Palaeoart: Dakotaraptor Hunt

Seeing as I haven't got as much done today as I would have liked I found a nice piece of artwork to have a look at. This one comes from an artist I haven't come across before, this is a depiction of the dromaeosaur, Dakotaraptor with an unknown ornithomimid in it's cluthces and is created by Emily Willoughby.

Let's start with the art itself. The textures of the feathers on these dinosaurs are beautiful, you really get the feeling that these are bird ancestors. I think we can agree that this is an incredibly accurate representation of this dinosaur, I really am impressed. 

I did a little research on the artist. Emily Willoughby is a bird photographer and palaeoartist, looking at her work it is evident that she has a talent for blending her knowledge of modern ornithology with the prehistoric animals that she resurrects in her art. 

In my opinion, this is the way that artists should look at theropods and ornithopods, by looking at the decedents; the birds. By studying modern birds; their plumage, their posture and behaviour, we can start to understand the way that dinosaurs may have looked and behaved. 

In this piece we can see direct parallels with modern birds. For instance the posture. If we look at the way the head of the Dakotaraptor is being held its very similar to eagles and vultures of today, the neck is also S-Shaped. The forearms are held more like wings than forearms of many bipedal dinosaurs. The artist here has made these arms look more like wings with the long feathers similar to those that enable flight. The hind legs are grasping the ornithomimid, again, much like birds of prey in the present day. 

Just a fantastic piece, I highly recommend that you take a look at her other work, I'll leave a link to her website below. Just a brilliant representation of the theropod dinosaurs. What do you think of this, let me know in the comments below. 

emilywilloughby.com