Tracy Lee Ford, my history…

I was born on August 29, 1958, in Los Angeles and for the most part of my childhood, we lived in Carson California. I have an older sister (3 years older) and a younger brother (7 years younger) so I'm the middle child. I can't recall any one time, book, movie or painting that sparked my interest in Dinosaurs. My parents tell me it happened when I was two and hasn't stopped yet. I remember having dinosaur toys (mainly the Marx toys) and some others that I wish I didn't destroy when I was young. I must have gotten at least two of the big Marx boxes and a dozen or so of the smaller packages. I’ve always been interested in dinosaurs/prehistoric animals. When I was a little kid my parents tell me that I could find a dinosaur toy anywhere. When my family visited Catalina island, I found a small, yellow toy Cacops. I wish I still had it. Once a month we would go to the LA County Library, and I knew when we were close because of a tall green water tower, which was near the library. I wouldn’t go to the kid’s books, I’d go to the adult dinosaur/paleontology books. My favorite book was Prehistoric Animals by Agusta and the artist Burian. I can’t remember how many times we checked the books out, but my father did take slides of the book, and I could look at them just about anytime I wanted. As an adult, I have bought nearly all of their books; Prehistoric Animals, Monsters, Sea Monsters, Man, etc. We also use to visit the LA Natural History Museum. One time I left drawings next to the dinosaur skeletons (I've recently asked the museum and they didn't keep them). I would play with all my dinosaur toys (Marx mainly), line them up and have parades with them. I didn't have a stuffed teddy bear, I had a red dinosaur. My parents told me they still have it, but I haven't been able to find it. I would also take all my dinosaur books and bring them out to the front room and look at them (I’ve too many to do that now. 😊 ).

We moved from Carson to Poway in 1970 after the 4th of July, and I’ve lived there ever since. We had our last big 4th of July where we were able to shoot off fireworks. My interest in Dinosaurs never waned. Though I did turn to Ocean life, birds, reptiles, and just about all things to do with animals (but not so much with mammals), Science Fiction, military vehicles, planes, ships, trucks, tractors, etc. In middle school one of the art projects was to make something out of paper mache'. I did a sawfish and when it was done it was about 7 feet long!!!

During junior high, the school would structure the classes to what we wanted to be when we grew up. I said I wanted to be a paleontologist, so they geared me toward Oceanography…In high school, my ‘bible' was Alfred Sherwood Romer's 1966 Vertebrate paleontology. What fascinated me were all the different names of animals. He only listed the genus names.  I read/looked at it so much that I ripped off its cover. My zoology teacher had a parent-teacher conference, and my teacher (John Rankin) didn’t like that I kept drawing dinosaurs and reading my book. My parents told him that I wanted to be a paleontologist and he was ok with that, and I became his TA.

After High School (1976 for all of those of you keeping track) I didn't know how to get information on dinosaurs and almost gave it up. I did take the bus down to the San Diego Library, and the San Diego Natural History Museum and their Library. Since San Diego didn't have many (only 1 composite hadrosaur and a ceratopian skull from Canada) my interest wasn't as it was before. When I was 18 I got a job at Sony where I was an assembly line worker for 3 years, a parts dispatcher for 5 years and a forklift/warehouse operator for 15 years. I did take classes at a local community college and received all my GE courses (I think). When I found out that I needed to take calculus I thought that was enough for me because I wasn't that good in higher math. I also took a few courses in art but I didn't learn what I really wanted to learn and that was shading, they taught what they wanted to. I did learn a lot but not enough for my tastes, so that is all the art classes I've ever taken, the rest is self-taught.

I graduated from high school 1976, back then we said in the spirit of 76… After High School, I didn't know how to get information on dinosaurs and almost gave it up. Back then there were no home computers, internet or cell phones. I started working for Sony in 1978. For my twentieth birthday, my family went to the LA Natural History Museum. There, in the museum store (back then they had a better stock of books) I found George Olshevsky’s personally published book; Mesozoic Meanderings # 1, The Archosaurian Taxa (excluding the Crocodylia). It was 50 pages long (including back page). He not only listed all the genus names of ‘thecodont’s pterosaurs and dinosaurs, but also the species names. I was again fascinated by all those names. What did they look like? Where did they live? When did they live? Months before, I bought a book that had a strange looking small theropod (Compsognathus corallestris) with flippers for forelimbs (L. B. Halstead, 1975, The evolution and ecology of the Dinosaurs. Peter Lowe, 116pp). I wanted to learn more about it, and on a whim, I wrote to George. His address was in Toronto, Canada. It wasn't until 6 months later did I get a reply from George, and he was now in San Diego. He left Toronto (he was studying computer art, and back then it was with punch cards, and he moved to San Diego to be closer to Comic Con). We wrote back a few times and he said he didn't have time to go to libraries to find out more about dinosaurs. I wrote back and said I would go to libraries and made photocopies for both of us, back then they were only a few cents. I’d go to the library (back then it was San Diego State University and a few times the San Diego Natural History Museum) and make copies for both of us, and I’d stop by once a month and give them to him.
As the years when by I’d go to other Museum and University libraries.
           

