The current issue of ImagineFX Magazine offers a special issue on how to create art dinosaur 
Each Thursday I '. I was sharing some tips from my article how to do, but to get them all, pick up a copy at the kiosk while it's still available. 
Pose dinosaur models
To get an idea how a real dinosaur would look into the pose you want, or pick up some models dinosaur models. Models hard plastic cheap as you can get in museum shops are not bad, but if you can afford to pay a little more, get better vinyl kits by top sculptors. You can also find skulls or skeletons models that are really useful to visualize the anatomy.
Make your own , you can sculpt your own reference models Sculpey and Fimo polymer clay. Start with the frame aluminum wire. The models should not be very detailed. But they must be precise in the forms and the basic proportions. You can make them more useful as models if you connect the head with a universal joint or if you leave an adjustable neck cord. Then you can ask them just the way you like.
Get casts taxidermy You can also buy resin molds feet of turkey and heads chicken taxidermy suppliers. These show wonderful detail of hard and soft forms, which is really more convincing than most sculptures of dinosaurs. Turkey foot looks like a thin version of Tyrannosaurus rex. You can hold up a model in the position you want on a C-stand, standard adhesion movie equipment piece. (Thanks, Mick Ellison)
Tips for photographic models
Spray-paint your models a medium gray. White burns in the photos. You probably do not want the area to be too bright, so use a matte finish. Establish outdoor models in the natural light in a simple context. Shoot with a DSLR on a tripod with a slow shutter speed and small aperture for maximum depth of field. If you have several models of each general type as sauropods, shoot all in the same pose and lighting and the use of the characteristics of each model.
Tweak your. Photos
You can turn on the models with a projector with a colored gel for "golden hour" lighting. Use Photoshop to make different versions of the reference planes. By dragging the control of semitones in "levels", you can print versions that focus on the details in the lights or shadows. You can get a variety of cool poses, drawing a model backwards and flop horizontally.
