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.