Magyarosaurus & Hatzegotperyx (preparatory sketches)

I've been pretty lazy with my blog updates over the past few months, mainly due to work commitments. Plus, I've been looking for a new subject to paint that I can really get my teeth into. This scene depicting a small herd of Magyarosaurus fending off a curious Hatzegopteryx may not be ground-breakingly original in terms of subject matter, but I do feel it's pretty unfair that the poor Magyarosaurs are always shown getting bullied by the much bigger Hatzegopteryx. For this painting, I wanted to show the plucky little saltasaurs showing a united front against their antagonist, just to show a different side of the relationship between these two.

Tyrannosaurus rex

Copyright A V S Turner 2012

With recent discoveries (not least Yutyrannus huali), it seems the evidence that even large therapods were feathered is piling up to the extent that we palaeo-artists must start thinking about redrawing a whole load of our previous images! Following recent discussions with several like-minded artists, I am now pretty convinced that in the next ten to fifteen years, we will find it more and more frightful to look upon bare-skinned therapoda. So, to save redrawing the next ten years' work all over again, I am starting to treat feathers as my default integuement for all therapods, unless hard fossil evidence demonstrates otherwise. I realise this breaks my sacrosanct 'Third-rule' of Palaeo-art: 'Thou shalt not draw something there's no evidence for'. But in accordance with my 'First-rule'; 'Thou shalt only depict well-known species if thou canst demonstrate new ideas about them', I think this is allowable (naughty wink!).
This quick Tyrannosaurus rex study is not a bad starting point and will form the basis of my next major painting. I have used both birds of prey and Grey Wolves as inspiration for the feather distribution and markings.

Iguanodon bernissartensis

Copyright A V S Turner 2012

Iguanodon bernissartensis: Early Cretaceous (Barremian - Aptian), Belgium. One of the classic examples of the genus, which has experienced considerable taxonomic rearrangement in recent years. I. bernissartensis remains the measure against which all Iguanodon are measured. Ardeosaurus in the foreground.

I've been working on and off on this digital painting for about a year now & I'm relieved to say it's finally done! Iguanodons and Hadrosaurs are by far my favourite dinosaur subjects from a personal perspective, but I am happy to finally be able to put these two to bed after so many months of simply not having the spare time to work on them. I. bernissartensis is by no means a recent discovery, but well-deserving of its place in this palaeo-artist's 'bucket list' of desirable subjects!

Have I learned any special lessons from executing this particular painting? Yes: When contemplating the environment you're going to stick your subjects in, avoid bloody ferns at any cost!