CG "Dinosaurs" for Critique, now showing: Finished Triceratops

[Z-Ray]

Howdy all!
The studio I work for was asked to do some new dinosaur designs.
Knowing how irritating it is when non scientifically minded illustrators (like my self) do inaccurate images perpetuating outdated and erroneous stereotypes, I
figured I would ask the good people of the Dinosaur toy Forum for help improving the accuracy.

First up old horn face himself, Triceratops.

I won't be adding the scale texture until the overall shape is finished (helps reduce unsightly stretching)

and a quick and dirty mash up to see what he looks like in a scene


While I am the art director and ultimately responsible for this project it is a collaborative effort within the studio, so any mistakes you find I am going to blame on the other guys.
so don't hold back, none of it is my fault

[tyrantqueen]

Quills would be a good idea, as seen on Triceratops "Lane"



I think the feet could use some correction, but I honestly find ceratopsian feet so confusing I'd best leave it to members who can explain it better.

[SpartanSquat]

Fantastic job dude! Like Tyrantqueen said, you should use Lane skin and quills!
@tyrantqueen: I think the same like you. Very strange to make. I think they had 4 toes.

[DinoLord]

First of all, kudos to you for seeking to make your models more accurate! It's great to see illustrators who care about their work, and high accuracy is always certain to appease all the dino-nerds in a company's audience.

Great job on the model; it looks pretty solid overall. However, I would personally have the face/head be less skinny and have some more musculature/meat to it. Oftentimes dinosaurs are reconstructed as 'shrink-wrapped' skin over the bones, when in fact real animals often have their skeletal structure obscured by muscles, skin, or other tissues. For an example of what a difference it can make just take a look at this drawing of a baboon in the 'shrink-wrapped' fashion:




The feet are another area that could be improved, but I'll wait for the ceratopsian enthusiasts on here to comment on those.

[dutchdinolover]

Great idea to come here for some help. I am sure you will get the right help here on the forum. Altough not from me, am not familiar with the latest accurate scientific thinking. Great model, don't forget to upload the finisht model to shapeways . Scale 1:40 please  

Are you working on Jurassic World?

Good luck with the project!

[Gorgonzola]

This is a lovely looking model for sure. I wouldn't mind seeing the underside of it so we can get a better look at the feet, along with some better detail shots of the head, but here's what I'm seeing off that could be improved:

- The back feet shouldn't have any dew claw.  It's just five toes on the front, four on the back.

- The front feet shouldn't have any claws/hooves on the last two digits.

- The front feet also look a bit elephantine, which is why I wouldn't mind seeing the underside.  If you take a look at ceratopsian tracks, it's a bit of a cresent moon shape.

- Someone else a bit more knowledgeable can fill in on this better than I can, but the legs should probably be a bit more underneath it. The front legs do have the elbow bow out a little bit, however, but overall it looks like the legs could stand to be a bit more under the trike.  I know sometimes neutral poses require some odd posturing though, so I dunno if this is something you're already aware of and you have him set up this way so you can have an easier time sculpting him.

- Overall I really like how you handled sculpting him, especially the face. At the moment it's shaping up to be a fantastic sculpt in my eyes, it just seems that the feet and legs need a bit more loving to bring it in line with the rest of the model.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Very cool. We're working on a 1:1 Triceratops right now.  Your design looks pretty good, totally agree with just about all points.  Your basing it off of a T. Prorsus right ?

Dinolord, I think ceratopsian skulls are supposed to be thinner to be accurate now ?  I've seen like on Dinosaur Revolution the full keratin covered skull that wouldn't have flesh I don't think ?   There is just so much damage and abuse occurring on their heads it wouldn't pay to have a lot of flesh up there I think. I have seen larger nasal openings done instead of the small ones typically seen.

[DinoLord]

Dinolord, I think ceratopsian skulls are supposed to be thinner to be accurate now ?  I've seen like on Dinosaur Revolution the full keratin covered skull that wouldn't have flesh I don't think ?   There is just so much damage and abuse occurring on their heads it wouldn't pay to have a lot of flesh up there I think.

They probably weren't very thick but the one in the model just seems overly gaunt. Given the dental batteries these animals had I imagine there would be some form of jaw musculature that would be noticeable.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

This is a lovely looking model for sure. I wouldn't mind seeing the underside of it so we can get a better look at the feet, along with some better detail shots of the head, but here's what I'm seeing off that could be improved:

- The back feet shouldn't have any dew claw.  It's just five toes on the front, four on the back.

- The front feet shouldn't have any claws/hooves on the last two digits.

- The front feet also look a bit elephantine, which is why I wouldn't mind seeing the underside.  If you take a look at ceratopsian tracks, it's a bit of a cresent moon shape.

- Someone else a bit more knowledgeable can fill in on this better than I can, but the legs should probably be a bit more underneath it. The front legs do have the elbow bow out a little bit, however, but overall it looks like the legs could stand to be a bit more under the trike.  I know sometimes neutral poses require some odd posturing though, so I dunno if this is something you're already aware of and you have him set up this way so you can have an easier time sculpting him.

