Ah ha! Now we are getting closer to the core of the psychology of why I do palaeo-illustrations. These drawings are ones I did on the front inside cover of my binder folder that I use to take notes from my lectures. I've had it since I was in grade eight but I was drawing in my lesson notebooks back then. My grade nine maths book is basically an alphabetical treatise on Diallonyx! But that is probably a story for another day if someone wants to hear it.
When I started to go to university I had no lecture books but I do have binder refill paper, which many of my scribblings on ruled paper have been done on. The inside of the folder had a plain white paper liner. Now that blank whiteness was just too tempting, so naturally it has been covered in drawings! Most of these were done during 2006-2007 and generally I guess you could say that it tells the tale of the relationship between Psycorn and Diallonyx. You could say that Psycorn is a Dragon but that is not really an accurate description for what he is. He is a being composed of plasma, super-heated gas. Pure energy. Hence they are often known as "plasma beings." Plasma beings are very ancient and most believe that they have been around since the Big Bang itself. They are also very insecure because they don't have a well defined barrier between themselves and external reality like we do. They don't have cell walls or skin. For this reason they often hide in planets so their energy doesn't dissipate so easily. The plasma being that took up residence in Earth underwent massive trauma when a foreign body approximately the size of Mars collided with the earth 4 billion years ago. The earth was blasted to pieces and when it reformed it had a moon. The plasma being was also split into pieces that took up residence in different parts of the planet. Here they started to feel threatened by the presence of each other and started to fight because each thought the other was trying to steal its energy. After some time they discovered the uses of genetic modification and started to manipulate animals to fight each other with. The Diallonyx melanofelis species complex is the animal that Psycorn toys around with. Prodraco reddiegoniensis is the plaything of Flickertongue, the other major plasma being in the Reswobian universe (not pictured here).
On the bottom of the page is the dicynodont, Kannemeyeria. Dicynodonts were therapsids or mammal-like reptiles that lived during the Permian and Triassic Periods, a time span between 298 and 205 million years ago. The name dicynodont means "two-dog-teeth." This comes from one of their defining features which is what resembles a pair of fangs on the upper jaw in the position canines would be on a dog. In this case they were on either side of a beak. They are believed to be herbivores and the "canines" or tusks were used to root around for tubers or other subterreanean plant foods. They could have also been used for fighting or defense against predators. Kannemeyeria has been found in South Africa, Argentina and India and in 1985 a quadrate bone was recovered from the early Triassic Arcadia Formation of south-east Queensland showing features similar to Kannemeyeria. This is truly a Gondwanan genus. :-) I find the therapsid body plan a bit akcward to draw at the moment. Their stance is semi-sprawled and they have rather peculiar shoulder pectoral girdles that I can't quite figure out yet. I need to do more research on these animals.
In the bottom left hand corner you can see the skeleton of a therapod dinosaur. This is the framework over which I reconstruct the animal.
This is the back of the folder's inner cover. It is really a lot of random thoughts with a small Dromornis that you can see in the left hand side of the picture. On the far right is the framework of a Diallonyx that I didn't complete because I wasn't happy with it. The legs felt wrong to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment