Liam Elward Paleoart 🇵🇸

Lmao thanks Ben!

Not a photo but Fred Wierum has done something similar

I wouldn't call it a "highlight" of #PaleoFest but basically being thrust into running one of the auctions (I have 0 experience or even affiliation with the Burpee Museum) was certainly a memorable experience.

Glad I could help and hope I didn't make a complete fool of myself, lol

Also for #PaleoFest2026, look for my wall-hanging mini-bust of a famous Chicago zoo gorilla, now taxidermied @ FMNH
www.fieldmuseum.org/blog/bushman...
Please bid this up at the weekend auction to benefit the Burpee Museum in Rockford, Illinois
#SciArt 🦍
Painted plaster cast

I can’t make it to #PaleoFest2026 this year, but the wonderful @paleobyliam.bsky.social is transporting two small sculptures of mine I’m donating to the Burpee Museum for the auction at this weekends event. Faux metallic painted wall-hanging casts, here‘s a peek #sciart

See you there!

That line is such a dumb way of trying to shut down criticism

"If you don't trust your doctor, why don't you go to med school and become a doctor?"

"If you don't like that movie, why not become a big-budget director?"

🥴🥴🥴

When someone dies in our field (I’m thinking of Dr. Hans-Dieter Sues), it’d be great for someone to aggregate all the positive comments and anecdotes about them on social media and send to their family. A lot of our lives are spent in our professional work but our families might not know impact.

🧪

Pencil studies of the extant sperm whale Physeter macrocephalus focusing on the asymmetrical snout w/ single blowhole off to the side, along w/ eye

*clicking intensifies*

#sciart

Liam Elward paleoart illustration of Utahraptor standing next to a human silhouette. It is sleekly feathered and has coloration like modern birds of prey, with light and dark head markings a bit like a bearded vulture

Ran across a @paleobyliam.bsky.social illustration in the wild while idly googling... his colors for feathers always appeal to me

Thanks!!!

Yeah very difficult to conceptualize a sound-oriented organism with such small eyes on the opposite sides of like the biggest head in nature

Check out his award-winning #wildlifephotography here: www.tony-wu.com/sperm-whales

Single blowhole raised & located to side, tiny tweezer of a lower jaw that fits like a glove, the subtle curves of the melon/spermaceti...

Tony Wu's photos really capture the "battering ram" aspect of sperm whales. Their heads are so weird and their enormity only compounds this in photos.

Northern right whale dolphin (Lissodelphis borealis) illustration [Yumiko Wakisaka].jpg

Orca aka killer whale (Orcinus orca) bull illustration [Frédérique Lucas]

Many such cases

Spectacled porpoises have so much dorsal fin it seems there was none leftover for the finless porpoise

Cetaceans are such weird animals

This seems like a great moment to talk about the importance of science communication!

Science communication matters because it connects scientific research with people, giving folks information they need to make informed decisions about everything from health to hazards.

Weird!!! Is this a common occurrence in whale ontogeny?

For #WorldWhaleDay- Pacific white-sided dolphins making good use of enrichment at the Shedd Aquarium here in Chicago. I’ve always preferred this species to the “classic” bottlenose dolphin 🐬

For context, here's some examples of their usual proportions - much less elongated than the weirdos above. Maybe I just can't tell that the above pics are tampered w/ AI/Photoshop?

Under the right circumstances, at the right angle, the false killer whale (Pseudorca crassidens) looks downright mythical. I wonder if they can get longer & more sinuous with age, if its individual variation, or what. Cause they mostly don't look this loooong
#WorldWhaleDay

The cetacean studies will continue until moral improves 🐬🐳🐋
#paleoart #sciart

Thanks!

I tried to go for a palette similar to those seen in modern dolphins & whales (without directly copying a living species) - somehow landed on this splotchy grey with accents of deep blue & gold.

Frédérique Lucas & Jaime Bran illustrating cetaceans:

Throwback to my first cetacean #paleoart, the extinct raptorial sperm whale Zygophyseter. This was very early on in my career (2018) & I had just begun using Photoshop.
#sciart

Thanks!

Another cetacean portrait sketch, this time the obscure, unusual Pygmy sperm whale (Kogia breviceps). Unique patterning behind the eye known as a “false gill slit”
#paleoart

Portrait study in pencil of the false killer whale (Pseudorca crassidens). Trying to get a handle on toothed whale oral tissues
#paleoart #sciart