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ShinyAquaBlueRibbon — Raptor Anatomy and Perspective Tutorial
Published: 2011-12-05 03:11:52 +0000 UTC; Views: 20485; Favourites: 613; Downloads: 258
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Another Edit: I'm starting to draw feathery raptors, I'm just trying to figure out the REST of the dromaeosaur anatomy now... beaks? Dunno. Angle of the thigh bone? I'm working on it. (Halp plz?) Everything I said before, however, still stands. My opinion ain't yours. o3o;Edit: I don't know how the tiny phrase "I don't like feathers" started such a firestorm and a little bit of hate, but...just so you know... I'm not a scientist. I'm an artist with an interest in dinosaurs. You could say I'm a Creationist by default because I'm a Christian, which means it just describes my beliefs in that area because I believe what the Bible says. (Oh dear please no comment firestorms from that one. Just a statement.) So... if my itty bitty statement about what I prefer disturbs you so much, um.... go write in a journal or rant or something.
Sorry you feel that way. If one day I see large raptor fossils with feathers, I'll draw them with feathers. (Link me if you find any.)[End Edit]Tee hee.
wanted to know more about raptors and perspective, thus it was easier to make a tutorial rather than explain it. Ta dee!!
Wild shrieking and pointing to two other pieces in my gallery:
fav.me/d90qkrm
fav.me/d6gx3op
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Comments: 136
Oh, so not actually a ramphotheca? That makes sense... because I heard that a beak and teeth wouldn't work at the same time, so scales or cornified skin sounds like it would work better...
And I like that you can't see any fenestra on your Concavenator. He is nice and well-fed. ;D
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no SCALES! NO SCALES! THAT HAS BEEN LONG DISPROVEN!
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You didn't read the description, didja?
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It's a joke... didn't you realize that i used the caps lock? XD
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Sorry, I've gotten so many actual hate messages about it that I can't tell what isn't anymore
Glad you're joking ha!
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Hehe don't worry. So annoying that People tend not to look at how old some paleoart is...
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I agree on the no feathers thing. I grew up on Jurassic Park, too. And I have to say, I'm sorry to see that the "zombie hands" was wrong, cause I liked how that looked so much better.... but oh well.
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Not Discuss this and had feathers or did not, I was thinking that if someone wants to just let it draw draw and not picking up their construction and had feathers or not
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Ahaha, i grew up on Jurassic Park too and i personally hate the feathers as well
And they're so damn hard to draw
Thanks for the tut. I'll be using it when i get a little better at drawing c:
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Thank you so much for reading my tutorial!!!
I've just decided to take being born the year Jurassic Park came out as a sign..... XD
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Well of course XD
The movie's been out much longer than ive been alive, but its defiantly one of my favorites. I own 1 and 2 on tape. Trying to find 3 Dx
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Okay guys you don't have to agree with her, but for god's sake don't be so rude?
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Well...
A)I grew up on Jurassic Park
B)I have no idea what the heck raptors are. XD I would like to believe the Birds-are-not-dinosaurs thing in that "if it has true avian feathers and true avian wings, it's a bird," but I'm stumped by dromaeosaurs' long tails.
D8
I also am *cough*acreationist*cough* so I don't believe that a reptile could slowly, gradually turn into a bird. (Mainly after reading Darwin's Black Box)
In other words, I might draw them with feathers or without. XD I'm just confused on what raptors are. I'd love to know if they're reptile-like birds or bird-like reptiles, really.
LOL SORRY FOR THE LONG ANSWER
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I grew up on Jurassic Park too, but it always annoyed me how the raptors didn't have feathers. And their tails were all wrong. And their heads. And etc.
You mean the book by Behe? Heard about it in High School and thought it was the silliest thing I'd ever read. He misrepresented Darwin's views and works, and Behe’s book was nothing but fallacious arguments and fallacious analogies. A mousetrap can work well enough with all the parts nailed into the floor, not into a mobile base, and that type of jury-rigging is exactly what we see in nature: our bodies suffer a poor design because of the jury-rigging of evolution. (As an example, I have myopia and suffer problems with my wisdom teeth).
Anyways, it was long thought Velociraptors would most likely have feathers, because of their bird-like traits and later because more basal forms were found to have feathers, and it was later confirmed when quill knobs were discovered on a Velociraptor forearm. Raptors are what laymen describe as a "missing link" in that they exhibit traits of reptiles AND birds, but they are most closely related to birds than any reptiles found today.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathere…
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Most scientists think dinosaurs originally evolved wing-like feathers for display, then small dinosaurs used their wings for gliding, like Archaeopteryx and eventually evolved into birds. Dromaeosaurs probably branched off from birds after they evolved wings but before they lost their long tails.
