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Post by Horridus on May 4, 2011 1:13:51 GMT
I dont understand why they surpassed carcharodontosaurids, tough. They dont seem more evolved or better suited for nothing more than run faster.. Things change. The charcharodontosaurids seem to have been specialised to hunt super-sauropods. Once they went into decline, the charcharodontosaurs would've gone into decline, too. Habitat/climate change could've been the root cause. (This is off the top of my head, and I've been tediously tapping out references for the last few hours, so forgive me if it's a bit...wrong...) |
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Post by arioch on May 4, 2011 2:19:01 GMT
But the thing is, super sauropods didnt wen´t into decline or at least not definitely before the very end of the Mesozoic. We have some in the Late Cretaceous. Maybe the gigantic titanosaurians almost got extinct on the Middle Cretaceous and then flourished again near the Campanian-Maastrichtian, some millions of years after Carcharodontosaurids disappeared. Who knows.
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Post by Griffin on May 4, 2011 2:25:09 GMT
Megafauna is usually the first to go when environmental change happens. They need more food and water to stay alive than smaller animals.
The fossil record is spotty. I don't think anybody can tell you for sure why some titanosaurs made it through and the carcharadontosaurs didn't. Hey, maybe they did and we just havent found any?
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Post by arioch on May 4, 2011 5:01:48 GMT
Holy crap! I´m finishing the Amphicoelias picture and..I think I suddenly realized what Griffin meant with his comment about sauropod lacking cheeks.. that the corner of the mouth should go backwards! Sort of:  Instead of hadrosaur like, which is what I did (you should have emphasized it..). Am I right? By the way this is what I have so far. Hope you like it.  |
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Post by Griffin on May 4, 2011 14:47:19 GMT
lol yeah thats what cheeks are. Sauropods had mouths like lizards not cows.
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Post by Blade-of-the-Moon on May 4, 2011 17:35:19 GMT
Nice I like the darker shading !
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Post by arioch on May 4, 2011 18:02:25 GMT
Thanks Blade! Im quite satisfied with the result, better than I expected...  lol yeah thats what cheeks are. Sauropods had mouths like lizards not cows. Thank goodness is relatively easy to fix! but you should have insist in that point since obviously I didnt get it ( I thought you were refering to something like the "cheek bone") and then made the same mistake in the Alamosaurus....  Here´s something I sketched this morning and I´m preparing another one just know. A Happy mosasaur enjoying his meal.  |
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Post by neovenator08 on May 4, 2011 18:41:45 GMT
Poor Hesperornis!
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Post by arioch on May 4, 2011 21:10:44 GMT
Another predator preparing to enjoy his meal: Torvosaurus tanneri. ;D  And an update on Amphicoelias:  |
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Post by hkhollinstone on May 4, 2011 21:29:08 GMT
Another predator preparing to enjoy his meal: Torvosaurus tanneri. ;D This one is awesome! |
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Post by arioch on May 4, 2011 23:33:42 GMT
Thanks! The coloured version so far:  |
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Post by Horridus on May 5, 2011 0:25:12 GMT
Another predator preparing to enjoy his meal: Torvosaurus tanneri. ;D This one is awesome! I agree! And the colours are looking good too. Looking forward to the finished version. One thing though: the animal it's attacking looks a bit too much like Iguanodon, which lived somewhat later (Torvosaurus was Late Jurassic). A suitable contemporary dinosaur would be Camptosaurus, which was more primitive, having four toes and fingers that were able to spread. |
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Post by zopteryx on May 5, 2011 0:37:50 GMT
The deatil on these is fantastic and I like how you did the tail on the mosasaur.
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Post by arioch on May 5, 2011 0:55:53 GMT
Is a "generic" iguanodontid. Like the one being eated by Mapusaurus. I wasnt sure about Iguanodon coexisting with Torvo, so you can think in this one like a transition form between Camptosaurus and Iguanodon...or maybe I can transform it in Camptosaurus, but wasn´t it quite small, specially compared to this predator? The truth is this old images of megalosaur attacking Iguanodon are too charming for me to not make a remake of it. ;D What about the mosasaur ? is the shark tail theory still valid?  I know it was last year but who knows... |
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Post by Horridus on May 5, 2011 1:22:14 GMT
You could make it a hypothetical ornithopod, but I'd make it a bit more primitive. Maybe give it 4 toes and separated fingers like Camptosaurus. I'd also re-orientate the right arm so it's more like the left (palm facing in).
Also, tail's fine on the mosasaur.
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Post by arioch on May 5, 2011 2:48:08 GMT
Ok, I´ll go for it. Meanwhile this is what I´ve done with the mosasaur.:  |
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Post by Blade-of-the-Moon on May 5, 2011 4:11:51 GMT
That mosa has to be one of your best pieces so far..even the black and white looked good !
Could you make it larger so it takes up more of the green " sea" area ?
..and I have to say it..the Torvo looks to be " mounting " his prey..lol
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Post by Griffin on May 5, 2011 4:50:11 GMT
Mosasaurus came out awesome. It did have a fluke but I think it looks a little too jagged. I dunno maybe its just me but I feel it would look a lot better if it was rounded out a little more.
About the torvosaurus' meal. Anything from the late jurassic in north america will do. So I guess Morrison formation. So think camptosaurus for ornithopods also Stegosaurus, Apatodaurus, Diplodocus, Barosaurus, Camarasaurus....they were all probably on the menu.
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Post by arioch on May 5, 2011 5:50:04 GMT
Yep, and I bet even allosaurids could go into the menu. ;D You´re right, the chest and body in general should be a bit more rounded. Maybe the shark tail unconsciously conditioned me to shape him similar to Metriorhynchus too. It was when I started painting it that I noticed it. How flexible was the body of this animals, anyway? recent research suggest that in fact they swimmed like sharks do, and you dont need lot of flexibility for that. So maybe if they try to bend over themselves they could look a bit "broken" like in this case. Blade, I guess I could enlarge it, but maybe later, for the moment I was making the sea looks more like a sea.  (There were even jellyfishes in the cretaceous? Id better keep the previous version lol) |
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Post by arioch on May 5, 2011 12:18:01 GMT
Oh, today I did something funny. I titled it: "Well, could have gone worse." |
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I know it was last year but who knows...