The Hunt

The Hunt- A pair of Tyrannosaurus rex attack young Edmontosaurus regalis. Pencil, 2012.

Finally I've produced my first piece of paleoart for this year and also the first since September 2011 (wow, that's over half an year!). I'm really busy with other things and don't have any time for drawing but somehow I found a way to sneak it in my schedule. After all I made this drawing as a gift for a colleague and a friend of mine. Since it was kind of rushed I didn't have a lot of time to think about composition or looking for references. Except for the head, Edmontosaurus is not based on any references. Same goes for the rexes. I'm sure there plenty of inaccuracies regarding propotions or anatomy, so please ignore them. I admit that the background needs a lot of reworking too (another problem is that it's not very imaginative). For the cranial anatomy and head's perspective of the depicted animals Greg Paul's Dinosaur Field Guide (2010) was referenced.

What makes me happy about this drawing is that I drew the rexes with feathers (or protofeathers if you like). When I gave the drawing to my friend I told her that the appearance of the animals is based on the current understanding of dinosaurs, although some aspects of the anatomy are stretching the known facts a little. For a few years I've been convinced that T. rex had feathers most probably over discrete parts of it's body. I never reconstructed it that way though. Now, I've finally reconstructed it with feathers completely unawared of the discovery of Yutyrannus. You can image what was my surprise when I got home, opened DA and saw about a dozen of artworks showing newly described 9 meters long tyrannosaurid with confirmed feathers! It was proven to me once again that using common sense when interpreting the facts makes today's educated guess tomorrow's reality.

In the light of the discovery of Yutyrannus I want to say that any comments on the feathers on T. rex in my drawing by anti-feathered dinosaur fanboys, JP fanboys, creationists, BANDits, MANIACs, etc. will be ignored, hidden or if needed, reported as spam. I don't have time to argue with windmills. If you can put your anti-feathered dinosaur arguments into reasonable phylogenetic context fine, I would not mind such comments though I can't promise I'll be able to reply to them. If you can't, well you're warned.