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T-PEKC β Futalognkosaurus dukei
Published: 2012-12-27 14:16:12 +0000 UTC; Views: 9413; Favourites: 204; Downloads: 0
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Description
Restoration of the titanosaurian sauropod Futalognkosaurus dukei. This dinosaur lived some 90 million years ago in what's now Patagonia (Argentina). It grew up to a length of about 30 meters and is one of the biggest titanosaurs known from considerable remains to date.I tried to not depict it as a "shrink-wrapped" sauropod, though I think that I failed on this one.
Reference: skeletal drawing by - [link]
Medium: Ink (+ digital editing on Photoshop).
Paper size: ~ 40x30 cm.
Done: 2012.
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Comments: 35
as far as shrink-wrapping goes, you pretty much shrink-wrapped vertebral spines here, there must have been more meat on its back, giving a more regular oval cross section, but you did make an effort to make it "meaty" everywhere else, credit where crediti is due, great work! your drawing skills are fantastic!
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Beautiful drawing! If I was to critique anything beyond what both you and Paleo King have discussed...Holy Great Walls, Batman!!!!...it would be the animal's right wrist. It's broken. This on purpose? If so, it's crippled and it might be cool to have some predators ready to take advantage of that.
I DO like that you put some muscles on his legs. I think they had dewlaps, though I seldom draw them myself.
As for armor; I'd say yes. And yes, the effect can be done at the putative distance we are viewing the animal at. Up to you. I believe they all had some form of armor (titanosaurs and maybe other sauropod groups) no matter how big they grew. Why? Unless they were born close to full size out of the egg, (OUCH! Poor MAMA!), they were in danger from theropods as they grew up. If armor was necessary for smaller titanosaurs, then it might have been just as necessary for young futalognkosaurs. Just my opinion.
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Wow beautiful work! You're a top artist and I'm honored you used my skeletal for reference. I like the angle especially, it's not often you see this angle used and it shows a lot of depth. Shading and form are beautiful.
Normally I am not a fan of dewlaps on sauropods but you made this one look very nice, it's lifelike and not overdone like you usually see. (Booth, Marshall, and Pastori could take a few cues here 
A few little suggestions I might have.... first the spine probably was not shaped as blocky as shown here, like most living animals with tall neural spines (many mammals have them) the contours of the spine would merge with the animal's sides more smoothly... there were muscles around the neural spines. Here it looks more like he has the Great Wall of China on his back. Also the cloaca was most likely slit shaped or closed most of the time... Then there's the issue of armor... I suspect Futalognkosaurus had at least light armor, since its relatives Malawisaurus and Mendozasaurus both have armor osteoderms (I made the same mistake on my Puertasaurus, but at that size perhaps armor was lost?). I drew it with some small osteoderms in my own live version: [link] Being so big and difficult for predators to tackle, it's unlikely that the armor was heavy like Ampelosaurus or other small titanosaurs.
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Thank you very much for the kind words Nima! I always appreciare your in-depth comments and constructive criticism.
Normally I am not a fan of dewlaps on sauropods but you made this one look very nice, it's lifelike and not overdone like you usually see. (Booth, Marshall, and Pastori could take a few cues here ) It's not shrink-wrapped IMO, the level of angular shaping is just right (aside from the spine, but I admit that's tough to get right from this angle).
I'm glad to know what you approve the dewlap I drew. I just wanted to give my reconstruction a little bit of speculative elements, both because it's not impossible structures like this were present, and because I wanted to make my artwork different from the other reconstructions of this beautiful sauropod.
A few little suggestions I might have.... first the spine probably was not shaped as blocky as shown here, like most living animals with tall neural spines (many mammals have them) the contours of the spine would merge with the animal's sides more smoothly... there were muscles around the neural spines. Here it looks more like he has the Great Wall of China on his back.
I totally agree with you about that the spine is way too angular. I wanted to show how tall neural archs of vertebrae are, but it went all too far. There definitely should be more meat, to make the curve between spine and rib cage smoother. I love the comparison with the Great Wall of China!
Also the cloaca was most likely slit shaped or closed most of the time...
You're right about the cloaca shape too. Recently I realized this is repeated problem in my reconstructions, but for some reason I can't get rid of it (I even make the same mistake in my last drawing). Will fix it for sure in my future artworks.
Then there's the issue of armor... I suspect Futalognkosaurus had at least light armor, since its relatives Malawisaurus and Mendozasaurus both have armor osteoderms (I made the same mistake on my Puertasaurus, but at that size perhaps armor was lost?). I drew it with some small osteoderms in my own live version: [link] Being so big and difficult for predators to tackle, it's unlikely that the armor was heavy like Ampelosaurus or other small titanosaurs.
I decided that at the given size of the drawing, I simply can't pull of the drawing of dermal armor in the right proportions, so I just left it out. It would had made awesome details though, and probably give the animal more personality and life-like appearance. I also tried to make my reconstruction as different as possible, because I didn't want to look like I'm simply copying your work, which may also explain the lack of osteoderms (I considered them kind of speculative, yet still more probable than the dewlap).
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Your F. dukei is inexplicably graceful in all its might, a big opera singer.
Not "shrink-wrapped" at all. 
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Thank you!
The word "graceful" fits very well the way I imagine and try to depict sauropods.
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This certainly is not shrink-wrapped; I really like the 3D shape.
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I guess it's not as bad as I thought it would look to anyone other than me. Thanks!
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Great work. Excellent sense of volume, it looks properly 3 dimensional.
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Thank you Tom! Glad to know that you think the 3 dimensional look worked well in this one. This was one of the things I was aiming at with this drawing. Though it looks like a plain and simple doodle in comparison with the ink drawing I'm working on now. Even more details there!
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Amazing details! I don't think it looks shrink-wrapped, but maybe a little bit too angular?
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Thanks! I see what you mean and think you're right. I guess it's because of the way I went with shading, which is really not the best one. Will try to avoid the angular look in future.
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Nice perspective... we don't see much sauropod depicted at this angle.
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I agree, that's why I tried to escape from the typical way of depicting sauropods. Thanks for the comment!
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Yet another animal I would kill somebody to see in real life.
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Same here man, same here. For me this applies to any sauropod.
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I don't think you shrinkwrapped it too much. The tail has a row of spikes when we don't have tail remains for this dinosaur, and there are some very well done external structures overall. Good job on this dinosaur.
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Thank you for the comment!
The keratinous spikes toward the tip of the tail are entirely speculative. Call it artistic license.
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Yeah, that's the good kind of artistic license to exhibit when drawing dinosaurs. The skull is also speculative, correct? I seem to recall that a skull of Futalognkosaurus was never found (as is the case with most titanosaurs, sadly).
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Yes, the skull is speculative too. It's based on the skull from the reference I used (see the link in the description). As you correctly noted, most of the time skulls of titanosaurian sauropods remain unknown or poorly preserved.
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It says that it is a speculative morph of Malawisaurus and Antarctosaurus. Makes sense.
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Nice work, especially on the dewlaps
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