Our thanks to talented, young artist Caldey who emailed to Everything Dinosaur her illustration of a Velociraptor. The drawing of the head in lateral view was inspired by the third film in the “Jurassic Park” movie franchise, which was released in 2001.

Picture credit: Caldey

Illustration of a Velociraptor

The drawing of the head of the dromaeosaurid shows a remarkable level of detail and a careful choice of colours to illustrate this dinosaur. The Velociraptor sports some quills on the top of its head and the head and neck are covered in a variety of different sized scales. The Velociraptor has a prominent, scarlet boss on its naris and blue pigmentation around the eye. The teeth are particularly well drawn. “Jurassic Park III”, was the first film in this movie franchise to depict Velociraptors with quills, whilst in the earlier two films, the Velociraptors were shown without feathers (entirely covered in scales).

Back in the autumn (2022), we received an image of an Atrociraptor from Caldey. This drawing was based on the “raptor” as depicted in the latest film in this series “Jurassic Park Dominion”.

To view our article about Caldey’s Atrociraptor: An Atrociraptor Illustrated.

A Detailed Drawing

A spokesperson for the UK-based Everything Dinosaur commented:

“The Velociraptor illustration is such a detailed drawing. Palaeontologists are beginning to understand a little more about the integumentary coverings of dinosaurs as more impressions of fossilised skin are studied. It is likely that many genera were covered in scales of different shapes and sizes. As visual communication was important to these lithe, little hunters, why not give Velociraptor bright facial markings.”

Our thanks to Caldey for providing Everything Dinosaur with such a fantastic Velociraptor drawing.