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Description
This has too many "wish I done differentlies" to make into a finished piece of "art" without starting over, but I'm posting it as a sketch or study of a drawing I'd eventually like to do in finished form.

This is another study of Thylacoleo carnifex, a vaguely pantherlike marsupial predator of Pleistocene Australia.

In 2008, an ancient Aboriginal rock painting was discovered that is believed to be a depiction of a then-living Thylacoleo -- the powerful clawed forearms were the giveaway -- that gives us new clues about what the animal was like. It is depicted as having vertical stripes running along its back from shoulders to hips (but only reaching down about halfway between spine and belly, unlike my attempt) and apparently having a tuft on its tail. The head is blunt and has triangular ears.

That inspired me to want to do another depiction of this beastie. I've also wanting to do an image that showed off this animal's truly weird dentition. (The animals it evolved from had lost their canine teeth, but Thylacoleo developed its incisors [front teeth] into piercing weapons, and had huge axe-like slicing cheek teeth as well.)

I found a cool photo of a cougar in a tree, in a semi-plantigrade stance, and I was off. But I was in too much a hurry to see what this might look like to be careful.

My "wishovers":

1) The color and markings look too much like the recently extinct Tasmanian "wolf" (thylacine). It needs the vertical stripes to conform to the rock painting, but maybe I can think of some variation that doesn't mimic the thylacine so strongly. And the stripes shouldn't be quite that long.

2) The head facing right at you is kinda dramatic, but maybe a three-quarter's view would give a better idea of the shape of the head.

3) I want to improve on the markings of the face.

4) The feet, only vaguely indicated here, need to be completely redone, and the famous clawed "thumbs' of the front feet should be more visible.

5) From other reconstructions I've seen, apparently the tail of this animal is kind of stiff and would be sticking out more at an angle, rather than hanging straight down.

6) In general, I need to figure out a more delicate technique with the blending tool that doesn't wipe out the texture of the fur and look so damn smeary.

Description
This has too many "wish I done differentlies" to make into a finished piece of "art" without starting over, but I'm posting it as a sketch or study of a drawing I'd eventually like to do in finished form.

This is another study of Thylacoleo carnifex, a vaguely pantherlike marsupial predator of Pleistocene Australia.

In 2008, an ancient Aboriginal rock painting was discovered that is believed to be a depiction of a then-living Thylacoleo -- the powerful clawed forearms were the giveaway -- that gives us new clues about what the animal was like. It is depicted as having vertical stripes running along its back from shoulders to hips (but only reaching down about halfway between spine and belly, unlike my attempt) and apparently having a tuft on its tail. The head is blunt and has triangular ears.

That inspired me to want to do another depiction of this beastie. I've also wanting to do an image that showed off this animal's truly weird dentition. (The animals it evolved from had lost their canine teeth, but Thylacoleo developed its incisors [front teeth] into piercing weapons, and had huge axe-like slicing cheek teeth as well.)

I found a cool photo of a cougar in a tree, in a semi-plantigrade stance, and I was off. But I was in too much a hurry to see what this might look like to be careful.

My "wishovers":

1) The color and markings look too much like the recently extinct Tasmanian "wolf" (thylacine). It needs the vertical stripes to conform to the rock painting, but maybe I can think of some variation that doesn't mimic the thylacine so strongly. And the stripes shouldn't be quite that long.

2) The head facing right at you is kinda dramatic, but maybe a three-quarter's view would give a better idea of the shape of the head.

3) I want to improve on the markings of the face.

4) The feet, only vaguely indicated here, need to be completely redone, and the famous clawed "thumbs' of the front feet should be more visible.

5) From other reconstructions I've seen, apparently the tail of this animal is kind of stiff and would be sticking out more at an angle, rather than hanging straight down.

6) In general, I need to figure out a more delicate technique with the blending tool that doesn't wipe out the texture of the fur and look so damn smeary.