In 1982 George asked if I’d like to become a member of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. Back then you had to be sponsored to become a member. I said yes, and my first conference was in 1984, which was held at Berkeley. George new several paleontologists, whom he worked with to get all the genera/species for his book. I met Bob Bakker, Phil Currie, Jack Horner, Dave Wieshampel, Ralph Molnar, etc). At that conference was an ad for the 1986 Dinosaur systematic Symposium to be held at the Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller, Alberta Canada. We looked at each other and said we were going to that meeting, and we did. We stayed the night with Darren Tanke and his wife in Calgary. I've written to Darren years before, but this was the first time we've ever met. In fact, during our first letter writing he didn't know if I was a male or a female (still happens a lot today :) ). The next day we went to the Royal Tyrrell Museum for the Symposium. I must say, that was the best symposium I've ever been to! I met all the paleontologist that were attending and had made many contacts. It was amazing. To this day, it is my favorite conference. I met several more paleontologist.

Darren Tanke wrote to me (late 1980’s I think) and told me about his discovery at Grand Prairie (just west of Edmonton, Alberta) on a new type of pachyrhinosaur ceratopian. From his description, I made a quick drawing. He liked it and told me what I needed to correct. Darren is one of the first people to help me with my dinosaur art and one drawing was published Canadian newspapers (Darren says it's one of my best drawings). 
           

I would continue going to the Tyrrell. I would take my summer vacation and drive up to the museum. I visited the museum so much my friend Darren Tanke told me I visited the museum more than other paleontologists. We looked into whether or not I could work at the museum. We found out I’d have to live in Canada for a year then look for work at the museum. That wasn’t going to happen.
           

As I went to the meetings I wanted to do something for the science. I had gotten all my GE (General education) classes done at a local community college, and found out that to continue on in paleontology, I’d have to take higher math classes. I am really bad at higher math and thought I’d try another route. When I was in junior and high school, the school system was set up for kids to learn at their own pace. Well, that didn’t work with me because I needed the discipline of studying and doing math problems. And since I really didn't want to learn higher math, I didn't. In high school, I took a trigonometry class. Near the end of the class, my teacher took me aside and said, he really didn’t want to do this, but he had to drop me. He admired my tenacity to try and get trig, I just couldn’t do it….Since I was getting articles for George and I, I thought why not get articles for other paleontologists? I searched museum/university libraries, wrote to several overseas, and did my best to track down dinosaur (and Paleozoic and Mesozoic animals). I found new dinosaurs (mainly from Chinese papers) and mailed them to some of the paleontologists. Back then, I was the go-to guy for dinosaurs as was George and is why I've been acknowledged in the first Dinosauria (Cambridge University Press). During the late 1980's and through the 1990's I had a small business where I'd track down articles and mail them of to people. I spent $5000 a year on books and photocopies, which were 5 cents a page back then. I'd spend 20 to 30 dollars a week at SDSU, then I switched to Scripps Oceanography library, which had a large paleontology section. 
           

I decided if George kept track of dinosaurs I’d do the same for Palaeozoic and Mesozoic tetrapods (and fish). My job at Sony let me take vacations during the summer. First I had two weeks, then three, and before I was laid off, 6 weeks a year…which was a paid vacation. That was great! I’d drive all over the US and Canada. I’d go to libraries, stop by digs, etc. I’d write to my paleontologist friends and ask where they would be during my vacation and if I could stop by the site for the night. This was before the internet.  I had a Toyota 4x4 with a shell. I'd sleep in the back of my truck, and I would stay at campsites (KOA or state sites). I'd drive to the site and stay the night. I'd find out what they were working on, get caught up with them, and find out what ever new they had found. One year I went to Egg Mountain site in Choteau Montana. I drove to camp and everyone was out in the field. I parked and started walking the badlands. I saw a group of people and walked toward them. Some of them still remember me, a stranger, walking up to them and asking…" where's Jack (Horner)?”… they looked at me strangely, and they pointed in the direction they thought he was, and I walked off. As I was walking I was thinking… Karen Car works with Jack, I wonder if she is out here? Turns out, I did find her as I walked around a mound. We talked for a while, then we all headed back to camp, where Jack was. I staid the night in the back of my truck.
           

