Sam Santala - Concept Artist | Illustrator

Because there are simply so many creature studies I'm creating for this course, I've decided to filter down the number of those studies that I'll put onto my blog. For this post I'll briefly sum up the two weeks worth of topics. Firstly there was the dog/dinosaur studies. As I said from the last post, dinosaurs come in two varieties (bird-hipped and lizard hipped). That week was all about studying another mammal, and combining it with the bird-hipped dino that my previous study didn't cover. Below are the studies and final product: This combination turned out quite well I think! Taking the thin aspects of the Russian wolfhound and combining it with th4e relatively stocky Parasaurolophus was quite the challenge though. --- And for the following week was about ungulates (animals that walk on the tips of their toes) and combining those. I could have chosen any two ungulates, but I chose a Shire horse and Dorset Down sheep because I knew they ...

During this weeks lesson I spent my time studying birds and their ancient ancestors, Theropods. I had taken a while to really try and understand how the anatomy of birds can be traced back down the evolutionary tree and so did detailed studies of examples of both, making notes as I went. As you can see I studied bones, muscles, posture, and wingspans. It definitely revealed a lot about how theropods transitioned into the birds we see today. Here's a closer look at some of my notes: Unfortunately I couldn't find the species of the deceased bird I was referencing In the image for the theropod you'll notice how I've highlighted the pelvis of the creature. This is because this is what defines a theropod as it is 'lizard-hipped., This is to create a stronger support for it's leg muscles. As opposed to 'bird-hipped' dinosaurs such as the triceratops, who have closer hips to allow for more digestive tracks to break down the large amounts of  ve...