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dewlap ā Austrosaurus
Published: 2008-05-20 17:38:28 +0000 UTC; Views: 9531; Favourites: 117; Downloads: 400
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Austrosaurus and minmiRelated content
Comments: 26
Very reminiscent of Greg Paul's work, I love it! Really amazing perspective!Ā Ā
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YO! In case y'all ain't found it....
www.lenzarts.com/art_supplies/ā¦
Anuddah... Ā www.imperialtattoosupply.com/Cā¦
Good luck! Oh, yes! Dewlap? You do some cool work!Ā
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I still have stacks of them from Lenz (your first link) from years back. Nowadays I've been working digitally so I haven't been using much of them but it is nice to know where I could still get them if I needed them. Thanks for the info.
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Yer welcome. Thought you might like to know a current source.
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It really depends on where you work and the kind of effect that you would like to achieve. For my current job; it is all digital and no one is using other media (no need for it). If it is a hobby or your job allows you to have the time and resources then sure you can do whatever you like...
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I left hobby behind a long time ago. No one is using other media? Look around you. No, don't bother. Just....don't....BOTHER.
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Well, I just know no one at my work is doing it... (pay more attention on others comment... as all I said was about MY work...
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Well it's sad that coquille is quite literally going extinct. 
As for necks, I think Argentinosaurus probably had a very long one... it's all speculation at this point, but I don't see any super-huge Diplodocids or Brachiosaurs having short necks, and overall it looks like short necks are maladaptive for such big creatures. The main source of info for the short-necked Argentinosaurus restorations (and the ones in Nigel Marvin's series) is an article by Kenneth Carpenter where he reconstructs it using Saltasaurus as a model - resulting in a much shorter Argentinosaurus that's essentially a scaled up Saltasaurus clone (even so, his Saltasaurus-clone silhouette STILL looks a bit too small-necked even for Saltasaurus).
But in any case, saltasaurus is a horrible model for Argentinosaurus. 
It's worth noting how diplodocoids followed a similar pattern, with the small Dicraeosaurs having short necks compared to the much larger true Diplodocids.
Restoring all titanosaurs to look like Saltasaurus is as wrong as assuming all Stegosaurs look exactly like Stegosaurus. But I see this fallacy repeated many times over since Carpenter's (2005?) paper. 
Though for Austrosaurus, the short-necked Saltasaurus proportions may be a good model (similar to how you drew it). I don't really know enough about Austrosaurus's dimensions to be sure. There appears to be a rough trend of proportionally shorter necks for smaller sauropods, since they need less feeding radius to get enough food to fuel their small bodies. For the biggest titanosaurs I would discard Carpenter's lithostrotian clones and assume a very long neck (like at least "Brachiosaurus long", but maybe not quite "Supersaurus long"). Interestingly, the neck of the giant Futalognkosaurus HAS been found, and it is quite long indeed - proving that giant titanosaurs did NOT have to be built like the smaller ones.
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Well... all I said is that the shape and size of the neck of the Argentinosaurus cast is speculative. I wasn't trying to say you are wrong in saying it (Argentinosaurus) has a long neck. You are probably right. But all I was trying to say is it could be slender or robust (since we haven't got any remains of an Argentinosaurus's neck yet... perhaps there is but I've never seen it)
It is interesting that you brought up the Diplodocids group, because if you compare the neck of Apatosaurus and Diplodocus (they are kind of large regardless, although not as big as Argentinosaurus), proportion wise they are different. Where one is chunky as in the case of Apatosaurus, Diplodocus has quite a slender neck compare to Apatosaurus's and that was what I was trying to say from my last post. If you read my previous reply you will find that all I said is whether it is massive as in 'Robustness'. I didn't say anything in regards to its length. As you were saying titanosaurs are quite a diverse group so therefore, at this time it could still go either way (thin or thick). So just calm down
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Lol dude I am calm. 
As for robustness.... I never thought about that.... Nothing for Argentinosaurus there (all the "neck bones" in the Fernbank mount are speculative fiberglass models), but Puertasaurus seems to have a very wide and robust neck based on a couple of neck bones found by Novas et al. Antarctosaurs probably had thinner necks based on Alamosaurus... whereas Isisaurus had a ridiculously robust neck. So with Agentinosaurus I'd assume a middle ground for now in terms of robustness, but it's all pretty foggy anyway.
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That's great, because I always thought that I'm the one who is offending you.
The reason being is that all I wrote from my first reply post was measly one paragraph on my thought in the "robustness" of the neck but you wrote me back a page with multiple paragraph (almost like you were trying to write an abstract... Lol). That is why I thought you were offended... (Didn't realize someone who would be serious enough to write me an essay on some random comments that I made 
I'm sorry if I offended you... again...
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HAHAHAH it's not an abstract! I didn't even think it was that good.
Aside from the robustness thing, my main pet peeve about how giant titanosaurs are restored these days is that they ALL seem to have very short necks, following Carpenter's model... when in fact the few bones for the giants that ARE known are very different from any saltasaurus material. They are from different families within titanosauria. It would be like if we only had the neck of dicraeosaurus but not barosaurus, and then scientists restored the Barosaurus neck based on Dicraeosaurus. It would be very strange, and totally false.