Since I kept track of all the Paleozoic and Mesozoic tetrapods, including dinosaurs, I put the information on my Paleofile website. The website lists all the specimens I could find in literature;
Genus: Etymology, Species: Etymology, Holotype (accession number), Locality, Horizon, Age, Material, and Referred Material. Also, a list of localities, and ages, and other information. I have a lot of my art on the website, which does come up on searches on the internet. 
           

I went to a symposium in 1988 and as I flew home from the meeting in Bozeman Montana, I had a desire to contribute more to science, but what? As I kept going to the SVP meetings paleontologist kept asking me what I was working on. I told them I was just there to learn more about their findings. Ken Carpenter told me I should write a paper. I told him I wasn't going to college or affiliated with a museum. He said so, I should still write a paper, he asked me if I read papers? I said yes, and he said then you know how to write them. I thought I like to eat doesn't mean I'm can cook…

In 1996, at the 2nd Dinofest in Arizona, I met Mike Fredricks. He self-publishes Prehistoric Times. At the banquet, I sat at a table with Ned Colbert and his wife. His son came by, but the table was full. I graciously gave him my chair. Ned said I didn't have to, I just told him, 'No problem, I’ll just go bug Bakker'. Ned laughed (I write this in his memory). I sat with Mike Fredricks, who was at the table with Bob Bakker. I thought about doing an article on How to Draw Dinosaurs for his magazine and asked if he'd like me to do so, he was all for it and have been doing so ever since. I'm eternally grateful for him and his editorial work on my articles (which I hope I have gotten better). That was a good start for me and I have since published two volumes of my articles in Prehistoric Times and Dinosaur World (another self-published issue by Alan DeBuse). Still, that wasn't enough. I had visited Mesa Southwest Museum in 1996 for their annual symposium, I decided that that would be a good place for me to start giving talks. The next year I gave a talk on why I don't think theropods had lips, and I've been giving a talk there ever since and hope to keep it up (thanks to Robert McCord and Deb Boaz).

When I visited the SVP (late 1990's) Jim Kirkland would tell me I needed to work on the San Diego Nodosaur (a small armored dinosaur found in Carlsbad, California in 1987). It was partially prepared at the San Diego Natural History Museum. I remember seeing the news of it on a local news station and visiting the museum watching them prepare the specimen. It was described by Coombs and Demere, 1996, Demere, 1988), and they came to the conclusion it was a nodosaur. I didn’t have the time to work on it because of my work schedule. During 1997 (I think it was) Jim Kirkland visited San Diego to give a talk at the San Diego Natural History Museum. I had just changed departments at work and my new work schedule allowed me to have Thursday, Friday, Saturday and every other Sunday off, so I had time to really work on things. Jim encouraged me to work on the then San Diego nodosaur, which I did. I asked the Demere, the head paleontologist at San Diego Natural History Museum if I could work on the specimen. He said yes, but I had to take the specimen with me. There wasn’t enough room for me to work there. I bought an air scribe and they showed me how to use it.

I prepared the specimen at my home, and at a rock/mineral/fossil shop at Old Town San Diego, Miners Gems. I was friends with them and asked if I could prepare the dinosaur in their ramada behind the store. They had a working air compressor for the air scrib. I suggested that may draw people into the store. They had no problem with that. The first day I was preparing the fossil a man came by and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was preparing a dinosaur fossil from San Diego. He asked me where my tip jar was. I said I didn’t have a tip jar and was just working on it on my own. He went into the store and 20 minutes later he came back and gave me a five dollar bill. The next day I had a tip jar. The least I made was nothing and the most was 23 dollars. I worked on it for about a year I think.

The matrix is cement hard and I prepared out the most I could. Jim Kirkland and I co-authored a paper that was published in 2001 where we name the new ankylosaurid (not a nodosaurid) Aletopelta coombsi, meaning wandering shield. I gave a talk on the ankylosaurid at the 3rd Dinofest held in Philadelphia (1999) and gave a second talk on why Theropods don't have lips.

