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Atlantis536 In reply to Evodolka [2017-12-20 01:21:21 +0000 UTC]

I guess you need a history lesson!

So in the late 1800's and early 1900's following the "Bone Wars" of Othniel Marsh and Edward Cope, tons of new dinosaurs were discovered, like Stegosaurus and Apatosaurus. These dinosaurs were shown as slow, fat and bulky, but the problem is that they drag their tails on the ground and their palms face inwards, because artists of that time looked at mammals and lizards for reference. This continued until the 1950's.

When the 60's came scientist John Ostrom discovered Deinonychus which looked like a large bird. Now artists drew dinosaurs as large reptiles with the agility of birds, but with scales of reptiles and inturned hands of mammals.

Then in the 1980's artists wanted to show off their knowledge of skeletal anatomy, and so they drew dinosaurs with holes in their skulls and with the skin clinging onto every bone of its body. This is called "shrinkwrapping", and is seen as a bad practice because it made dinosaurs look like malnourished monsters. Sadly, this trend still continues today.

This all changed in the 90's and early 2000's when dinosaurs with preserved soft tissue and skin were preserved. What's amazing is that these dinosaurs had feathers like birds. Some like Microraptor even looked like a four winged bird. Since birds are bulky and covered with assymetrical wing feathers, dinosaurs were now drawn as bulky and covered in feathers, especially the theropods which are the ancestors of birds.

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Evodolka In reply to Atlantis536 [2017-12-20 01:38:16 +0000 UTC]

yeah i get that
but ceratosaurus seems EXTRA bulky compared to many others to me

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