For most of my life, dinosaurs have been my favorite subject forillustration, a skill I've been perfecting since the age of three,when I rolled out my first masterpiece: a rooster, which of course, current theories place in the lineage of the dinosauria. Now, at 31, dinosaurs make up a significant proportion of my portfolio, and continue to proliferate in my artwork. What kids don't the 'terrible lizards' fascinate? It's just unfortunate that much of society sees this 'dinosaurophily' as a "phase" to be grown out of as we mature. Dinosaurs are members of a world wholly alien to us, and it is this fascination with the unexplored and unknown that led me to my current career path in science.

Currently (as of July 2005) I'm completing my PhD degree

It is my interest in ecology that motivates me to reach beyond the image of the stupid, plodding beast that poses blankly on the canvas, and imagine dinosaurs as though they were alive today – how would they behave? What kinds of color schemes would they sport? To successfully recreate the prehistoric world, it is important to consider the biological context in which dinosaurs lived.

I have recently begun to market my work and intend to continue to pursue paleontological or scientific illustration as a major part of mycareer.

Julius Csotonyi, paleo-artist