We recently received sad news regarding the passing of Renderosity member/vendor Raul Lunia (dinoraul). We send our condolences to Raul's family and friends. And to all Renderosity members who knew Dinoraul and enjoyed his work. We miss him.
Raul (aka Dinoraul) was a member of Renderosity for 19 years having joined in 2001. He had over 600 followers. It's easy to see why he had those followers: his work was dynamic and well-crafted. Raul loved dinosaurs and anything related to prehistoric creatures and environments. If you look through his gallery, you will see hundreds of exciting scenes with dinosaurs and fantasy creatures that Raul loved to create. He also dabbled a bit in horror and the gothic using VUE and Poser to create moody and ominous settings.
Raul was also a vendor at Renderosity with over 350 3D models and props created primarily with Poser.
A family member sent us this remembrance of Raul just today:
Raul grew up in the small Estonian town - Keila. Later we moved to Tallinn. The animals were very important in his life- when he was little when they wanted to visit someone - asked little Raul- if there are animals, if not then I will not come.
As a schoolboy, he picked up sick animals and birds from the yard, treated them and then let them into the wild, it was a bit like Gerald Durell. He was very gentle and cute with animals .. he always preferred them to people.
Raul loved DINOSAURS the most: DD, when he was 4 years old, he drew them. When he grew up, started making them - we had a home full of dinosaurs, but his room was always messed- because in addition to drawing and animation work, which he did a lot at home, he also made dinosaurs.
"In 1985, one model was made at first, I made another, and then I put a little on it that I couldn't hold on to anymore. Some people are just like that for some reason they collect some things, they don't even know why. There's gambling." so he says in an interview.
Great research, he made of wire the bones, muscles from newspaper , made molds for the skin.The end result was latex leather that had to be dyed. During the molding of the raw latex models, the whole apartment was full of the smell of ammonia.
Such a big job, the bigger dinosaur he did in 2 month.Size was in line with human size. Estonia's own saurus artist.
Dinosaurs could no longer fit anywhere and they needed to be maintained, so he finally donated all of them to the Estonian Museum of Natural History. Several exhibitions are still held.The dinosaur collection has around 120 species
In addition to his main work was animation, he was an animator in Tallinn. 1989-2002. worked in Sweden as an animator for 6 years. Thais went to teach 3D animation, in which he was a professional and a willing and expected friendly and hard-working employee everywhere, because at that time no one could speak 3D in Estonia..but he had learned it on his own.
Then came the computer time, he found it easier to draw pictures because there is no need to do it again if something goes wrong. He always kept close a camera to take pictures of frogs and worms and lizards to see what kind of skin they had.
Rauli's own description of his work in an interview with the newspaper: "a new saurus is born on your computer every week". The very first and biggest nut to start a dinosaur image is to choose the right animal. It may even take several days for Raul to do so.
"Just can't decide! There's so much material and ideas you want to do! Sometimes you even get angry and go watch TV instead. But then you look at the material again and you just start doing one thing."
Once the species is selected, extensive research on the Internet follows, and Lunia manually sketches side views of a dinosaur on her small drawing board to analyze the muscles. And only then can you start building a saurus on your computer.
There, Raul begins to construct the animal from the eye or nose. "The eye is the most expressive part of man, the animal too." Then the head and then the body. Sometimes, in terms of variety, he makes animals in a different order. Raul shows a cubist gray 3D saur in progress on a computer screen. Mouse click! And the cubist robot becomes a streamlined muscular dino.
"Look. Now you can see what the final version will look like. Of course, the animal will be built in a mirror image, there is no point in making the two sides separate."
When toning dinosaurs, Raul tries to avoid colorful colors, because the more neutral you make him, the more true he is. In nature, they are a bit dusty anyway. then they go to a program where Raul can animate them.
For the last 6 years of his life he had a yard full of animals and birds, he had dreamed of them all his life in a city apartment..His house his animals in his yard..it was all he wanted .. he said he is very happy and would not want to change anything in his life ..
He loved to talk about the universe, about animals. Of the human type was an introvert
Farewell, Raul, we will miss you. You made Renderosity a better place with your presence.