Re: PERSONAL EXAMINATION OF SPECIMENS

[tlford@ix.netcom.com]

Jeffrey Martz wrote:
> 
> > George has the correct point that you need to illustrate specimens correctly
> > and with high quality in as many different views as possible.  I can't count
> > how many times I have looked through texts looking for something and coming
> > up short, or coming up with everything BUT what I was looking for.  Or,
> > looking through a paper, a monograph even, and finding only line
> > drawings of the bones and only in one angle...
> 
>      A few points on the subject of illustration;
>      1) There is only room in a given paper to illustrate a bone from so
> many angles.  You could show it from more angles if you shrunk down the
> drawings from different angles to make room, but at the loss of detail.

Not really. I do my drawings large and shrink them down and they come
out GREAT!!!

>      2) An artist only has so much time to work before the paper is due
> for publication.  Detail will need to be sacrificed to some extent for
> expediency.  Not counting monographs that can be built up over years, most
> scientific papers need to get finished relatively soon, and it is
> unlikely that there is time to produce ultrafine detail.

Then why do it?

>      3) Making black lines and dots on paper to convince the reader that
> he or she is looking at a three dimensional object is a rather tricky
> business.  

Not really. I've mastered it in a short time, and if you haven't seen
Jerry Harris's Acrocanthosaurus monograph, you should. He did a great
job and he says he's not an artist.

TRacy