Saturday 30 January 2010

Caudipteryx zoui

Continuing the feather theme, today I'm posting a four-view impression of Caudipteryx zouidrawn soon after the beast was first announced in 1997. I'm particularly keen on this method, familiar to anyone interested in aviation, as it forces one to closely examine the proportions of a subject from every point of view, as good, possibly better, than holding a 3D model in your hand. There's probably too much Cassowary reference in this - the body is actually covered in short down - and the head is probably a tad too long. It will be interesting to see what colour it would have been once the melanosomes in it's feathers are investigated. The second drawing was the preparitory pic for a life restoration - which of course hasn't (yet) happened.






Thursday 28 January 2010

Sinosauropteryx


Today a paper has been published by messrs. Benton, Johnson, Kearns, Orr, Wang, Xu, Zhang and Zhou ( go tohttp://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/melanosomes ) on the presence and effect of melanosomes in fossilized feather structures of theropod dinoaurs and birds from China's Jehol deposits. A drawing was required to illustrate the article and this is what we came up with, Sinosauropteryx in the colours it probably wore in life

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