AnonymousLlama428

Ugh, I spent far too much time making this, I wanna make more stuff this summer. Yeah, this is the WIP you saw weeks ago: www.deviantart.com/anonymousll…

It is late autumn, and while there is no frost yet present, it is visibly cold, and the grass has lost its green. The willow shrubs have shed their leaves, and retain only their woody branches.

We meet with Indigirka, our young cave lioness (Panthera spelaea spelaea). In a small hollow formed from the collapsing sediments in the Uyandina river, Indigirka has sought shelter, where she has successfully given birth to two small cubs, Uyan and Dina.

However, her inexperience will get the best of her, for her den is built from very unstable sediment, and is very prone to collapse like how it was first exposed. This is not a place for a lioness to hide her cubs.

As I found out about a month ago, Protopopov et al. finally published an informative abstract + information chart, on the preliminary analyses of the frozen cave lion cubs, i.e. measurements, appearance, age, cause of death, and so forth for SVP 2016:

The most complete cub, Uyan, weighed about 2.8kg, substantially more that what African lion cubs weigh (up to 2.1kg). No surprises there, they were larger in general anyway.

Appearance-wise, we know that the cubs had very small ears and a shorter tail as compared to African lion cubs, likely as an adaptation to the cold. They also had larger paws than them, possibly as snowshoe feet, but the exact function is uncertain at the moment.

In terms of pelage patterns, their coat was remarkably plain, bar a few spots atop the head. The cubs seemed to have lacked countershading, as their body was of a yellowish light brown colour both dorsally and ventrally, and there was no dorsal stripe as is seen in African lion cubs + adults. Their limbs were a darker shade of brown than their body, and there was some dark fur on the chin and around the mouth.

Their deformations likely point to them being killed swiftly by the collapse of their den, rather than by slow suffocation or hypothermia.

The lioness is meant to be a young one, 2-3 years of age, around the age African lionesses first have cubs. I used the most complete cave lion skeleton to date, the Srbsko-Chlum lioness, as a reference for the proportions of this lioness (as shown in the WIP) (sta.sh/0255xprx3um1), which is also a young lioness around 2-3 years of age at the time of death. In addition the Peștera Urșilor lioness skull was used loosely as reference.

Yeah, I took a long while in adding texture to the dirt. At first I just used specialised brushes, but I then moved on to stipple with the normal roundtip brush for shading and lighting. The roots above were initially supposed to be straw-coloured, but after turning the layer mode to luminosity, the colour looked more satisfying. The same was true for the "fossilised" grass, but I adjusted the hue to a redder one which I found more suitable. The bundles of grass in the wall are supposed to be ancient deceased arctic ground squirrel nests.

Random mammoth tusk sticking out of the exposed bank sediment.

And yeah the river is pretty poorly done, water isn't my strength.

A birthday present for a fellow KAYV LAYANist of mine, . HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! 

Somewhere around the Caspian sea area of the Novacene (25-30 myf) of Central Asia, a lone inexperienced adolescent male Bisondorcas musculus ventures from the steppe into some sparse woodland by the shores of a river/lake to take a drink. As he lowers his head into the water to quench himself, a great fish - a giant crocodilepike (Crocesox giganteum) erupts from the water and bites hard onto the Bisondorcas's head. The prey struggles, to pull away, but the fish's jaws are clamped firmly around the animal's head, and its great horns are rendered useless to defend itself. The crocodilepike uses its immense power to pull the great ungulate into the water, and the herbivore resists, but he will not be able to do so for very long against a predator of this size.

Bisondorcas musculus is a bison-like ungulate derived from modern boselaphine antelope.

I used Nilgai color scheme for it, with a browner dorsum to signify its immaturity. Also, hence why its horns are grey and not white like in the bison.

The giant crocodilepike (Crocesox giganteum) is a large, 4-5m long pike, apparently derived from the modern varieties, from whom I derived the color scheme. I think the fins should be a bit darker and have visible bones/striations.

Yeah, the angle in the piece is a bit awkward.

I added some random green moss on the forest floor.

I think I did the water OK, at least with the splashes, but I think I should add more waves and drop shock-waves in the water though/