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Fruck science and scientist's !
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It's not their fault, they just found the evidence.
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How would they know? They saw the living Velociraptor
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No, but they found the fossilized remains of a Velociraptor with the quill knobs that anchor its wing feathers.
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It does not confirm that he had feathers on 100% huh?
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Yes it does actually, not to mention that its close relatives Microraptor, Sinornithosaurus, Anchiornis, Jinfengopteryx, and Eosinopteryx have been found with distinct impressions of feathers.
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After searching the internet I came to the conclusion that only had feathers on the tail or on the head and back.
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Probably not; many coelurosaurs, including deinonychosaurs, have been found completely feathered.
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Really?So Deinonychus was a bird?
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Depends on your definition of bird, but it had a feather-covered body, wing plumes, and may have evolved from an airborne ancestor.
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I guess you could say that's how a dromaeosaur would look.
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So Microraptor would be a dromaeosaur instead of a bird, and Archaeopteryx would... also be a dromaeosaur? Because of its tail? I think?
XD LOL, sorry. I appreciate your comment, by the way! It is helpful. :3
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[link] This might help further. Shows more on gradual gains of feathers and losses of tail.
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Archaeopteryx is considered to be closer to birds than to big raptors, and Microraptor is closer to big raptors than to birds. Glad I could help.
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A creationist? I feel sorry for you.
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By the way, I have studied to come to the conclusion of what I believe.
I am still learning, so I don't know all the facts, but I believe what I do for a reason. 
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Pfft! Studied what? The book of fairy tales you call the Bible?
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Since the Bible isn't about the phylogenies of animals, evolution, or science, I studied a book about evolutionary molecular biology. It had very good examples and was written in a very objective way. I loved it because it used real scientific facts and studies instead of conjectures.
If you want to know why I believe that Darwinian evolution is impossible (but I completely believe in micro-evolution), then I do recommend "Darwin's Black Box" by Michael J. Behe. It basically explains that Darwin, though he had a fantastic theory, lived in the age before cells were discovered. That was his "black box", the thing he didn't know existed. When cells, microcellular structures, and molecules were discovered, it became evident that random, gradual changes to the DNA/organism would have had to accomplish nothing short of a miracle (or several million miracles) to become something useful or even helpful.
I didn't just make it up or go with the Creationist literature on the internet. I was tired of conjecture and theories, so I went for hard facts.
LOL SORRY FOR THE LONG ANSWER AGAIN. XD
And I'm not trying to sound high on myself or anything--I was just fed up with being confused.
Thanks for listening!
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PS: Don't worry, wvwn thought I disagree, I still respect your point of view, I just like debate.
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First of... I really don't understand what being a creationist has to do with raptors not having feathers, I mean, creationism pretty much says that every animal was originated the way it is so... Why couldn't the raptors simply being originated with feathers?
And still, my biggest problem with creationism is... If no animal has ever evolved... Then what happened to all those animals we pressumed evolved? They went extinct? Why? And how did we appear all of a sudden?
Still, I see your belief is based off in an actual reasonable book and not just any religious belief, sort of a relief, but anyway.
The thing is... I don't know what does "Darwing's black box" talk about, but if it's debating Darwin's theory and just his own, then I got one thing to say.
Darwin was only half right with evolution!
He knew it was there but he didn't knew how, and his explanation of how was proven wrong a long time ago, we have new theory that fits more with actuality.
Besides, it's also kind of strange for how a multicelular creature could appear out of nowhere being complete, even if it's a plant
Still, I'm kind of curious about how you believe we were created, I mean, considaring your base isn't centered on the bible or God, it should be an interesting story (or maybe history) to hear about. (I'd also like to know how does the book explain that we still have a little bit of our old tails in our pelvis or we do we have an useless organ like the appendix.)
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LOL here is my ginormous reply:
Hey, I really appreciate your comment, and your respect for what I think! That’s something I don’t always find.
I would like to first clear up, however, that although I used "Darwin's Black Box" in my reasoning, I am very much a Christian and do base my beliefs first on the Bible. Also, I'm a terrible debater. XD But I'll try to answer your challenges the best I can.
I don’t know if you saw my edit on the description, but I do draw feathered raptors now, and I do believe they could have been made with feathers from the start if God wanted to. However, I still don’t know everything about how animals came into existence or why we have a beautiful line-up of feathery dinosaurs and birds in the fossil record. The thing most people don’t get is that even though I absolutely love dinosaurs and their mystery, I love the one who made them more.
