Voices of Palaeoart - Corbin Rainbolt
Today’s iteration of Voices of Palaeort features the notable artist Corbin Rainbolt, whose ensemble of paintings depict the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras vividly. You can find more of Corbin’s work on his Twitter and DeviantArt.
What medium of palaeoart do you create?
“I mostly create digital artwork on my computer. I usually make my images using a program called GIMP. My work usually features extinct animals in their environments. The way that I add details is a bit odd; I build up detail by drawing lots of little hatched lines. The direction that these lines point, and the differences in the thickness of my brush gives the illusion of texture and detail.”
What was your impetus/motivation for getting into Palaeoart?
“I have been very interested in paleontology since I was very young, but I stopped seeing it as a career path for myself around middle school. On the art side, I have always loved to draw, especially with colored pencils. I had seen a lot of beautiful paleoart when I was a kid, especially a wonderfully colorful book illustrated by Luis Rey, but I thought at the time that the threshold for quality in professional paleoart was too high for me to realistically reach. At some point when I was in college, around 2018, when I was just starting to learn how to make digital art, I came across some paleoart accounts on Twitter and I started making my first paleoart pieces. They weren’t very good, I don't think I was familiar enough with the process for making digital art at this point. I lost interest in paleoart again after a couple of months. I started experimenting with paleoart again when I was looking for things to do at home during the pandemic. After a while, I started to get to a place where I was comfortable with sharing my finished pieces.”
How long have you been involved with Palaeoart?
“I have been working on paleoart seriously since sometime last September (2020). It’s a short amount of time, I know, but I think I’ve gotten quite a lot done in just a few months.”
Fig 1. The giant beaver Casteroides ohioensis alongside the extant North American beaver (Castor canadensis)
What is your research process when setting out to reconstruct an animal or setting?
“I usually start by searching for the most recent articles about the paleo-ecology of an animal. This helps me get a good idea of what sorts of environments, settings and behaviors I can include in my reconstruction. Once I have a general idea of what I want to include, I look for references that can help me pose and draw the animal accurately. This can include skeletals and modern analogues for texture and pose. I also like to research the formations where an animal is found to get an idea of what other organisms lived alongside the main subject of the piece.”
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?
“In those instances, I usually look at the features of related taxa. If there is no information at all about a particular feature and I’m worried that my speculations may be too outlandish, I will contact other paleoartists who may have worked on similar animals to figure out a reasonable way of filling in this gap in information.”
What is your artistic process when doing a piece? Any particular inspirations among other palaeoartists or artists in general?
“I usually start my drawings with a basic sketch, which I will later refine into a more concrete linework drawing. I then add my base colors underneath the linework. The linework acts as a guide throughout the rest of the process, and it helps me get an idea of how I’m planning on composing a scene. Once my linework is done, I reduce the transparency on my linework and blur it slightly, before adding details by adding very small hatched lines over the base colors. When the entire image is covered in these hatched lines, the piece is usually just about done! At the moment my pieces are taking a lot longer than usual because I’m trying to put more focus on adding dynamic backgrounds to my work; which tend to take a long time to complete. In terms of inspiration, I really look up to artists like Julius Csotonyi and Beth Zaiken. They are both so good at rendering extinct animals and their environments in a way that feels natural, but also has a lot of wonderful drama and atmosphere.”
Does your approach differ when portraying the relatively recent past (Pleistocene, Holocene), compared to ancient periods like the Mesozoic?
“Not particularly, the process is pretty much the same, just with different subject matter.”
Which piece portraying the Pleistocene are you most proud of?
“Even though it’s pretty old at this point, I am still very proud of my Mastodon painting. There are definitely a lot of things I would change about it if I could do it again, but the herd of Mastodons still holds up in my opinion.”
Are you involved in any projects you would like to tell people about?
“At the moment I am still working on honing my skills and getting a good portfolio going. I’m hoping to start looking for some new projects when I complete my current set of work in progress pieces.”
Finally, what is your alltime favourite animal? (We'll forgive you if it isn't Pleistocene)
“Probably any Sirenian, I can’t decide on any one in particular. They’re just such odd animals, and definitely the weirdest of all secondarily aquatic animals in my opinion.”
Fig 2. A pair of perching Terratornis, a genus of giant American bird of prey.
