{"id":5063,"date":"2017-02-26T21:42:52","date_gmt":"2017-02-27T02:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/?p=5063"},"modified":"2017-02-27T14:01:41","modified_gmt":"2017-02-27T19:01:41","slug":"brachiosaur-sketch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/2017\/brachiosaur-sketch","title":{"rendered":"Brachiosaur sketch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Brachiosaur Sketch\" width=\"840\" height=\"630\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JAcS-RoOXIU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\nThis is the first of a series working up to a complete illustration. This is me, coming to understand the basics of brachiosaur physiology.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>These days, anyone who&#8217;s excited about dinosaurs finds themselves talking and speculating about feathers on therapods. But there are other exciting innovations, too!<\/p>\n<p>First, as in therapods, there&#8217;s the evolution of our conception of the stance of the creatures. The idea that somehow dinosaurs deserved to become extinct because they were &#8220;obsolete&#8221; is a narrative suspiciously beneficial to the early industrialists who were often funding research. In therapods, we&#8217;ve seen them over time get up on their toes, raise their tail, and get sleeker until they&#8217;re less like plodding monsters and more like colossal birds. There&#8217;s been a similar evolution in our concept of sauropods, going from this clumsy, noodly dude:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5065\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5065\" style=\"width: 840px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-5065 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/marshbrontosaurus2-1038x409.jpg\" width=\"840\" height=\"331\" srcset=\"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/marshbrontosaurus2-1038x409.jpg 1038w, https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/marshbrontosaurus2-150x59.jpg 150w, https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/marshbrontosaurus2-300x118.jpg 300w, https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/marshbrontosaurus2-768x302.jpg 768w, https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/marshbrontosaurus2-1200x473.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5065\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">If that&#8217;s the shape its body had, why would it have needed bones at all?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8230; to this upright and, dare I say,\u00a0<em>lively<\/em> interpretation:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5068\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5068\" style=\"width: 840px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-5068 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/brachiosaurusBrancaiReconstruction-1038x929.jpeg\" width=\"840\" height=\"752\" srcset=\"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/brachiosaurusBrancaiReconstruction-1038x929.jpeg 1038w, https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/brachiosaurusBrancaiReconstruction-150x134.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/brachiosaurusBrancaiReconstruction-300x269.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/brachiosaurusBrancaiReconstruction-768x688.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/brachiosaurusBrancaiReconstruction-1200x1074.jpeg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5068\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Note the legs holding it upright and tail held out to balance. The long, upright neck still seems mad cray to me, though.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>So I&#8217;m attempting to come to some sort of understanding of shape of this body. I&#8217;m still not completely happy with what&#8217;s going on, particularly with the shoulders, and I&#8217;d love a top-down view because I don&#8217;t fully understand how the enormous, palm tree-digesting gut fit with the pelvis.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5069\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5069\" style=\"width: 227px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-5069 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Girafotitanskulls-227x300.jpg\" width=\"227\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Girafotitanskulls-227x300.jpg 227w, https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Girafotitanskulls-114x150.jpg 114w, https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Girafotitanskulls.jpg 747w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 227px) 85vw, 227px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5069\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">OK, you got me. This is a Giraffatitan. It was considered a brachiosaur for a long time, but no longer is. That&#8217;s why I do these: to learn.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>You&#8217;ll note I&#8217;m pushing two speculations, both well-supported, at least as far as speculation goes. One is that the spinal column is ridged with spines, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Diplodocid#Description\">at least among diplodocid dinosaurs<\/a>. By itself, this is a huge relief for artists, who otherwise are faced with an animal that&#8217;s pretty much &#8220;animal shaped&#8221; in the middle, with a long tail, long neck, and tiny little head. I&#8217;m imagining them making klonking, rattling sounds, to warn therapods to stay away, just like the bold colors do. There&#8217;s no reason to believe they&#8217;re poisonous; that&#8217;s usually little things that are easily eaten. But it&#8217;s a warning that therapods will get a stomping, maybe even an accidental stomping.<\/p>\n<p>Another speculation is that the brachiosaur, which has this weird, concave skull shape, actually had a big, honking nose. We&#8217;re pretty sure that these were herd animals and are pretty sure that they didn&#8217;t have larynxes, so\u00a0I&#8217;m imagining them calling to each other with hoots that sound like enormous birds.There&#8217;s a lot still to learn about this critter before I do the final illustration. It turns out, for instance, that the archetypal brachiosaur from many of my childhood dinosaur books was a nearby clade called a &#8220;Giraffatitan&#8221;, which is neat to learn, but means that I&#8217;ve gotta find a slightly different model, particularly for that weird head with its nostrils apparently on top.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5070\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5070\" style=\"width: 840px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-5070 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Brachiosaurus_sketch_1-1038x779.jpg\" width=\"840\" height=\"630\" srcset=\"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Brachiosaurus_sketch_1-1038x779.jpg 1038w, https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Brachiosaurus_sketch_1-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Brachiosaurus_sketch_1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Brachiosaurus_sketch_1-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Brachiosaurus_sketch_1.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5070\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">You know how you learn to sketch out these solid prisms to abstract an animal shape? Well, sometimes you gotta not do that so much.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thefifthworld.com\"><em>If you&#8217;re like me, you don&#8217;t want to go extinct. The Fifth World is about the people who didn&#8217;t!<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-large wp-image-3360\" src=\"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/image-1024x198.png\" alt=\"The only Solarpunk RPG I've ever seen.\" width=\"840\" height=\"162\" srcset=\"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/image-1024x198.png 1024w, https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/image-300x58.png 300w, https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/image-768x149.png 768w, https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/image.png 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the first of a series working up to a complete illustration. This is me, coming to understand the basics of brachiosaur physiology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":5071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5063"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5074,"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5063\/revisions\/5074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}