I have found a much more peaceful, purposeful life with the God I read about, and the Bible says simply that God made land animals over a day. It doesn’t say if this is our kind of day, or the with-God-a-thousand-years-is-as-one-day kind of day (II Peter 3:8). If God chose to make animals through evolution, I would be even more amazed at the intricacy of his creation and planning. It’s not about origins for me, it’s about the Maker, even though I still like to see how dinosaurs could have been related to each other.
On your other note, “Darwin’s Black Box” is a logic-based argument in favor of the inter-genus or inter-species evolution, but against the larger-scale millions-of-years evolution, saying that the chances needed for even “simple” structures to evolve are so enormous that there really would have to be billions of years of miracles for us to evolve from single-celled organisms. It’s a good book, but I would recommend former-atheist/evolutionist John Clayton’s “Does God Exist” publication more highly, since he has history with both points of view and isn’t so…wishy-washy I guess…as Michael Behe.
Also, like you, I can’t understand how a multi-cellular organism would pop up out of nowhere on its own. I don’t even know how a single-celled one would come about by itself, or the immense complexity of DNA in a single-celled organism. That’s why I believe someone much, much smarter than me made them. Surely if CHANCE alone could make purely autonomous, self-sustaining organisms, we could too? But so far, no one has made even a simple robot that will keep reproducing and live on its own, while we have billions of organisms doing just that. I don’t think that was an accident.
I believe science and the Bible can live happily together, but the people on both sides get in the way.
-exhale- Okay that was a novel SORRRYYYYYYY XD
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Oh, so there also are religous beliefs backing up your point...
You see, I'm not against the idea of a God existing, I'm not atheist, nor am I a believer, I'm instead agnostic... To me, the existence of god is something that will never be proved unless god himself (or herself... or itself... hell, God might be from a third gender...) does that...
Not even an after life would prove it to me honestly, nor would a definitive death prove that he doesn't either
But the thing is... I just don't see why wouldn't God allow evolution... In fact, about my question before...
Why would God extinct a series of animals to bring up a new kind of them? And even if he's doing that... Wouldn't that be some sort of evolution on it's own?
What I meant to say is, there are many animals with ressemblence to the ones today (which would include humans) that simply dissapeared, like the Australopithecus, who is supposedly one of our ancestors, it's not around anymore... If it didn't evolved into us... What happened to it?
There are still those traits of organs and bone structures we have that doesn't serve any porpuse that were also explained by the fact that those did have a porpuse in an older state of evolution, like that little tail wannabe I mentioned before in our pelvis's.
Also, it is true that evolution does need a really humoungous amount of time to happen, if it didn't, humanity would already be gone and we'd be instead another diferent species, so yeah, have for sure, if evolution did happened, it took a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong amount of time to reach even the simpliest of points
And I don't really think science and the bible can live together, I mean, I'm sure science and religion can! But the bible was already proved wrong many times by science... And I still have problems trusting the bible because... God didn't wrote it... Men did... and wheter they had God's influence when doing so or not is something we just can't know!
So... I guess we can trust the bible as a book of interpretation, reading it's stories only for the morals they want to teach us and not as historical facts, and also I guess that while it's interpretation of history could be wrong, it's interpretation of how and who God is could be perfectly possible.
And hell, Jesus DID exist, if he didn't, then cristianity, regardless of how true or false it may be, wouldn't exist nowadays.
Ok, I'm getting offtrack... The thing is!
I think that if God does exist, he took the routs of evolution, Why? My best guess is... Because it would be the easiest, it's actually like when we humans design! Making many initial sketches of what we want until we get our final versions! sometimes even ditching out some of our previous ideas to start with new ones (Like it would be when the dinosaurs got extinct?) Althought maybe God is more into the art to the point where he'll never have a definitive version... at lest, that's what it appears to be, because evolution hasn't stopped right now.
Or maybe God isn't designing anything and he just decided to give life to a single cell to see what that would end up in eventually, maybe that's why there were so many extintions? Because he wasn't liking some of the results? I don't know!
But anyway, if I didn't convinced you with my arguments, then that's ok, I can't force you my believes, as well as others can't force mine!
(Oh, and don't worry, novels are entertaining!)
