Blade-of-the-Moon's Art

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Interesting. The original description of Amargasaurus says there are paired spines on each cervical vertebra except the atlas and axis. It restores the axis with a single longish spine. Carabajal et al. 2014 says the axis has a neural spine, but it's incompletely preserved, so that they can't determine whether they would have been forked, as in Dicraeosaurus, or single. They don't say anything about an externally visible spine or spines, so I'm really at a loss here. Has anybody described the cervicals caudal to the atlas/axis since the original description? Maybe some emendation with respect to the neurapophyses? I'm just fascinated because I had never heard about midline spines on Amargasaurus before now and I somehow hadn't noticed it before on the Safari version. On the Safari version, the midline spines look, at any rate, to be too far back to belong to the atlas/axis. Moreover, the atlas doesn't appear from the holotype description to have neural spines of any description, which I believe is par for the course for a tetrapod atlas.

I think the figure is based on Scott Hartman's Amarga skeletal which does look to have two single spines before the paired ones unless my eyes deceive me :

Awesome Amargasaurus, Blade... and these are exceptionally nice...

.. what are they?

I haven't seen those before in the thread, they look amazing, very cute.

Thanks! They are a family of Aquilops , the adults were created by my artist  friend Alice Wright and I sculpted the babies/egg.    Hoping to make a  log with a plexiglass cover , you can peer in and see the nesting site.

[Halichoeres]

Not sure how to tell from the skeletal whether they're paired, but they certainly are smaller. Anyway, I'm just surprised, I had no idea midline neural spines were even a possibility in this instance. Thanks!

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Not sure how to tell from the skeletal whether they're paired, but they certainly are smaller. Anyway, I'm just surprised, I had no idea midline neural spines were even a possibility in this instance. Thanks!

Honestly me either,  just looking at it it feels that way..my subconscious mind is telling me it is but my rational brain can't figure out why that is.  I wish we knew who the artist of these were would be great to ask them. 

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Perched Pteranodon redux

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Just launched a new website : www.backyardterrors.com ,  let me know what you guys think, we're still tweaking it.

[BlueKrono]

In regards to the neural spines, a number of years ago I had the opportunity to go to an exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota which I was thrilled to learn had an Amargasaurus. I took a bunch of photos from a lot of different angles thinking they might come in handy for references later. It appears that there is one single, then the doubles start, though I can't speak to the accuracy of this reconstruction. Just thought this might help:

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Could be Scott's skeletal was just misinterpreted by the Safari artist,  but this wasn't caught in the review of the figure which is why I used it, being accurate and the right scale  I needed.  I guess I can plead individual variation ? lol

[BlueKrono]

Hey, there are mutants in every species!

[Halichoeres]

Interesting! Well, if the 2015 paper is right, there's no way to be sure whether the axial spine is bifurcated. Maybe Papo got it right after all haha

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

What did everyone think of the website?

[Halichoeres]

What did everyone think of the website?

It looks good! Very professional. Can I ask what platform you used?

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

What did everyone think of the website?

It looks good! Very professional. Can I ask what platform you used?

I actually hired someone to do it.  I'm Dr Grant with computers..  :/

He's still tweaking it, some have found it confusing.   I'm also trying to get him to make an interactive park map with sounds and info as well as videos of each dino.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Finished Amarga pic, not great but I forgot my camera and a guest that visiting today shared this pic :



I'll have more tomorrow!

[Simon]

 

WOW!  Amazing sculpt Blade!!!

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Thanks bud!

I swear it's getting harder and harder to find good color schemes/ marking patterns.. but this one worked and the kid's loved it.

[Jose S.M.]

It looks great, very lifelike.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Thank you, i'll have more/better pics tomorrow.

[Lanthanotus]

Great sculpt and an impressive paint job.

I just had a look to your new website (which I find quite good and informative).... more than 50 dinos now, hell that's a lot, I'd really like to see that one day.

Wish you a good start to the outdoor season

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Great sculpt and an impressive paint job.

I just had a look to your new website (which I find quite good and informative).... more than 50 dinos now, hell that's a lot, I'd really like to see that one day.

Wish you a good start to the outdoor season

Thank you.  Yeah the Amarga makes 51 species...I had a lady from a local tv network ask me how we had total ( multiples of the same species ) and I had to stop and thing..I believe 67? lol 

Glad you liked the new website, if anything ever looks off or something could be added ( working on video/images now) just let me know.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]