Ornithomimids are WEIRD!

So I had my first ever proper teaching job interview yesterday. I am not sure how it went yet, but keep you posted.

For some stress relief, I finally got to some 3D work done.

I can not talk about what this project is for, other than it is aiming to be in a formal publication. All I can say is it involves an Ornithomimid.

This is a Dinosaur I've never built properly before. Despite this is really is just a stretch and distortion of other theropod body types. So I just modified my Deinonychus into this...


Now is this just me, or does this not look right?

Seriously the whole thing just looks out of proportion to me. Yet, apart from the hands, this guy is total to anatomical specs. Seriously.

So am I the only one who thinks this fellow just looks wrong. I'm sure once it is posed he'll look better.

To prove he is correct here is my procedure.

Here is what I manually created initially based on my guts (which if you're wanting to be a serious palaeo-artist... you should never do!!!). It looks more like a Therizinosaur.

Well to get me in line with reality, I throw up a real Ornithomimid skeleton for comparison. Which shows you why I think the real proportions are so weird.

You can see exactly what I think the key features of an ostrich Dino are. What is weirding my out is how the neck really isn't as long or robust as I have pictured in my head. They are actually proportionally very small and skinny compared to especially the legs (which makes sense given they were the fastest of Dinosaurs).

After a few tweaks (and in a couple cases major overhauls) I narrowed in on the proper ratio.

So I just need to fix the fingers, and maybe the tail.

Leaving me again with this fellow. Who just looks weird to me...

Wish my luck on the project, specifically getting the gig.