Saturday, July 4, 2015

The Biggest Americans

In honor of the 4th of July, here's a drawing I did about a year ago of the United States' biggest and best-known sauropods. It currently hangs on the wall my desk is propped up against, along with a few other drawings and memorabilia (hence the color wheel penetrating the photo):


1) Alamosaurus
2) Brachiosaurus
3) Sauroposeidon
4) Camarasaurus
5) Diplodocus
6) Apatosaurus

Some of the sauropods recreated here (notably the Alamosaurus and Apatosaurus) were drawn directly from skeletal mounts. Hence, I'm happiest with how those sauropods turned out in a piece that otherwise doesn't come together all that well. The Camarasaurus is too large and the Diplodocus too small, while my color choices here and there were a bit suspect. Also, about a month after completing this piece, I learned that Sauroposeidon is now regarded as a titanosaur, meaning it would have looked more like Alamosaurus than Brachiosaurus.

The hardest part of this drawing was the two brachiosaurs, since there's really only one reliable giant brachiosaur mount in the world (that being the Giraffatitan skeleton at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin). I made another attempt to capture Brachiosaurus about a month ago in my sketchbook, basing my reconstruction of the mount in front of the Field Museum in Chicago, believed to have been a subadult. I'm a lot happier with the results.


Head and neck profile.

Skull and full profile.

Happy Independence Day!

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