October Ink Days 16 and 18 The Scorpian, the Trilobite and Han Solo

With these two drawings I had fun using different types of ink shading – hatching with the scorpian and a mixture of hatching and dots for the trilobite.  Both were fun and gave an indication of different textures.  The dots took ages though!

With both of these drawings I used a pencil to add some greyscale shading as my brush pen is not working so well at the moment.  Unfortunately the scanner didn’t pick up the shading very well.

Here are the two pictures…

I really enjoy making these biological type illustrations.  I could do this for a living I think, although I would miss the children if I moved away from education.

Trilobites are really interesting animals which I could go on about for pages so I’m going to restrict myself to four facts…

1. They were around for the Permian period in geological history which is from approximately 500 million years ago to approximately 250 million years ago.
2. They could roll up into a little ball if they felt threatened, much like today’s woodlice.
3. They died off during the huge Permian/Triassic extinction along with 96% of all marine species and 70% of all terrestrial species.  We’re not sure exactly what caused this extinction although meteor impacts, super volcanos, runaway greenhouse gases and ocean anoxia are some of the main suspects.
4. There is a trilobite of the Genus “Han” with a specific species called “Solo”.

So there’s actually a real trilobite fossil with the formal scientific name Han solo!!!!!!! 

I love nerds!