I was very young. But in terms of understanding what palaeoart really is and dedicating myself to it as a craft, it’s been around a decade. And for the past 5 years or so, it has become my full-time profession.”
Fig 1. An Irish Elk (Megaloceros giganteus) and a carrion crow (Corvus corone)
What is your research process when setting out to reconstruct an animal or setting?
“The basic process is to first gather references – in my case these are usually skeletal reconstructions, live reconstructions, images of fossils and of living relatives etc. - then come up with the concept. I like to look at wildlife photography for inspiration when it comes to composition, perspective, lighting and other aspects of the presentation, so often browsing through some galleries or watching documentaries helps with that as well. “
What do you do when the information is lacking - say a species has no information about certain key morphological features. How do you go about reconstructing it?
“I personally prefer to shy away from species that are too fragmentary or obscure, but when it’s necessary to work on something like that for a client, my thought process is to branch out and look for the closest reasonably-known species available - both in terms of taxonomic proximity and ecological niche – and just make educated guesses. That’s where a lot of creativity and general knowledge about zoology and anatomy comes in, so you can make choices that feel reasonable and natural. A common saying in palaeoart is that there’s so much we don’t know and may never know for sure, that it's almost a guarantee you’ll get something wrong. So you may as well be wrong with style!”
What is your artistic process when doing a piece? Any particular inspirations among other palaeoartists or artists in general?
“When I’m doing a more illustration-oriented artwork, I often create a basic sketch after gathering my references and build upon it layer by layer. If it’s something more 3D based, I prepare the models and assets I’m gonna use and play around with all the elements until I find a setup that I’m satisfied with, then render it and move on to the overpainting process to touch up all the details and make the image feel cohesive.
As I said before I take a lot of inspiration from wildlife photography and nature documentaries when it comes to the aesthetic and scenery aspects of my work. Speaking of the reconstructions themselves, there’s a whole plethora of palaeoartists that I admire and look up to, depending on what I’m working on at the moment. For example, I have recently been doing a lot of hominids and one of the best artists in that area for me is Tom Björklund. For mammals, Ville Sinkkonen and Dhruv Franklin come to mind, while my absolute favourite dinosaur illustrator is probably Andrey Atuchin. There’s just too many to mention, and fortunately new, incredibly talented people keep popping up all the time.”
Which piece portraying the Pleistocene are you most proud of?
“A few months ago I made a little series of four illustrations depicting the same area of Beringia in each of the four seasons, with a different set of characters for each one. The winter scene ended up being one of my favorites. I’m proud of the snowy atmopshere and the dense look of the mammoths’ fur.”
Fig 2. Mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) in the Beringian winter.
Are you involved in any projects you would like to tell people about? -
“There’s a couple of interesting projects I’m currently working on but can’t talk too much about for now! But for anyone who wants to see some cool new stuff from me, I recommend keeping an eye on PBS Eons’ channel on Youtube. We regularly work together to produce very interesting illustrations, and their content is always entertaining and informative.”
Finally, what is your alltime favourite animal? (We'll forgive you if it isn't Pleistocene)
“I always have trouble picking a single animal that I like because I enjoy animals in general. However, I can say that I have a very soft spot for sabertooth cats!”