- Overall I really like how you handled sculpting him, especially the face. At the moment it's shaping up to be a fantastic sculpt in my eyes, it just seems that the feet and legs need a bit more loving to bring it in line with the rest of the model.

Just touching a few things  I noticed here...the ceratopsians had jaw muscles that utilized the lower edge of the frill as attachment points for the jaw muscles so below the jawline these things had to be pretty "beefy" looking which fits fairly well with what dinolord is stating here. If you could imagine a dinosaur with six foot long jaw muscles, you can visualize that better.
  I mostly agree with Gorgonzolas comments , except to say the fronts are hands, not feet !!!!Precise posture of the front legs(arms) was an open debate for years until tracks were recovered showing the prints for the hands were close underneath the animal than previously understood. The modern translation is the elbows should bow outwards slightly and the arms would then be angled inward towards the centerline of the dinosaur. The fingers are angled properly on your model, which is refreshing to see in a triceratops reconstruction .If that makes any sense, the elbows of your model should bend outwards slighty more, however the arms should then angle inwards .

[Gorgonzola]

Just touching a few things  I noticed here...the ceratopsians had jaw muscles that utilized the lower edge of the frill as attachment points for the jaw muscles so below the jawline these things had to be pretty "beefy" looking which fits fairly well with what dinolord is stating here. If you could imagine a dinosaur with six foot long jaw muscles, you can visualize that better.
  I mostly agree with Gorgonzolas comments , except to say the fronts are hands, not feet !!!!Precise posture of the front legs(arms) was an open debate for years until tracks were recovered showing the prints for the hands were close underneath the animal than previously understood. The modern translation is the elbows should bow outwards slightly and the arms would then be angled inward towards the centerline of the dinosaur. The fingers are angled properly on your model, which is refreshing to see in a triceratops reconstruction .If that makes any sense, the elbows of your model should bend outwards slighty more, however the arms should then angle inwards .

Sums it up better than I could have.  And yeah, I should have said hands - bit of a silly error on my part.

Something else I just noticed - should the shoulder girdle be closer together in the front? It looks like the arms are spaced farther apart than they should be.

[wings]

...I would personally have the face/head be less skinny and have some more musculature/meat to it. Oftentimes dinosaurs are reconstructed as 'shrink-wrapped' skin over the bones, when in fact real animals often have their skeletal structure obscured by muscles, skin, or other tissues. For an example of what a difference it can make just take a look at this drawing of a baboon in the 'shrink-wrapped' fashion:

Here is a paper on the forelimb posture of the animal http://www.filedropper.com/reevaluationofthemanusstructureintriceratops; it should have all the diagrams and descriptions in it for your reconstruction. Another thing that you should remember is that the prints for the front legs are "wider" than the back legs' indicating that the front legs probably do stick out to the side further than the back limbs and NOT parallel as in your depiction (see below):



In terms of the above example as "shrink-wrapped"; I'm not so sure. I suppose the drawing of the baboon represent someone who has never seen a baboon and tries to restore one; right? The drawing isn't really that bad as you can see from a naked baboon below:




http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2271173/Hairless-female-baboon-spotted-bush-rejected-troop.html

From these photos we can see that "shrink-wrapped" isn't the real issue with the reconstruction; it is more about the misunderstanding on this group of animals (in this case let's not be too specific, just "mammals"). What is really missing in the drawing above is things like external ears, lips or maybe a cartilaginous nose and no fur/hair. To be fair apart from these the overall shape is not that much of a difference.

Here is another example (see the well-defined muscle tone):




Is it wrong to show skull openings (fenestrae)? Again not sure since we do have modern examples of animal which does show these openings (below):




Unfortunately, the view of "shrink-wrapped" does sometimes seems to be bias against some artists as well. For example, if you look at Krentz's recent Spinosaurus it might also be categorized as "shrink-wrapped"  too but no one seems to be complaining 

[DinoLord]

In terms of the above example as "shrink-wrapped"; I'm not so sure. I suppose the drawing of the baboon represent someone who has never seen a baboon and tries to restore one; right? The drawing isn't really that bad as you can see from a naked baboon below:

*snip*

From these photos we can see that "shrink-wrapped" isn't the real issue with the reconstruction; it is more about the misunderstanding on this group of animals (in this case let's not be too specific, just "mammals"). What is really missing in the drawing above is things like external ears, lips or maybe a cartilaginous nose and no fur/hair. To be fair apart from these the overall shape is not that much of a difference

Even ignoring the missing external features, the overall shape of the drawing is much skinnier than the photos you posted.

[Z-Ray]

Thanks for all the great feedback everyone!
I'm going to answer each of you in turn to make sure I cover everything.


@ tyrantqueen,  RolandEden
I have that exact image as texture reference for the trike (along with one for the gator like belly scales) and will be using it once the final body shape is locked in.

As this is a request from a client and that means they get the final say on the image, I can't promise they will be on the end product, but there will be quills on the model (as a separate tool  so they can be turned on or off) also a speculative Psittacosaurus tail-hawk (also separate) because I think it looks cool and I can.

