Five eye level of the feet
In scientific paintings of dinosaurs, obviously you can not show humans for size comparative, but you can imply a reference to human scale. We are used to see the photos taken around high standing five feet. If you set the view to five feet above the ground, you will give an implicit sense of dinosaur size really are.
When I painted this diagram for a National Geographic story about the Argentine dinosaurs, I used two Ghosted numbers and one meter square grid to show relative scale. Separate light and shade
If you paint a dinosaur on a sunny day, do not underestimate the separation between your light side and the side of the shade. It is almost always more than you think. The under-the separation between light and shadow is one of the most common errors paleoart. It happens when we are not totally sure of the form, so we are reluctant to commit to what is in the light and what is in the shade. Models are a great help for this problem.
measure
Photographers often the difference between light and shadow as at least two diaphragms, depending on the amount of extra light is available. If not rely on a value scale from one to ten, you could usually see five stages of your light shade. The separation between the light and shade would be less if you have high clouds, hazy atmosphere, or a lot of light bouncing up from a floor light color More posts GJ on models dinosaur link. and fill light, link.
