Here he is compared to one of my anatomical references. Yes, that IS a Gregory Paul I am using. My reasoning, unlike how Mr. Paul played it in his insane rants, is I have in fact paid the man for the use of his skeletals, and use them in any way I deem fit. I purchased 5 of his books solely to acquire his material as references, and last time I checked buying something is indeed a form of "compensation". If the idiot didn't want me looking at or using his skeletals than he shouldn't have bloody well been SELLING them to me in the first place!!!
So yes Mr. Paul I am referencing your skeletals, and if you don't like go F%$* yourself! I bought it from you for the price you put it out there for fair and square! Had I broken into your house and stolen them, or even gotten the books out of the library that would be one thing (assuming you can copyright a reference in the first place, you crazy @$$), but I owe these books. So I can do whatever I damn well please with them (so long as I'm not DIRECTLY profiting off your work, which anyone sane person can see I am not. My stuff other than being a Dinosaur isn't the same as your own).
Ah there that feels much better. Sorry about that aside. I needed to stick on to the man. No disrespect to my fellow ART Evolved member Zach for his "No Gregory Paul skeletals were referenced for the production this illustration" meme, but I just can't accept giving into the bullying of a man who I paid for the reference material he was selling to me...
So you'll notice right away I customized Mr. Paul's skeletals as per my usual procedure. I feel it meets the general proportions and parameters of a Corythosaur quite nicely. Especially given how much variation and diversity has been found within the genius.
Here he is from all the key angles. Feedback on general proportions and anatomy would be appreciated.Areas I know need work are the face around the eye, the shoulder to arm attachment, and the tips of the beak.
Here he is from a few more angled points of view.
As per some of Matt van Rooijen's suggestions I've revisited the eyeball itself. I'm not sure if I like it this emphasised or not, but believe it or not that colour is directly inspired by an elephant's. 
There has been a number of criticisms about my scaling approach. I will probably try to test a more realistic version of scales tomorrow (which really just require the scales to be smaller), but one of my interested palaeontologists was specifically after my "non-realistic style". So I'm going to leave this particular shader in the running, till I get feedback from the intended recipient.I have one quick question for those out there in the know.
While many artists in modern times (and Charles Knight) seem to restore Hadrosaurs with dorsal ornamentation such as a fin of soft tissue or knob like projections is there actual evidence for this? Looking through available photographs of Edmontosaur mummies and Dinosaur Park Duckbills with skin impressions, I have not found a single reliable example of anything coming off the back. Am I missing something in the Brachylophosaur mummies (which I haven't found any useful references for) or is there a difference between Lambeosaurines and Hadrosaurines? As far as I can tell Corythosaurus would have had nothing coming off its back.
9 comments:
Good question about the dorsal ornaments. I've always thought that it was present on one of the many duckbill mummies, but now I can't find any info on that.
liking the new look!
I've always wondered about those, eh, "fin thingies" as well. I'm especially curious if there's any hard evidence for the crazy "fin attached to the back of the horn" Parasaurolophus reconstructions that were so popular in early paleoart (see "Fantasia" for an example).
Albertonykus- Coming from you that means something. I was expecting if anyone who reads this blog would know it'd be you ;)
However yeah I can't find any evidence for back orienimentation. The closest I can gather is that with the discovery of those spines on Diplodociods everyone started putting them on all Dinosaurs (same way dermal osteoderms popped up everyway after Carnotaurus).
Dinorider- Thanks. There is a Parasaurolophus in the works too ;)
Trish- The Parasaurolophus neck fin started with Charles Knight as far as I can. I'm not sure it makes sense to me. I would think it'd restrict neck mobility.
It is much like the modern thing of the "no-neck" Hadrosaur, where the back hump directly connects to the head. How could the poor thing gets its head around to eat plants.
Thanks for the recognition! I don't know as much about hadrosaurs as I'd like to though, so I'll ask around and see if anyone knows better.
Your suspicions were correct, it's Leonardo that has them: http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/dinosaur-leonardo-1.jpg
Albertonykus- Interesting.
Is there an article accompanying this photo? Due to the small size all I'm confident I'm seeing are the ends of the neural spines poking up out of the tendons and legaments. There are smudge LIKE things in the rock above this, but I'm not confident they are actual trace fossils (again due to the resolution of the photo).
Not that I'm saying I don't trust you. I did notice EVERYONE drawing Leonardo was putting knobs on his back (Bakker included). So I was wondering if they knew something I don't.
The next question though is this a difference between Hadrosaurines and Lambeosaurines. There are dozens of Lambeosaurines with skin impressions (just from Alberta alone), and not a single one I've looked at has anything off the back. Mind you they might have been prepped off in many cases due to a lack of expecting anything there.
Still this is where I'm at. Do I put something on the Corythosaur or not?
The article is here, but it doesn't say anything on this in the text: http://animals.howstuffworks.com/dinosaurs/dinosaur-leonardo.htm The smudges do look fairly consistent in shape, spacing, and size, so I'd suspect there was something there instead of just artifacts of preservation.
I was also told that there's another hadrosaur that shows such structures, but no one appears to remember the exact specimen. Interestingly, this one has shorter ridges than Leonardo's.
I think at this point you could get away with not putting them on lambeosaurines. Personally though, I do like them aesthetically.
Albertonykus- Thanks for looking that up man.
Well first lesson I've learned fossil hunting over the years appearing to be uniform and actually being uniform are different things. However I suspect you are right in this case.
As for adding stuff to my guy purly for aesthetics, can't do this time (normally I'd be game... you know me and my non conventions :P ). This fellow ultimately will (hopefully) be used for an actual science publication though. So it is up to my palaeontologist whether Lambeosaurines had dorsal decorations or not. At moment I'm thinking not, but we'll see.
I still suspect everyone has been putting them on their Hadrosaurs for the past decade simply due to liking them on Sauropods. Leonardo is just a happy coincidence.
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