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Well since we’re on the topic of the Bible… The difference between what you believe and what I believe, to me, seems to be why we believe it. I don’t believe in the Bible and God because of the profound scientific evidence backing it up. I’m no expert in geology or chronology or history. I believe that God is real because I have seen Him change lives and answer prayers. I have seen the peace knowing Him brings; peace that just doesn’t make sense to other people. People who study it with the intent to disprove it and find out its errors have ended up believers, like John Clayton.
The teachings also make the most sense to me, and seem to be the most beneficial to human kind, in that the teachings are completely selfless.
-Love others
-Put others before yourself
-Stay with the one you married
-Respect authorities
-Follow the laws
-Do not kill
-Give to those who need, and know you’ll have everything you need anyway.
-Don’t steal, etc.
Not a single one of God’s rules break human laws, and none of them cause harm to anyone else. Bad stuff still happens to Christians like everyone else, but they have the means to get through it, and someone to lean on.
There is also Charles Colson, a participant in the Watergate Scandal, who converted to Christianity in prison and said this:
“I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.”
People are still dying and being tortured for the same truth 2000 years later. Actually studying the Bible and reading it, even just a little at a time, changes those who read it, and it never changes people for the worse. Hey, if you can’t decide whether there is or isn’t a God, why not see if reading the Bible will provoke a God to change you? It would be a good way to find out.
As for vestigial structures, I don’t know God’s plan. I believe either they had a use and served their purpose, or they still have a use we don’t know about. As stated before, I think micro-evolution could actually be valid, and would cause things to change a little or become vestigial. (Like tonsils, once believed to be vestigial, which actually have a purpose in keeping us healthy.)
Australopithecus seems to me to be just an extinct ape, but I’m an armchair paleontologist, not a real one
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I once tried to read the Bible... and after a few pages I couldn't keep going, pretty much because (And I hope this isn't any offense) I was getting bored.
I do, however, know some people who did read the entire bible... Believe it or not... They're atheist...
about how you say God did change lifes and answer prayers... Well... Lifes always changes, with or without gods, and about answering prayers, unless you mean directly, people could still see it as a simple casuality or something with an explanation outside of God (Actually, even if it was a direct answer people could see it like that.)
Again, I think only God himself can prove his existence, if somebody else tells me he saw or talked with him... I have no way of knowing if he's lying, telling the truth or if he simply is out of his mind.
And yes, many of God's teachings are selfless and helpfull for society, however, one could argue so are the teachings of a children movie.
In other words, having faithfull teachings doesn't really make the book that trustworthy.
And as I said before, Jesus did exist, I know that, however, there are ways his death could be faked to make people believe he resurrected afterwards, which would explain why they could keep a lie for 40 years, because they didn't knew it was a lie... Or maybe it actually wasn't a lie! Maybe Jesus didn't fked his death and did resurrect 3 days after! I'm not here to deny anything!
In fact... I really don't want to keep discussing about God's existence, everytime I want to prove myself either if he's real or not I just end up with a headache, because in the end, as I said, only he can prove it, at least to me.
So... Anyway... Back to evolution!
Ratites are not the only primitive species that still hold up alive to this day, many water living creatures are as well, the thing is, evolution works with mutations, and with what ended up being called as "Natural selection", simply, when an animal is born mutated, wheter if that mutation will help it or not to survive more easily than the other non mutated ones is what will determine this natural selection, in other words, probably ratites had a lot of mutated offsprings in they're way, but if none of those mutations helped them survive better than how the originals did, then the original version will keep there as long as one mutation does overcome them, I guess ratites have more easy lifes than other animals, which made their mutations useless, or in some cases even counterproducting, which ended up with us keeping with the original version.
However, after some search I found out that ratites are actually in a way of getting extinct... Guess that means nor the original nor the mutations help them survive and now they're hving problems.
But anyway. The same would go for why there are so many birds. It's just the result of mutation.
Mutations are sporadic, they don't serve any porpuse, and they just appear out of random in new offsprings, they just might become helpfull or not, that only depends on pure luck... Or in God's will if you prefer it that way!
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Alright then, I disagree with the proposed theories of how Jesus could have faked his death, but we'll get off the subject of God for now.
On natural selection:
I know what natural selection is, but do we have any evidence for a solid example of a helpful mutation in any of recorded history, or is it still just a theory?
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I probably shouldn't have said the thing about Jesus faking his death, it can be offensive, I'm sorry for that.
Anyway...
Well, It is a theory... but in the scientific meaning of the word, I don't know if you already knew this, but a theory actually means that it has being proved and accepted! When people normally refer to a theory as an idea yet to be prove, that's actually an hypothesis!