On one of my visits to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History, I asked to see what ankylosaur material they had. Because I was working on the San Diego ankylosaur, I wanted to study as many ankylosaurs I could. I noticed pelvic armor that reminded me of similar armor described by Gilmore (1919) from New Mexico. I named the ankylosaurid Glyptodontopelta mimus (Glyptodont mimic), and a nodosaur Edmontonia australis (new species). Some of my ‘paleontologist’ friends teased me about naming ankylosaurs on armor. I’ve been vindicated because more complete specimens have been found and I have been found to be correct. However, they synonymized Edmontonia australis with Glyptodontopelta (which I still need to see the armor on which they did this). I also made a diagram on skull, body armor placement. Three main rows from the skull to shoulder (medial, primary and secondary, and non rowed tertiary), and sections (cranial, cervical, pectoral, thoracic, pelvic, and caudal). This paper came out before the Aletopelta paper, even though I wrote the Aletopelta paper first, this was due to publishing on the volume the Aletopelta paper was in).

One of the major parts of the Aletopelta had to do with plate tectonics. Basically, everything west of the San Andreas fault was further south than it is today. I.e. San Diego was down by the southern coast of Mexico during the Campanian, Late Cretaceous. And Baja was even further south. I bring that up because in 2000 the SVP was in Mexico City I visited the Mexico City Natural History Museum. I wanted to study the huge lambeosaur (half the specimen is at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, which I studied), and the other half is in Mexico City. While there, I was given access to the collection drawers. I noticed odd looking tyrannosaur premaxillary teeth. Normal premaxillary teeth have rounded front ends, these teeth have a squared off premaxillary teeth. I asked my friend Dan Chure, who was also there if he wanted to be a co-author on a paper describing the teeth, he said yes. I asked if the Mexico Natural History Museum if I could get casts of the teeth, they said yes and mailed them to me. The teeth were described in a paper that was also in the Mesa Southwest Museum. Unfortunately, the printed paper was missing a few pages of the original article. I've made a pdf of the article and added the missing pages.
For a complete list of my articles see bibliography.

 

Over the decades I’ve acclimated a HUGE personal library (which I just had to add new filing cabinets). Right now, for just dinosaurs, I have 42 file drawers (not including books). I’ve made to websites, one is http://www.dinohunter.info which consist of links to thousands of sites, my weekly list of papers that I get (now mainly through pdf). I've long since stopped my photocopy business because it just became too expensive to make photocopies, Scripps now charges 25 per page for non-students, which basically is too high for me to continue using them. I still go to libraries a few times a year. My other website http://www.paleofile.com is my website where I list all the Paleozoic and Mesozoic tetrapods; Genera, Etymology, Species, Etymology (any synonymized name), Holotype (paratype, topotype etc), locality, horizon, biostratigraphy, age, and any referred material. It is the largest website of its type.
1999 I self-published my first volume of How to Draw Dinosaurs.
2001 I published my second How to Draw Dinosaurs. Stated to sell T-shirts, mugs and night lights with my work on them.
2001 I had my first posters at the SVP, one on sauropod osteoderms and a paper co-authored with Dan Chure on the Ghost lineages of Tyrannosaurids and have another paper co-authored with him on Baja tyrannosaurids.
2001 set up this website.
2005, late February set my subscription website http://www.paleofile.com, about ten years later I took off the subscription and put in a donate button.
But still I wanted to do more, but what?

" My biography  "

I was born August 29, 1958 in Los Angeles and for the first part of my childhood lived in Carson California. We moved to the San Diego area in 1970 when I was 12. I have an older sister (3 years older) and a younger brother (7 years younger) so I'm the middle child. I can't recall any one time, book, movie or painting that sparked my interest in Dinosaurs. My parents tell me it happened when I was two and hasn't stopped yet. I remember having dinosaur toys (mainly the Marx toys) and some others that I wish I didn't destroy when I was young. I must have gotten at least two of the big Marx boxes and a dozen or so of the smaller packages. I'd bring them all out and litter the floor with them. I remember bringing all my dinosaur books and comic books out into the front room and sitting down and looking at them all (can't do that now, too many books!!!). In school the teacher would ask me about dinosaurs and how to pronounce them (even today some of them are hard). In 4th grade I did a mural of the Triassic for my school room (I worked on it only after my school work was done). Colbert's Age of Reptiles book inspired me (and I still have the pastel mural someplace). My parents would get me the end rolls of newspaper and I would sprawl out on the floor and draw. Many animals life size including a life size Oar Fish!

