When last I blogged about James Herrmann’s art, it was about some cool sculptures of dinosaurs that he had done for the Cincinnati Museum Center. I am particularly taken with the sculptures that are skeleton on one side, and fully-fleshed on the other side.

Now he’s doing mammals, specifically Ice Age megafauna. 

And they’re attracting attention–this very cool American Mastodon won the Lanzendorf-National Geographic PaleoArt Prize in the 3D category at SVP this year.

As nice as the mastodon is, I am really taken with this Bison latifrons.

What can I say, I’m a sucker for high-spined vertebrae.

I really dig these, much more than I would either a naked skeleton or a fully-fleshed restoration on both sides. I hope there are more to come in the future, both from James and from other paleoartists.

For more on James’s work, please visit his website: http://www.herrmannstudio.com/.

My good friend, frequent collaborator, and fellow adventurer Brian Engh has won the John J. Lanzendorf Paleoart Prize for 2D paleoart (there are also categories for 3D paleoart and scientific illustration). He’s in august company; previous Lanzendorf winners include luminaries like John Gurche, Michael Skrepnick, Mark Hallett, Todd Marshall, and Julius Csotonyi (among many others–see the complete list of previous winners here). Naturally I’m happy as heck for Brian, and immensely proud of him, not only for the award, but also for what he’s doing now. Usually when we say “pay it forward” we mean metaphorically, but Brian is literally going to pay it forward. He’s created his own paleoart contest, the SummonENGH 2018, and he will award half of his October Patreon take to the winner.

He lays out the rules on his blog and in this video:

There’s a Facebook group, here, and a hashtag: #TheSummonEngh2018 (Facebook, Twitter).

Why do I think this is cool? It’s no exaggeration to say that I am a paleontologist today because I was exposed to mind-bending paleoart from a young age. Brian cares about paleoart–he cares about making better paleoart, himself, and he cares about making paleoart better, for everyone. And now he’s putting his money where his mouth his and doing something to hopefully bring more visibility to the paleoart community, and help move the field forward. That’s admirable, and I’m happy to support the cause.

Also, when we visited the Aquilops display at Dinosaur Journey this summer, we were lucky enough to capture this single frame showing a 100% real paleo-energy discharge. I definitely felt something at the time, but I didn’t know the full extent of what had happened until Brian sorted through our photos after the trip. Apparently this was all fated to happen–some kind of transdimensional chronoparticle emission linking past and future–and who am I to argue with fate?

Now, go summon monsters!