In November, Nogueira won a prestigious international prize devoted to his branch of art, the Lanzendorf National Geographic Paleoart Prize, in the 2D Art category. This was his third Lanzendorf prize\u2014he had previously received one in 2015 in the Scientific Illustration category, and in 2018 in the Scientific Animation category. At age 35, he has won 17 awards for his work so far, including 13 international prizes. In this interview, he shares with Pesquisa FAPESP<\/em> how he learned to reconcile his passion for paleontology with art, and how he developed a method for inferring what animals were like that lived millions of years ago, often with nothing more than a claw to go by.<\/p>\n Rodolfo Nogueira<\/span><\/a> … such as this 6-meter megaraptorRodolfo Nogueira<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Was the prize you recently won awarded for a specific drawing?<\/strong> Your line of work would be a dream job for many children, and was for you. How did you turn your dream into reality?<\/strong> Were you obsessed with drawing dinosaurs from a young age?<\/strong> When I was 11 years old, my mother enrolled me in a drawing course that equipped me to turn my imagination into reality<\/p><\/blockquote>\n What was your method?<\/strong> These highly detailed reconstructions are often made from a single tail or finger bone, or a tooth. To what extent do they draw on science and on imagination?<\/strong> Where did you get your training in paleontology? <\/strong> Rodolfo Nogueira\u2002<\/span><\/a> A reconstruction of an Abelisaurus hatchling installed at the Santa Rita geositeRodolfo Nogueira\u2002<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Do you work with paleontologists?<\/strong> You produce models with detailed scales or skin textures. How is this possible?<\/strong> Have you had the opportunity to see fossil finds firsthand in the field?<\/strong>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/064-067_paleoartista_311-2-1140-1.jpg\")
\nYes, for an image depicting the dawn of the dinosaur era 230 million years ago, in southern Brazil, featuring two of the most ancient known dinosaurs, Saturnalia<\/em> and Pampadromaeus<\/em>. It was an illustration I did for a book that won the Jabuti award for the best kids\u2019 book in 2018, O Brasil dos dinossauros <\/em>[A land of dinosaurs]. The book, published by Marte, was a collaboration with Luiz Eduardo Anelli, a paleontologist at USP [University of S\u00e3o Paulo]. The Lanzendorf prize is organized by the largest paleontology association in the world\u2014the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology\u2014with funding from the National Geographic Society. It has certainly been a highlight in my career, and I dare say it will help to raise the profile of Brazilian science on the international scene\u2014the broader paleontology community is being exposed to an illustration representing the emergence of dinosaurs in a Brazilian landscape, with animals that arose in present-day Brazil, illustrated by a Brazilian artist, as a result of Brazilian research (see<\/em> Pesquisa FAPESP issue n\u00ba 279<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n
\nLlewellyn Ivor Price (1905\u20131980), a paleontologist born in southern Brazil to American parents, returned here in the 1930s and once came across children playing bocce with a dinosaur egg in Uberaba. So he began to explore the region and at first sent his fossil finds to Rio de Janeiro until, in 1993, a museum was established in a rural district called Peir\u00f3polis, about 20 kilometers from my hometown. When I was 6 years old, I tagged along with a school excursion to the museum\u2014the bus driver was a relative of my grandmother\u2019s and took me along. To my young eyes, they looked like dragons with crystal bones. I was so fascinated that I wanted to live there. This sparked a passion for dinosaurs that so many children have, but which for me lasted into adulthood. When I was 11 years old, my mother enrolled me in a drawing course. I had a lot of anxiety, borderline autism, and frequent headaches, and my mother thought it could be good for me. Little did she know that art would end up becoming my profession, and would equip me to turn my imagination into reality.<\/p>\n
\nI felt that anything I could draw could be mine to keep. If I wanted to gain an understanding of something, I would draw it. I soon realized that I didn\u2019t want to be a paleontologist; I just wanted to draw dinosaurs. I enrolled in the school of industrial design at the Bauru campus of S\u00e3o Paulo State University (UNESP) and took a scientific initiation course in paleoart. The field was very much incipient: there were very few paleoartists in Brazil, and even elsewhere, there were no textbooks about how to reconstruct dinosaurs using computer graphics. I developed a detailed methodology, like a recipe, to guide artists in making better reconstructions. This application of design principles to paleontology is now known as paleodesign.<\/p>\n
\nI combined design planning\u2014a step-by-step, goal-oriented process of design\u2014with cutting-edge art techniques and the most recent scientific discoveries. I would essentially analyze the fossil and deduce as much information as I could about the ancient animal. If any parts had not been preserved, I would find similar animals to fill the gaps and rebuild the skeleton. I can then analyze the muscle attachment points on the bones, compare them to other animals, and build the muscle structure. Once the animal\u2019s overall shape has been defined, I reconstruct the skin based on present-day animals that are similar in appearance, diet or habitat. This allows me to infer the animal\u2019s camouflage patterns and texture. We then reconstruct the environment on the basis of the plants found in the sediment, along with other parameters. We arrive at a point where we can confidently say: to the best of our current knowledge, this animal is as realistic and true a representation of the original as possible.<\/p>\n
\nIf you want to photograph the past, you use your imagination for a camera. The camera\u2019s sensor is your pencil, paints, clay or computer graphics, but the lens is science. Theoretically, I could imagine any skin color and pattern in reconstructing a dinosaur, because that isn\u2019t preserved in the fossil record. But we can look at the pigment patterns in present-day animals to deduce the patterns of their extinct relatives. For example, the only pigment that mammals produce is melanin. So it\u2019s fairly safe to imagine that a giant sloth will be more likely to have black or white fur than yellow fur with pink polka dots. So science guides the imagination we use to fill in the gaps.<\/p>\n
\nFrom my friendship with specialists and courses I took in paleontology, geology, and vertebrate zoology. I\u2019ve studied anatomy, I\u2019ve dissected countless animals, I\u2019ve even been attacked by an alligator\u2014thankfully with no harm done. The learning process was incredible. I\u2019ve also read a lot on the subject.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/064-067_paleoartista_311-3-1140-1.jpg\")
\nAt first I worked on my own. I would do my own research, occasionally consulting a paleontologist. But now I work for them, and typically produce the first picture they have of a new species. The researchers provide the information they have, and then I gradually learn about the animal I\u2019m recreating, and every day new discoveries are made that change everything. My dinosaurs will always be wrong at first, because fresh information will always lead to a different reconstruction.<\/p>\n
\nIt is a science-based chimera, so to speak. We have preserved skin from several dinosaur species, and furs from giant sloths. Some dinosaurs look as if they encountered Medusa and became petrified, as in the Greek legend: they are intact, three-dimensional, and have well preserved skin details. We can also draw inferences from present-day animals. There are certain patterns that are similar across different animals. For example, scales are always smaller at the joints, where the skin flexes more, and larger where greater protection is needed. These patterns inform my choice of scale size, distribution, and shape.<\/p>\n
\nHere in Uberaba they\u2019re often found right in the middle of the city. When developing a gated community, they found two 15-meter-long dinosaurs within 2 minutes\u2019 walking distance from the central town square. They called me over, and I was delighted to find a field full of animals. I filmed the site, watched them dig out the fossils, and captured them in drawings. In another downtown area, they found a fossil near a sidewalk, and I had the opportunity to watch them excavate the fossil then build a town square around it.<\/p>\n
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