Zhao Chuang's studio in Beijing
If you came to this Beijing warehouse at night it would be downright creepy.
More than 20 towering
dinosaurs stand in the yard, teeth sharp and claws unfurled; inside are
40 more life-sized models — steel frames propping up carcasses made of
fiberglass and clay.
Chinese illustrator Zhao
Chuang, who employs 30 people at his sprawling studio in China’s
capital, is the go-to artist for paleontologists, museums and publishers
across the world who want to bring dinosaurs to life. By day, his
workplace feels a lot like the set of a “Jurassic Park” movie.
He occupies a rare place between art and
science — using information scientists have gleaned from fossils and
his own imagination to draw, illustrate and model the prehistoric
creatures.
Big break
Zhao’s big break came in 2006 when his illustration of an ancient gliding mammal appeared on the cover of Nature magazine.
After that, the requests flooded in. As
well working with paleontologists from across the world, he worked with
the American Museum of Natural History for its recent exhibition called
“Dinosaurs Among Us” that focused on the links between dinosaurs and
birds.
Zhao says the facts provided by the
paleontologists he works with form the “root” of the drawing or
illustration and his imagination the “crown of the tree” — but it varies
given the level of detail a fossil provides.
“When the dinosaur fossil is highly complete and accurate, imagination plays a tiny role,” he says.
Sometimes he works with paleontologists
in the field — traveling to China’s far western province of Xinjiang and
Inner Mongolia, where many fossils have been discovered, to get a
better feeling for the environment the dinosaurs would have lived in.
He won’t say how much he earns, but gets
a share of museum ticket revenue for the exhibitions he works on and
copyright fees from publishers and a company that makes toys based on
his models.
Zhao found his niche just as China and its dinosaur discoveries unleashed a golden age of paleontology.
Chinese fossils have provided
substantial evidence that dinosaurs were not the scaly, reptilian
killers depicted in movies but feathered, furry and a lot more bird
like.
Xu Xing, the world’s most prolific paleontologist who has discovered more than 50 dinosaurs, has worked with Zhao since the beginning of his career.
He has brought to life some of Xu’s most
significant discoveries — the four-winged microraptor, anchiornis, one
of the oldest feathered dinosaurs, and the gigantoraptor, a huge
bird-like dinosaur.
Xu says he provides the specific
dimensions of the dinosaur and details of special features but the color
of the dinosaur is often up to the artist.
It’s only recently, with some
particularly well-preserved fossils, that researchers have been able to
definitively say what color a dinosaur would have been by capturing
information from “melansomes” — tiny structures buried within feathers
that give them color.
But Xu says Zhao has a knack for getting
it right. “I remember we chose a red color for Anchiornis head feathers
— this turned out to be correct.”
Xu says illustrators like Zhao play a
crucial role in helping the public understand his work even if
subsequent developments sometimes prove them to be inaccurate.
“You’re documenting science at a particular stage. New evidence will change your idea about what extinct animals looked like.”
Boyhood dream
Zhao started out secretly drawing dinosaurs on his desk at elementary school with a pencil — much to his teacher’s dismay.
“My family was poor and my hometown is
in a remote place — there weren’t many books, especially books about
dinosaurs,” Zhao says. “My whole childhood I wanted to draw that book.”
And he’s done just that — and more. Now, his work is sought after across the globe and is even collected by fans.
“I’m confident to say that my works are art — I’ve poured my heart into it.”