We moved from Carson to Poway in 1970 after the 4th of July. We had our last big 4th of July where we were able to shoot off fireworks. My interest in Dinosaurs never waned. Though I did turn to Ocean life, birds, reptiles, and just about all things to do with animals (but not so much with mammals), Science Fiction, military vehicles, planes, ships, trucks, tractors, etc. In middle school one of the art projects was to make something out of paper mache'. I did a sawfish and when it was done it was about 7 feet long!!!

During High School my family went up to Los Angeles Natural History Museum and I picked up Romer's Vertebrate Paleontology (3rd edition) and that book became my paleo bible. I took it to school every day during my last few years in High School. There were so many animals that I never heard of in that book. My parents tried to enroll me into a program in Middle School and High School that would help me get into a collage program with paleontology, but the school kept pushing me toward Oceanography, so nothing ever came with that. My science teacher got upset with me because I kept drawing dinosaurs in his class and called my parents. They explained my interest and he was very understanding. So much so that I was one of his TA's in my senior year. All the Science teachers at Poway High were very understanding and fun.

After High School (1976 for all of those of you keeping track) I didn't know how to get information on dinosaurs and almost gave it up. I did take the bus down to the San Diego Library, and the San Diego Natural History Museum and their Library. Since San Diego didn't have many (only 1 composite hadrosaur and a ceratopian skull from Canada) my interest wasn't as it was before. When I was 18 I got a job at Sony where I was a assembly line worker for 3 years, a parts dispatcher for 5 years and a forklift/warehouse operator for 15 years. I did take classes at a local community college and received all my GE courses (I think). When I found out that I needed to take calculus I thought that was enough for me because I wasn't that good in higher math. I also took a few courses in art but I didn't learn what I really wanted to learn and that was shading, they taught what they wanted to. I did learn a lot but not enough for my tastes, so that is all the art classes I've ever taken, the rest is self taught.

In 1978 my parents and I went back to the Los Angeles Natural History Museum for my 20th Birthday and I found George Olshevsky's book, The Archosaurian Taxa (excluding the Crocodylia: Mesozoic Meanderings n. 1, 50pp.). On a fluke I wrote to him. He was in Toronto and that book had an incredible amount of Dinosaur names which I never have heard of. A few months before that I picked up a children's book on Dinosaurs and they had a painting of Compsognathus corallestris (a small theropod with flippers) and I asked him about that strange and new animal. I hadn't heard from George until months later when it turned out he was then living in San Diego. He basically told me that he didn't have time to go to libraries to photo copy information and that he had complied the names himself from his limited (though more than mine at the time) research. I wrote to him and said that I would go to the libraries for both of us and copy the articles. I'd collect the articles for a month then would go and deliver them to him. After a few years of this we became good friends and he asked if I'd like to go to the 1984 meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) that was held at the University of California in Berkeley. He sponsored me and introduced me to his paleontologist friends (Jack Horner, Phil Currie, Ralph Molnar, etc).  In 1986 George and I went to the Dinosaur Systematic symposium in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada. We staid the night with Darren Tanke and his wife in Calgary. I've written to Darren years before, but this was the first time we've ever met. In fact, during our first letter writing he didn't know if I was a male or a female (still happens a lot today :) ). The next day we went to the Royal Tyrrell Museum for the Symposium. I must say, that was the best symposium I've ever been to! I met all the paleontologist that were attending and had made many contacts. It was amazing.
Darren Tanke wrote to me and told me about his discovery at Grand Prairie (just west of Edmonton, Alberta) on a new type of Pachyrhinosaur Ceratopian. From his description I made a quick drawing. He liked it and told me what I needed to correct. Darren is one of the first people to help me with my dinosaur art and one drawing was published Canadian newspapers (Darren says it's one of my best drawings). 

