u/KING_DOEBOI

The images of the model of course, in Tpose as well as posed since I have it rigged. Got 2 of my concept arts that were used. And then lastly I have a few reference images, marsupial Pteradactylus reconstructions, “generic brown bird”, and I also used the Benjamin Waterhouse Crystal Palace statues to inspire it as well.

Don’t know why but I really wanted this guy to be my first model I made, they would be filling a similar niche to birds, constantly being seen fluttering about or perching in trees. They of course can walk around but prefer to land in the safety of tree branches when not grabbing food or water.

It does have a beak, but its feathering covers the entire structure of the snout. Small whiskers on the face aid its keen senses. Soft tissue structures funnel sound towards the reptilian ears, not the only example of external “mammalian” ear structures developing in archosaurs.

Outside of the ears, it’s pretty much an accurate Pteradactylus actually. Hopefully I’m not biting myself too much with inconsistencies between critter designs for this setting.

Wanted to go for a low poly feel…. I learned that I’m pretty bad at sticking to low poly count. Managed to keep it under control as best I could though, so enjoy my “mid-poly” style from here on out.

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Definitely feel like my second model is gonna be way more divisive as it’s way more out there and leans more into the modern animal inspiration as opposed to retro dinosaurs. It’s (not very well) hidden in one of my concept arts. Any guesses as to what my first actual dinosaur is?

I do think this guy is cool and he turned out well, he’s just missing something.

We have a pretty standard prionosuchus, then I added in influence from neotenous salamanders like the Axolotl (a modern element) and even something fantastical in the form of hagfish slime. Where I have a problem with my design is that I didn’t really give it anything to make the design reference any vintage or outdated reconstructions or ideas.

One thing I do like though is my idea that there are no aquatic crocodilians in this setting, or at least they’re very rare. Both spinosaurs and amphibians have usurped those niches and left only land based pseudosuchians that have descended from aquatic ancestors.

While these guys are neotenous, the hatchlings will be very similar to their adult forms. However, the Koolasuchus would undergo a radically change when going from “tadpole” to adult.

Amphibians are just underutilized in paleomedia.

I almost always want to include the earliest dinosaurs, however other creatures tend to take priority when I’m designing them over Megalosaurus, Iguanodon, Hylaeosaurus and Cetiosaurus.

But I had ideas I wanted to explore with Iguanodon so that motivated me to get it done. Plus I was already working on ornithopods at the time.

Iguanodon has a really good execution of my design principles I tend to follow with these dinosaur designs. Starting with the real, up to date reconstruction of the animal as a base, how can I add modern animal influences, outdated elements or fantasy elements in order to make an appealing and unique take on the animal?

Obviously the iguanodon has the horn, back spikes and quadrupedal stances that bring to mind the Waterhouse reconstruction, but the tail, colorations and the spikes are all taken from actual iguanas. My hope was to make an animal that wouldn’t hesitate to punch anything that angered it. And I think the design reads as very dangerous.

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Inspired by Monster Hunter, I decided that my creatures in this setting would have “variants”. While I haven’t decided exactly what makes a variant and variant, whether that’s a species within the same genus, a subspecies, or other factors, or even all of the above, I finally decided to show one off.

The “Tidal Iguanodon” is based on marine iguanas. Applying those elements to the original iguanodon as a base. Changes were made such as shorter limbs, a bulkier neck and overall thicker proportions. Adding in a gecko-inspired tail that acts as water storage completed the density inspired look.

Obviously it’s also flavored after Lurdusaurus (which means “heavy lizard”)

Growing up, there’s were a few times dinosaurs were shown in school to us. Despite it being the late 00s and early 2010s, they were very outdated. The duckbilled dinosaurs were usually called Anatotitan.

This name has become a personal favorite of mine, if I’m making something inspired by carnivores and want a huge hadrosaur, it’s gonna be Anatotitan.

I debated including the crest from Edmontosaurus regalis, but decided against that as it not only added to the duck like appearance but also made the Anatotitan stand out among the other ornithopods even more. That’s one of the reasons I decided to make it bipedal as well.

I normally hate bipedal ornithopod designs. The ones that were irl are fine like Zalmoxes, but taking something like a Parasaur and making it walk upright most of the time feels so off. (I blame the JP3 corythosaurus)

The outdated inspirations are apparent not only in name and posture, but also in the water loving nature.

Modern animal inspirations are obviously from that of a mallard duck.

I always prefer choosing Anatotitan over Shantungosaurus or Zhuchengosaurus. This animal is probably the largest non-sauropod in this setting.

Been struggling with art block but I’ve been sitting on these guys for a bit

My main issue with this batch is a lack of consistency, some like the allosaur and fasola look nothing like their irl counterparts, meanwhile others like the styracosaurs are barely off from how they looked in prehistory outside of surface level details

I personally really want this setting to include mammals too, coexisting with and being just as monstrous (though rarer) than the dinosaurs/pterosaurs/and others you might expect

I’m pretty happy with my ideas for the fasola (it needs refinement), basing it on the ark creature submission concept by RiskyBiscuit as well as the 65 movie Quad-rex and the Rhedosaurus made it feel appropriately monstrous. Jonkeria is good, very much based on Dodogama and Great Jagras (I’ve nicknamed it the “Great Moschops”)

My sketches are from a little over a week ago, decided to take a more out there approach with my designs because I started getting into Monster Hunter again recently.

My terror bird is pretty bad ngl.

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Second set of images is from a blender model I’ve been working on, I’m calling it “deinonychus” for now because of its inspirations pulling from retro deinonychus head and neck reconstructions. It looks naked and that’s because it kinda is, it was gonna have feathers but I’m putting fighting feathers on hold for now.
The other reasoning behind the name is a play on the Jurassic park Novel, while the skull shape I gave it is much closer to that of velociraptor, I did the reverse of Jurassic park and gave the “deinonychus” name to the “wrong animal”

You can’t really see it in the photos but he has gecko pads on his fingers and toes. Those filaments you see on the throat and hips are integuments inspired by Todd Marshall’s paleoart.

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And finally I have one that I worked on the other night. “Parasaurolophus”. Despite being a massive animal irl, Parasaurs rarely get respect in any media (this goes for all hadrosaurs). The obvious solution is to make a living train of a dinosaur.

Inspired by the fire breathing Parasaur meme, the crest is modified to release smoke from the body’s unstable flame organ. (Many of these creatures may have similar organs). Venting heat, especially during charges can lead to smoke bellowing and whistle-like sounds escaping.

When especially enraged, the Parasaurolophus can release smoke that gets so hot, it can flashover and combust, the smoke ignition leading to flames being shot from the snout.

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Obviously a lot of these are still works in progress, I just felt like sharing