Another Oldest Bird

[wings]

To add on, a big problem with the feet is that it appears to be standing on tip-toe with no pad under the back of the toes to support its weight (as all birds have and we know theropods had based on footprints).

     So the point being made with the feet would be they should be flat and placed similar to the method of stance a tyrannosaurus would employ..with heel and toes being placed to the ground in one motion?

Not sure how you could arrived to this conclusion, but I think Dinoguy2 was referring to the "metatarsal pad" (see diagram below), when he was talking about no pad under the back of the toes for weight support. He thinks there is no "metatarsal pad" on the illustration.



However, having said that I'm not sure if the statement is entirely true since there are birds that actually do walked "tip-toe" and does not really require the "metatarsal pad" for main weight support (see diagram below). The "metatarsal pad" often does not touch the substrate.



So to simplify here is how it would look underneath the skin (see below).



Also keep in mind that the "thickness" of the paddings under the feet does vary between different species, so it is hard to say that what was on the illustration lacks "pads"; perhaps the artist gave it the minimum thickness. But we can't really say it's wrong (see below).





As for understanding the walk cycle you can see works from Muybridge (see below).



Imagine the photos above are flipped (and the animal is traveling to the left of the page) and compare this with the "Aurornis" illustration you'll see that the "walk phase" is roughly in the same position as the frame on the first picture (top left hand corner) of the first row. You'll find that the front leg would be just touching the ground (toes first then the "heel") and the back leg would be just pushing the animal forward (at the point where it 's just about to leave the ground). However, as to why the toes are curled on both feet do look a little strange.

The artist probably based the leg feathers on animals like Microraptor where the "leg wings" is running perpendicular to the legs of the animal.

[Dinoguy2]

Great summary and pics, wings! I meant a pad of any kind--the illustration doesn't seem to have a metatarsal pad OR digit pad. Well, it DOES seem to have a digit pad... but BOTH are off the ground, like the thing is just starting to slowly levitate

So, it's hard to describe, but I guess my main problem with the feet is that both look like they're not flat on the ground, but it also doesn't seem to be jumping.

The leg feathers are a fair assumption, as the very similar species Anchiornis and Xiaotingia both have them. Though again, in the model they look stiff and unnatural, and don't blend into the leg. The area of the leg they attach to seems to have only a feathery stubble, which is weird. No reason for it to look like that at all.

I recently made my own illustration of a more natural Aurornis, but it's slated to appear in an online magazine article soon, so I don't want to "scoop" them I'll post it here when it's ok, for comparison.

[wings]

Great summary and pics, wings! I meant a pad of any kind--the illustration doesn't seem to have a metatarsal pad OR digit pad. Well, it DOES seem to have a digit pad... but BOTH are off the ground, like the thing is just starting to slowly levitate

So, it's hard to describe, but I guess my main problem with the feet is that both look like they're not flat on the ground, but it also doesn't seem to be jumping.

The leg feathers are a fair assumption, as the very similar species Anchiornis and Xiaotingia both have them. Though again, in the model they look stiff and unnatural, and don't blend into the leg. The area of the leg they attach to seems to have only a feathery stubble, which is weird. No reason for it to look like that at all.

I recently made my own illustration of a more natural Aurornis, but it's slated to appear in an online magazine article soon, so I don't want to "scoop" them I'll post it here when it's ok, for comparison.

As noted from the previous post; it looked odd because somehow the toes on the front foot are curled up (hence the foot appears to have no weight on it), maybe the artist just duplicate the back foot for the front one (as they are both sharing similar curvature...).

The blending of the feathers I would imagine it would probably look like the recent paper on Archaeopteryx and Anchiornis (the one on primitive feather arrangement) that the hind wing would probably have multi-layered "coverts" on top.