George told me that he was planning on publishing a newsletter on Dinosaurs titled Archosaurian Articulations. I told George that I was an artist. I brought some work over (in pencil which was my medium at the time). He told me he needed pen and ink. I said ok, I'll do that. And through his publication, his comments on my work and comments from others, I was able to improve (as for George, his is a good artist also and I have copies of some of his work). Years later he said that he was going to write a book for the Dinosaur Society and that he asked if I could draw all the obscure dinosaurs and illustrate their skeletal elements. That was my big break (or so I had hoped) into the art of Dinosaurs. I won't go into the problems of the book, but things happened where George could no longer be part of the project and Don Lessem and Don Glut became the authors. I was suppose to draw at least 500 drawings, but the format of the book changed and they only needed about 130. I did draw 530 different dinosaurs mainly for my satisfaction of actually drawing what I originally set out to do. Many of which I am quite proud of and many I'd re-illustrate.
Since then George has written several articles and I've supplied the pen and ink illustrations (for his publications as well as Dinosaur Front line and DinoPress, both a Japanese published magazine). My drawings have appeared in several books and articles (see my resume for the list), but not as much as I'd like to. There are several books that have been published that I could have supplied with much better illustrations. Anyway I digress.

During my time with the SVP I had grown more and more restless with my (at the time) inability to help support paleontology in some small way. I've collected an incredibly huge personal library, have many paleontologist whom I can call friends, have supplied many paleontologist with copies of articles and vice a versa, but still I felt a lacking in paleontology. When flying home from the 1988 Dinosaur Palaeobiology Symposium (held by the Museum of Rockies in Bozeman Montana) I felt that I had to do something, anything; start writing, studying dinosaurs, something. So there was a spark that would get kindled for serious paleologic work.

Several palaeontologist over the years had told me that I needed to start writing papers; Jim Kirkland, Ken Carpenter, Darren Tanke, Phil Currie, to name a few, but what could I do. I had a full time job, and had very little access to actual specimens. Almost every year I'd take a summer vacation and visit museums, libraries, sites, etc. for two weeks. I've traveled the length and breadth of the USA and Southern Canada. 

In 1996, at the 2nd Dinofest in Arizona I met Mike Fredricks. He self publishes Prehistoric Times. At the banquet I sat at a table with Ned Colbert and his wife. His son came by but the table was full. I graciously gave him my chair. Ned said I didn't have to, I just told him, 'No problem, I just go bug Bakker'. Ned laughed (I write this in his memory), I then sat with Mike Fredricks. I thought about doing an article on How to Draw Dinosaurs for his magazine and asked if he'd like me to do so, he was all for it and have been doing so ever since. I'm eternally grateful for him and his editorial work on my articles (which I hope have gotten better). That was a good start for me and I have since published two volumes of my articles in Prehistoric Times and Dinosaur World (another self-published issue by Alan DeBuse). Still, that wasn't enough. I had visited Mesa Southwest Museum in 1996 for their annual symposium, I decided that that would be a good place for me to start giving talks. The next year I gave a talk on why I don't think theropods had lips, and I've been giving a talk there ever since and hope to keep it up (thanks to Robert McCord and Deb Boaz, now Debra Giese Weller).

During 1997 (I think it was) Jim Kirkland visited San Diego to give a talk at the San Diego Natural History Museum. I had just changed departments at work and my new work schedule allowed me to have Thursday, Friday, Saturday and every other Sunday off, so I had time to really work on things. Jim encouraged me to work on the then San Diego nodosaur. We are co-authors on a paper that was published in 2001 where we name the new ankylosauria. I gave a talk on the ankylosaurid at the 3rd Dinofest held in Philadelphia (1999) and gave a second talk on why Theropods don't have lips. 2015 I gave an updated poster on why I believe theropods lacked lips. I also have published a compulation of my How to Draw Dinosaurs, volume 1, a 2104 Dinosaur skull a Day Calendar, and two generic Dinosaur Skull a Day Calendars in late 2015. 1999 my friend (Jerry Alvarado) and I started to frame originals and prints of my artwork to sell. Also in 1999 I self published my first volume of How to Draw Dinosaurs. 2001 I published my second How to Draw Dinosaurs. Stated to sell T-shirts, mugs and night lights with my work on them.
2001 I had my first posters at the SVP, one on sauropod osteroderms and a paper co-authored with Dan Chure on the Ghost lineages of Tyrannosaurids and have another paper co-authored with him on Baja tyrannosaurids.
2001 set up this web site.
2005, late February set my subscription website Paleofile (now its open to everyone).
I’ve self-published several books and coloring books with Mike Fredericks.

I've since given several talks, written several 'real' paleontology papers (see my resume), am working on several new projects, both in art and 'real' paleontology and am waiting and working for it to pay off for me.

I have two more websites, Dinohunter , and the before mentioned Paleofile.