The only reason I get fired up (and it's not because of you) is because most everyone seems to draw ALL titanosaurs with short necks as if it were established fact, whereas the biggest ones would make little biological sense with a short neck.
Your drawing with the short necks is fine, since Austrosaurus isn't one of the huge 100-footers that likely needed a longer neck. It also seems to belong to Lithostrotia, which contains Saltasaurus. In fact I like it a lot for the anatomy and style. Perhaps I got carried away...
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see you are over reacting (or the way you termed it being "carry away") again.
It was like an abstract because of its length but not the quality of what's been said...
I never said you are wrong but I just don't see the point of trying to justify an educated assumption, to me it is just pointless... LoL. I'm merely pointing out the variables... and exceptions do occur. like the case of the ornithischians' cheeks (If you follow Witmer's paper they have no cheeks, if you read Sereno's recent paper on psittacosaurus there are psuedo cheeks on them... these studies are based on facts too... people are still debating it today)Again I'm not saying you are wrong. So you don't have to repeat yourself to me again...
I don't mind about that Austrosaurus drawing being critisize anyway (I'm glad you like the drawing)
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Great stuff! At last a decent titanosaur drawing.
I really like how you drew the heads so accurately as well as the wide bodies. Titanosaurs were quite plump compared to other sauropods.
Did you draw this on coquille board? It looks a lot like Gregory Paul's art, especially with the light/dust effects. Like the thumb claws too.
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Thanks for the compliment.
Austrosaurus is a sauropod which is very incomplete (only femur and some ribs... as far as I know perhaps there are more by now...and that is why you rarely find illustration of this animal. Unfortunately, since I wasn't studying at uni anymore so I haven't been keeping myself up to date on palaentology news...).
For this illustration (it was for a kids' dino newsletter), I've tried to look for any reference that is available to me at the time (journals, photos, etc...), I suppose this picture is quite outdated now. This drawing is a speculation of the animal but by no mean to be accurate, still I'm glad you like it. I was probably basing the drawing on the overall body proportion of the Opisthocoelicaudia skeleton (which is quite complete and undistorted, except missing its head and neck...), it is very robust and the body is shaped like a barrel (kind of like and ankylosaurid-like animal with a long neck...). Not all sauropods have bodies that is as wide as this group, titanosaurs are quite "chunky"... As for the head I probably based on some other titanosaurs cranial remains.
You are correct
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WHAT?!?!?!? Nobody makes coquille board anymore?
That SUCKS. That BEYOND sucks, I don't even know what to call it. 
I've wanted to get some coquille boards, but then again if I used it repeatedly for every piece, it might look to others like I'm just ripping off Paul's style. Which is not cool.
Despite being mostly speculation, I think this is the best titanosaur drawing I've ever seen. Though I would imagine at least some titanosaurs had a much longer neck proportionally (perhaps the really huge ones like Argentinosaurus).
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Well... as far as I know there is no way to get these illustration boards in Australia. I've bought a few from an US art store a "long" while back (which took me quite some time to find...) and I was told by the store that the paper company doesn't make them (coquille board) anymore...
I doubt that's the reason why we haven't seen much new work from Paul lately. An artist can't be confined by his/her materials. That is just plain silly I guess...
I suppose if you insist of drawing on the coquille boards, then first you will probably need to get one sheet of the coquille board, scan its texture, and apply this scanned image as paper texture in either "Painter" or "Photoshop". So you can have an unlimited supplies of coquille board.
On the other hand, since you wouldn't like to duplicate Paul's method then it shouldn't matter too much even if you couldn't find any of them...
Neck proportion... it is true that the neck... "reconstruction"... is massive on the Argentinosaurus (larger animal, structurally more robust compare to the other moderate size titanosaurids due to its scale). So far all we have are some dorsals and leg bones of this animal. So again this neck cast is highly speculative as well...
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Is this one based on "Elliot/Mary"?
You must be the first to have done a full Austrosaurus here. Kudos!
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I can't recall (It has been a long time ago...) whether I based this drawing on Elliot or Mary, but all I can say is that since we don't really have that much on the animal (a few dorsal vertebrates, and some limb bones... maybe more by now, I haven't heard anything yet) so I would say the drawing is mainly based on other titanosaurus remains and some measurements of the Austrosaurus' materials. It is quite a hypothetical image of the animal (which I don't really like to do...) but my ex-boss needed one at the time...
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Oh, I see. Who do you work for?
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I was working at the National Dinosaur Museum in Canberra, I suppose the place is more of an education centre rather than a museum. It wasn't funded by government at all, so everyone who works there have to be multi tasked. John Conway (the pterosaur guy) was the illustrator then but he left just before I start working there. I was a tour guide initially, but I ended up working as an illustrator there because of my past experience (I was an animator at the Disney studio in Sydney for 4 years... 2years inbetweening...), I don't like to draw at all but hey if I'm getting paid then I won't complaint... even though that I'm not a professional illustrator...
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Still, you're an excellent artist! I envy you. I wish I got paid for my drawings
Eventually I will. Good luck with that stuff!
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like you said... anyone can do it but it just takes time... I wish you get paid for your drawings soon...
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