Why? Because dinosaurs and prehistoric animals are cool.

At the start of every creative endeavor you need a reason that impels you to see it through.  The longer the project takes, the deeper your conviction in the project needs to be.

Normally a task that takes thousands of hours is backed by the necessity of employment or at least the hope of financial success.  I’d be lying if I didn’t have aspirations of financial success, but that motivation alone is going to fail you after a few hundred hours.

Prehistoric life is fascinating, but the published works representing it are underwhelming.  Movies and video games trend towards sensationalism.  Dinosaurs aren’t just presented as creatures, they have to be exaggerated to make them more exciting and drive human narratives.  Books can be fine educational material depending on the author, but words and static images only run so deep.  Video documentaries are much the same as books, but maybe with a short 3D animation budget to briefly immerse the viewer in the world as it was.

The point of Findosaurs is education through casual immersion.  Animals, living in a biome doing animal things.  Given the scarcity of information in the fossil record I can only create a speculative environment from my research.  I can present a variety of animal and plant species, guess at their behaviors, and place them in an environment and attempt to make it engaging.  For those inclined there’s a little button on the left side of the navbar that then allows you to mouse over animals and plants and obtain a few pieces of more elaborate information.  A little bit of a toe in the water for those inclined to explore more.

Nature and natural history doesn’t need embellishment to be captivating.  The world we live in is far more ancient and elaborate than we can hope to comprehend in our vanishingly short lifetimes.  All I can do is attempt to create a little bubble of drawings, writing and code to convey a fraction of it.