So... When we refer to a scientific term as "The theory of gravity" We mean it has been approve!
Of course, that doesn't mean a theory has to be always right, but that's another story.
So, as far as I know, Natural selection is a scientificlly approved theory, but I don't know exactly how it was approved1
So... All the evidence I can provide right know would be from farms... Which wouldn't exactly be natural selection but rather artificial, but it still approves the thing.
To make it short, in frms normally the farmer makes a selection with the animals he wants, he wants cows that give him big amounts of milk, so he usually keeps the cows borned with bigger udders while selling or eating those with smaller ones.
Of course, for cows that lives in natural enviroments, having a big udder is actually problematic, being a heavier charge for it, so those with smaller ones survive better in the nature (Althought cows seem to be fewer and fewer in natural enviroments this days)
Another example would be with birds and butterflies, some of them can be born with different colors, if this new colors help them blend better or worse with the enviroment they live in to evade predators will determine if this new colors will stay in later generations or dissapear (I've heard dark colored butterflies started increasing since the industrialization caused darker trees to grow where these blended in better).
As you probably realized by this examples, mutations within generations are actually really small changes, is not something big like in X-men or anything.
Now I just came to remember... I think there was a proved mutation around the time dinosaurs started appearing, but is actually relted to mamals, to the first ones in fact! Back in the triassic era, the planet went trhough a giagantic climatic chnge, incresing droughts, temperature, and worse of all, decreasing the levels of oxygen in the air! It was then when, thanks to the grow of the diaphargm, cynodonts managed to survive, diaphargms help them breath a bigger amount of air allowing them to survive while many other species in that age died. (Strangely thought... I don't remember what did those dinosaurs had that helped them survive those conditions... as far as I recall the didn't had a diaphargm, not yet at least...)
I'm sure that through a bigger research I'd probably find more evidence about natural selection, there re probably thousands of documentals out there to know more about it, that's as far as my actual knowledge goes thought.
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It seems to me that artificial selection (breeding) and natural selection wouldn't lead to such radical changes people suggest. Domestic cattle were bred from the bigger, meaner, stronger Aurochs thousands of years ago, but they are still cows. Chihuahuas are still Canus, even though they are extremely different from wolves. The way genetics work is opposite of the way macroevolution works.
Animals breed into less complex forms, according to the law of entropy, losing genetic information instead of gaining it. Surely in all the years we have been studying genetics, we should have at least learning SOMETHING about adding to DNA, but we haven't, so how could pure chance somehow add to DNA, ignoring the laws of entropy and creating more complex animals than it started with?
We have seen animals breed into simpler genetic forms for all recorded history, but we have never seen animals or plants breed into more complex forms anywhere other than what we suppose happened in the fossil record. All we have is a snapshot of those animals at a certain time and assumptions of phylogenies--no complete genetic sequences to compare.
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That's because evolution doesn't really leads to any radical change, the procces is really slow and it takes thousands of years to have something different than what it started with.
And we did learn things about adding DNA, In case you didn't knew, that's actually what causes the down syndrome, the fact that they were born with one more chromosome, and thus, with more DNA than usual, in fact we could say that the down syndrome is another mutation!
And the thing is... Not every mutation relies on adding more or less DNA into the mix, most of the time is just a change in the DNA it already had, heck, if DNAs were all the same except for numbers, then every person would be exactly the same way, We wouldn't even have genders!
Well, we won't have complete genetic sequences to compare until these animals evolve into something else, which, as I said before, won't happen in a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time, probably when that happens we'll update our theories about evolution to what the new research leads us to, but evolution would be even more confirmed that it is today, at least for the science books.
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So....it would take heaps upon heaps of years to actually see a positive genetic mutation in nature...
I mean, I do believe in an all-powerful, time-weaving God, and I believe He could cause such changes to happen, even at a faster rate than we suppose if He wanted. However, until I research more for myself, I'll reserve judgement on how animals came to be and just enjoy them and how wonderfully they fit into their specific places in the world.
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You know that Michael Behe accepts common descent including descent from non-human extinct primates to man right?
Behe argues against naturalistic explanations for evolution, though his book leaves out key components of molecular evolutionary mechanisms, like tandem duplication, unequal crossing over, or reverse transcription being inserted into the genome without being flipped.
We've seen this function make useful (though 'useful' is a bit of an entrapping phrase. 'Use' is dependent on environment. What is 'not useful' in one environement is 'useful' in others and visa versa.) mutations, like the elongated eyebars in Drosophila flies via tandem duplication.
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