My constant companion

I did this drawing in 2011 when I was writing my Honours thesis: ,

It actually took me two years to complete because of my workload. Honours was a torturous time for me. The only thing that drove me forward was my dreams and aspirations. Drawing is the process by which I consolidate wh I am. The drawing is a process of my being. This was not being respected during my time in Sydney and this is the major reason why I am not living there. Aquiline is my alter ego and in this life, which has been a solitary psychic struggle until quite recently, Aquiline is my inner shadow self, a large part of my spirit. When I draw Aquiline I feel what it is like to be Aquiline. I feel the power in his muscles and the fluidity of his movement. His body taut like a coiled spring and ready for action, is pelt glimmering and metallic like flowing thick water. Aquiline's eyes are forever watchful, missing nothing inthe darkness in the void that is the underbelly of human nature, and challenging what is dangerous with their firey crimson hue. I feel unity and harmony within myself. I kept looking at this drawing regularly to remind myself of my personal power and that no-one could beat me into submission or make me become anything that was not true to my nature. I gave the original away but I did scan it before doing so. I printed out a copy and pinned it to a kitchen cupboard. In the morning it looks really awesome because I made kitchen curtains out of shock which is an aquamarine colour with a yellow metallic sheen. During this time,the kitchen is bathed in the colour and energy of Aquiline. It feels good to see that my psychic self has a physical expression, a space were it can be visible without having to fight for the right to be.

Various Images of Aquiline

I know that Aquiline has not much to do with pure palao-illustration but this is my reality. I got into palao-illustration because of my alter-ego called Aquiline. I wanted to create a world for him and it has to be believeable. Also, I think this is a great opportunity to boost public awareness of Australian palaeontology! :-) I think people are smart enough to tease apart mythology and truth. Afterall humanity has always needed a legend to make sense of reality. Aquilin is an Imperial Diallonyx (Diallonyx melanofelis imperialis). Being what he is, his relationship with Reddiegonians and the Kadimakara which are the extinct animals of Australia are quite complicated. For every palaeo-illustration I might do nine drawings of Aquiline.

The two drawings above show Aquiline with Rose, the person I am roleplaying with on My Space (http://www.myspace.com/mistyvaleintheforest). The uppermost image is of Aquiline sitting on a rock. I could not concentrate on it so much because I was really supposed to be studying for that Environmental geology exam. I was really focused on how the claws would grip the rock. I was full of tension that day and this is how I release it. I've had a brainwave lately and figured out how the phalanges are positioned under the flesh of the paws. I think it's actually quite similar to possums. The one below that shows Aquiline taking off. He has wings that are quite like swift's wings. At rest they are housed in pouches whose intterior is located in a different dimension. That is why they are not visible when a Diallonyx is on the ground.




These are various pictures of Aquiline's face. It can be difficult to draw him because his face can so easily look vicious but yet there has to be a hint of kindness to him. I suppose the best place to put this is in the eyes. Here you can also see a little picture of the head of a Muttaburrasaurus langdoni. I really like this animal, I think it has equine grace. I look forward to working on it more. You can also see the skeleton of a drawing of a person on the left.



Here I was trying to illustrate the very odd shape of a Nothosaurus to a friend. I could not really remember it well and I've put the wrong number of temporal holes in it's skull. I didn't have any reference at the time, I was on an Environemental geology field trip. That was the most depressing trip I went to. We went to the Strahan and saw the King River delta. It was totally dead. There was no sign of life anywhere and it was totally silent. Everything had been killed by the toxic acid mine drainage and the entire area was covered in a moonscape of tailings orange due to the rusting of iron. There was not even a single bird call or a scrap of algae. n some places an unknown white substance oozed out of the ground like pus from a wound on the face of the Earth. I really hated that subject.

In this picture, on the right, you can also see a top view of Aquiline's head comeplete with his whiskers.

My Lecture Folder Scribbles

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.

The Zoology Practical Book Cover-The Back

This is the back cover of the zoology practical book. The front cover was the subject of the previous post.

At the top of the image are two dinosaurs from early Cretaceous Australia (135-107 mya, I know I made a mistake in the actual drawing). The Mesozoic fossil record in Australia is rather poor. Most of the remains exist as isolated scraps of bone and are often the preserved after travelling in a fluvial system for some time. Thus they have often been rounded and disarticulated by the actions of running water. This is true of Lightning Ridge which is a deposit that records rivers following into the sea. Hence these dinosaurs are very speculative, but hey I can dream, can't I? :-) For reference I had a look at Gregory S. Paul's Predatory Dinosaurs of the World which not only has reconstructions but good drawings of dinosaur skeletons.

Rapator ornitholestoides is known from a single metacarpel preserved in opal. It was about 9 metres long and might have looked like a lightly built Allosaurus. It's specific name, ornitholestoides, means "like Ornitholestes." Ornitholestes hermanni was described in 1903 and is still only known only from one complete skeleton found in the Bone Cabin Site of Wyoming. Ornitholestes and Rapator share an elongated posteromedial process, which is a peculiar trait suggesting that these animals could have been related. Hence, this reconstruction has been modelled on Ornitholestes. The metacarpal is not only larger than that of it's possible American relative, but is also more robust. To convey this idea I added greater depth to the head of Rapator. The nasal bones of Ornitholeste have been a source of some contention, with some people believing that they are the broken bases of a nasal crest as seen in Proceratosaurus and others thinking that the nasal bones are either displaced or the products of post-depositional deformation. For this reconstruction, Ii decided to let myself go on a flight of fancy and added a nasal horn. I have coloured it bright yellow and red because it might have been used as a sexual display . I have also given it darker skin around on the lips and around the eye because they can give better contrast to the teeth. The eyes may also look more expressive. You can see black gums on wolves in which this contrast is used to intimidated other wolves when the teeth are bared. The rest of the body is a mottled green and brown to serve as camouflage when the animals is hunting. Since no more complete remains have been recovered to date there is continued discussion as to the true lineage of this dinosaur. There are other theories suggesting that it might be a giant Alvarezsaurid and Steve Sailisbury now believes it may be related to Nqwebasaurus, a basal coelurosaur from South Africa.

Kakaru kujani is known from a single tibia preserved in opal recovered from Andamooka in South Australia. In the scientific community only a cast is available for study because the original fossil was sold by an opal dealer. The tibia is slender and resembles that of a wader bird. It is similar to Avimimus but has facets for the astragulus (ankle bone) that are unique and it could represent a completely new lineage of dinosaurs. For this reconstruction I have used Avimimus as a model and I have made the bill deep and brightly coloured as in puffins which use their deep beaks for colourful sexual displays. I put the dark ban through it to break up the contours of the beak, as in what stripes do for zebras. It might lend a bit of camouflage. On top of the head are feathers that make up a crest. These only have filaments on the tips, as in a peacock's crest.

Below is my alter-ego, Aquiline the Imperial Diallonyx with a Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) sitting on his back. The Tasmanian Tiger has only been extinct since the 1930's and some people still believe (or want to believe) that it still roams the wilds of Tasmania. It was a remarkable case of convergent evolution and this animal took very strongly after wolves or dogs. However, it was always thought to be a solitary hunter and was the size of a German Shepard Dog. It descended from hopping ancestors and still retained the stiff back of fused vertebrae in the lower back. Note that the thylacine can see it's own reflection Aquiline's coat. The coat of the Diallonyx is has a metallic sheen to it due to silver compounds in the fur. Hence it can operate like a mirror.