Ah, the feet, you can tell I wasn't confident with those by how I chopped the off in the postcard


@DinoLord
As soon as I posted the image up I saw that the face was looking gaunt especially around the naires.
I've made some (very rough) changes to the face based on comments, let me know if I'm heading in the right direction   You will have to ignore the fact that the old face looks cooler with all the detailing that will be put back in once the shape is finalised.




@dutchdinolover
I will see if the bosses are OK with that, I would love to have one (or a whole heard) printed up, (in multiple scales, my personal scale of choice is 1:48 to go with my WW2 tanks and tabletop wargame collection)

No, not working on Jurassic World nothing so glamorous, I design 3D bookmarks (and puzzles)


@Gorgonzola, amargasaurus cazaui
I have included an underside image with the new face pics

I'm not entirely sure what happened with the back feet, the first model had four toes (admittedly horrible mutant elephant toes but still) I think somehow my notes on theropod feet got applied to the Trike (see, not my fault) and the change was missed while focusing on other parts (totally my fault)

It's interesting that the "hand prints" are crescent shaped, that was what I thought would be the case looking at the bones of the foot but I couldn't find anything to back that up and I've been trying to avoid making changes based on what I think "looks" right.

The feet will be tucked a bit further under once we get to posing, but as you say they had to be spread out to avoid overlapping the mesh in the groin and armpits. I agree the elbows could do with being bowed a little more and I'll have a look at that shoulder girdle, I found a rather nice set of photos of a headless Trike mount that shows that off to great extent.


@Blade-of-the-Moon
I've been following your thread and we have had a few strange coincidences in our work flow, the Carnotaurus, Rex, and Feathered Raptors (even stranger I did the naked base model for the raptor when you were working on your first and the feathered version while you were working on the second.) I would love to visit your dinos but it's a wee bit far to travel from New Zealand.

Speaking of NZ they never made a Zone 4 version of Dinosaur Planet and Revolution didn't play here (that I know of) so I haven't seen them, I know I can find them on the Internet but want to be sure it's an official version (always want to be sure the artists get payed)

T.prorsus...yes, kind of.
The original base model was supposed to be T. horridus and was based of Scott Heartmans skeletal of such. but when it came time to do tweaks to the head it was changed to T.prorsus based on better photos of the skull (the type specimen I believe) from what I can tell, the only noticeable differences between the two is in the skull and the overall size so it's now a T.prorsus (who's head is more classic Triceratops anyway.)

@wings
I've stolen that trackway diagram for future use, I spent ages looking for some of that information and didn't find anything as clear as that one there.
I'm looking through that paper now, as much as my limited knowledge of technical anatomy allows (I never paid enough attention back in science class, ironically I was too busy drawing dinosaurs on my notebook, desk and textbooks)

That naked chimp really shows how something like hair (or feathers) can hide the musculature underneath.

Loving that Krentz spinosaur never even thought of the small crest in the skull being the base of a larger fleshy "cockscomb" structure ( I wonder what the "sail" would look like with similar soft tissue extensions?)

[wings]

Even ignoring the missing external features, the overall shape of the drawing is much skinnier than the photos you posted.

Not for the sake of arguing but I honestly can't see the baboon in the drawing is "that much" skinnier than the one in the photos...

[DinoLord]

Not for the sake of arguing but I honestly can't see the baboon in the drawing is "that much" skinnier than the one in the photos...

Let's agree to disagree then. 

@Z-Ray: Yes, that looks much better. You're definitely on your way to having a great model to work with for whatever project it's going towards.   

[wings]

@Z-Ray

If you are after some readings for the integument on the head then here is one from 2009 (below):

http://www.oucom.ohiou.edu/dbms-witmer/Downloads/2009_Hieronymus_et_al._Pachyrhinosaurus_skin.pdf

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Really like how the model is looking and you pegged the lower jawline perfectly in my opinion....looks good to me.

[Z-Ray]

Alright, took longer than I thought to get the feet (roughly) sorted.



Special thanks to wings for that paper on Ceratopsian manus configuration, it was a huge help sorting out the Rex's breakfast that is trike hands.
Once I'm sure I haven't made a mess of them again, and if nobody spots any further errors (remember not my fault it's all the other guy.)
then I'll get the model cleaned up and start on the texture and detailing (with help from the other paper from wings)


While I'm working on that here is a change to the thread title and another one for y'all to look at:



and another "Postcard" to show what it looks like fuzzy.

[wings]

Alright, took longer than I thought to get the feet (roughly) sorted.

I probably wouldn't go too overboard with defining the "hand digits" though. (see figure 5 http://cactus.dixie.edu/jharris/Iron_Springs_Dino_Tracks.pdf) I think the paper I sent earlier was just what's underneath the skin and hooves so once you added these elements on the digits would become much "chubbier".

[DinoLord]

While I'm working on that here is a change to the thread title and another one for y'all to look at:



and another "Postcard" to show what it looks like fuzzy.

Looks pretty good from what I can tell, but then I don't know much about pterosaurs. This site's a great resource on pterosaurs.