While raptors are my namesake and all, the armored dinosaurs are an extremely close second. Maybe if I'd had an Ankylosaur toy to cherish instead of my Primal Rage Talon action figure, I'd be called Polacanthar or something. (Armadon doesn't count, he was clearly ceratopsian.) Everyone always loved T-Rex; I loved the fact that T-Rex could get knocked toothless by something that didn't really even have to move to do it.
Edmontonia is actually probably my all-time favorite, followed by Euplocephalous, but neither lived in the Early Cretaceous. However, Gastonia did, who was my favorite at the Utah Museum of Prehistoric Life. Sauropelta did, too, and both species appear in Mark of the Conifer. Gastonia has a lot of friggin' spines to study; I'm glad I did like 5 scribbles of him while I had a skeleton to study.
Aside from the fact that this clade suffers from probably the worst "It belongs here! No wait ... here!" arguments, there are a lot of cool theories surrounding the ankylos. Some think they may have had trunks or some other appendage on their noses, because they have such big, complex nasal chambers. I'm also well aware that I took some pretty dynamic liberties with how these things might have moved, but the fact that their armor isn't attached to their skeleton just opens up too many worlds of cool to ignore.
The only things I'll say NOT to reference is the spike patterns. Look at a real skeleton to make sure of how things looked; I was kinda random.
Edmontonia is actually probably my all-time favorite, followed by Euplocephalous, but neither lived in the Early Cretaceous. However, Gastonia did, who was my favorite at the Utah Museum of Prehistoric Life. Sauropelta did, too, and both species appear in Mark of the Conifer. Gastonia has a lot of friggin' spines to study; I'm glad I did like 5 scribbles of him while I had a skeleton to study.
Aside from the fact that this clade suffers from probably the worst "It belongs here! No wait ... here!" arguments, there are a lot of cool theories surrounding the ankylos. Some think they may have had trunks or some other appendage on their noses, because they have such big, complex nasal chambers. I'm also well aware that I took some pretty dynamic liberties with how these things might have moved, but the fact that their armor isn't attached to their skeleton just opens up too many worlds of cool to ignore.
The only things I'll say NOT to reference is the spike patterns. Look at a real skeleton to make sure of how things looked; I was kinda random.
And, I kinda think, since Armadon is a hybrid of a lot of things, that he fits into what he needs to. Really he was the character that covered the most classic, stock dinosaurs that you'd want to get covered. So yeah, I'd say he has some ank in him.
But that's not what we're really talking about here. No, we're talking about Ankylosaurids. Well, yeah, I think the Borealopelta fossil was a super awesome find.
Amazing guide!
One nitpick, though; it's Nodosauridae, not Polacanthidae.
That said, I really enjoyed these tutorials. Good stuff! You an't find such quality resources on dinosaurs everywhere. <3
And odd trivia-I went to an exhibit once where the poor Saichania's knee was mounted backwards. It was painful just to look at, but the sad part was it wasn't the first or the last dinosaur mounted like that.
Anyways, they're both hard and fun to draw!
I had a fun rubber Ank that was bright yellow and orange. My Primal Rage Talon ate him a lot, teehee. So did my JP dinosaurs, but he beat them up first.
I eagerly await your animatic.
You sure know your dino stuff
Oh, and +fav of course, it's really a great tutorial.
(Hope I didn't confuse you with my probably bad grammar. XD)