I had the uncomfortable realization that having such limited tools of manipulation on my speculative animal would make a bit of a boring material culture. So, in the interest of trying to still pretend that I'm being scientific, the dinosauroid has forelimbs of increased but still limited dexterity. Evolutionarily, the dinosauroid's ancestors would need to be at least partially arboreal - maybe scavengers of the forest floor, nesting and occasionally hunting in the lower levels of the forest canopy. There is a species of dromaeosaur on the fossil record (named hilariously enough "bambiraptor") who did have an opposable thumb, of a sort. Now, of course, there is no real way to know a fossil animal's ecology - but they figure that bambiraptor was probably an arboreal hunter, using it's opposable fingers to snatch up fat insects and little tree-dwelling mammals. It's nice to have an actual case of dinosaurs with dextrous forepaws - it makes what I'm doing a little less of a stretch.
In terms of visual culture, I'm starting with this design - a war mask/helmet/fighting beak - suggested by the illustrious Nemo Ramjet. I'm heavily cribbing from Meso-american cultures with this one, using obsidian blades set into the fighting edges of the mask, much like an aztec sword or spear. I'll start doing more development of dinosaurian material culture - clothes, architecture, etc - soon enough.
The previous direction I was going I like, but was quite materially uninteresting. Without more dextrous hands, I would have been stuck with a dinosaur whose only technology was this:
...which I still think is sweet. I just wanted to have more (and crazier) shit to draw, which takes this from a scientific approach to a more fantastic one.
Is that so selfish?
1 comment:
OMG I would so buy the comic of this...
Post a Comment