Paleoartist Robert (“Bob”) Nicholls is a world renowned natural history artist and writer, with a reputation for producing exciting and scientifically accurate paleontological artworks.
Often appearing on TV, his work has been published in more than forty books with global distribution, including the recently released The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs, written by Dr Dean Lomax, and exhibited in over forty museums, universities and visitor attractions throughout the world. He has worked with the Natural History Museum, University of Chicago, Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Centre, and the Walking with Dinosaurs Exhibition.
As we previously reported, in 2024 The Natural History Museum teamed up with The Royal Mint to produce a new specialist coin collection featuring iconic dinosaur species, featuring beautiful images created by Bob.
Robert Nicholls began drawing prehistoric animals from the moment he was old enough to hold a pencil and today he has over twenty years professional experience. He’s mastered a huge variety of mediums, and his portfolio contains traditional paintings, digital paintings, photographic composite illustrations, large-scale mural paintings, themed dioramas, digital sculpture and traditionally built models. At any moment he could be producing a small digital painting for a postage stamp or building a life-size dinosaur.
To reconstruct extinct animals, plants and environments, Bob undertakes a painstaking inside-out reconstruction process. First, all the fossil material is studied and measured (either physically, or by examination of scientific papers), then, using comparative anatomy, the skeleton is reconstructed on paper. Second, the soft tissues are added to the drawings before the integument and colours are considered. This process ensures Bob’s artworks are accurate and completely unique.
Bob has also become a pioneer in the reconstruction of fossilised colour patterns, and his 2016 model of Psittacosaurus has been widely accepted as the world’s most accurate dinosaur reconstruction.
In November, he received the Lanzendorf – National Geographic PaleoArt Prize for Scientific Illustration at the 85th Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, in Birmingham.
Head downthetubes for…
• Follow Bob on BlueSky at bobnichollsart.bsky.social | Facebook | Instagram | Tumblr
Buried within a lost world, astonishing evidence reveals the behavior of extinct animals, giving us a glimpse at both everyday and epic events. If we look at these discoveries carefully, the untold stories of these magnificent creatures come into view, breathing new life into the prehistoric past.
The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs tells the remarkable tales of ancient animals through some of the most distinctive and unusual fossils ever found, offering an intimate, behind-the-scenes look into the story of life in deep time. Venturing hundreds of millions of years into the past, Dean R. Lomax takes us on a journey through the grand cycle of life, infused with anecdotes from his own adventures and sprinkled with a touch of dinosaur humour.
• Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EQ | Online at sedgwickmuseum.cam.ac.uk
In 2012, the UK government awarded Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge £17,500 towards “Reconstructing the Past” new palaeoartwork, interpretation and touchable objects for its Mahogany and Oak Wing Galleries. The Museum worked with Bob and scientists in the University’s Department of Earth Sciences to produce reconstructions of prehistoric animals and paleoenvironments, Cambridge Paleomap Services Ltd producing maps showing the movements of the major continents over geological time.
• The Etches Collection, Museum of Jurassic Marine Life
Kimmeridge, Dorset | Web: theetchescollection.org
A unique, modern museum of amazing fossils – the marine life of Jurassic Dorset. Learn about Life and Death in the Kimmeridgian Seas 157 million years ago, during the Age of the Dinosaurs….
• Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology is a diverse organisation of scientists, students, artists, preparators, advocates, writers and scholars across the globe
All art ©️ Robert Nicholls
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: Art and Illustration, Books, downthetubes News, Other Worlds
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