The Art of Mamasaurus

[Mamasaurus]

Hello there!  I am not new to art, but I have not made the plunge into paleoart until fairly recently, so I could certainly use a lot of advice and critique on the subject!  Here I have what is going to be an image for my signature, since I have chosen P. cyrtocristatis as my dinosaur.     Since I am still getting the hang of visualizing my concepts in 3 dimensions, a pose does not always come out how I would like it, and I am heavily dependent on photos.  Of course, you can see how photos of dinos would be pretty hard to come by. 

So if you have any pointers on inaccuracies, or where something just doesn't work, that would be most appreciated!     If something looks off or is inaccurate, please give advice on what I should do to fix it, since comments like "that arm is wrong" are not helpful.





I mainly want critique on the base sketch.  It is stylized, but I want to be sure of appropriate number of toes, overall body, etc.  Stylized should not mean downright inaccurate.     I will be adding two juveniles, since I have two kids, but here is Mom, Dad, and eggs for now.

Some concerns I want advice on...

- the arms on the darker male seem too thin to me.  Should they be thicker?  I was using Scott Hartman's beautiful skeletal as reference. 
- I've depicted the male as having a straighter crest than is reconstructed for P. cyrtocristatus, while the female has the typical curved crest.  I'm not sure if this is taking too much liberty on the species, though some people seem to think that P. cyrtocristatus is simply a female P. walkerie.  Some advice on this subject would be most helpful.




I couldn't resist playing with color patterns a bit.  There is no shading on the characters, I just gave them a little bit of ground to stand on so they weren't floating in horrible white space.  What do you think? 

[DinoLord]

Accuracy-wise things look pretty good, but the toes could be a bit less blunt (and the claws smaller) and the arms do look a little thin for a quadripedal animal. As for the whole crest issue, there was a thread discussing the subject.

[Mamasaurus]

Just a little progress on my doodle here.  Fixed the arms, toes, and claws of the critters.  I'm still waffling to keep a little speculation for the male's crest.  It's not nearly so large as P. walkerie, but it's straighter and slightly larger than what is usually seen on P. cyrtocristatus' skull.  I may decide to change that and just leave it to being brighter than the female...

Anyway, I'm starting to play around with lighting and a possible background, I like the thought of gargantuan trees.  Would that be plausible?    

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Not a huge expert on Mesozoic plant life, but Doug Henderson used some HUGE trees in his beautiful and well researched art work so I'm guessing it's plausible.

[Newt]

Looking good, Mamasaurus! I like the mother's contented expression.

This paper has a list of plants and animals known from the Fruitland Formation that P. cyrtocristatus comes from, and the overlying Kirtland Formation that P. tubicen comes from.

It looks like the area was warm and wet (good for big trees) and had several tree genera which contain gigantic living species. I haven't delved deep enough to see if any huge trunks are known from the Fruitland, but it seems to me very likely that big trees would be present there.

Potentially giant trees from the Fruitland and the size of largest living species:

Sequoia (redwoods) - 379 ft high, 27.4 ft diameter
Araucaria (monkey-puzzle trees) - 262 ft high, 10 ft diameter
Ficus (fig and banyans) - 200 ft high, 8 ft diameter
Quercus (oaks) - 150 ft high, 12 ft diameter

The Kirtland also has hickories (Carya) and sycamores/planes (Platanus), which can also grow very large.

I hope that helps!

[Tyto_Theropod]

Looking good Mamasaurus, but PLEASE don't take down your raptor chickens! I love them too much!