Anchiornis commission

This is a commission that I did for EWilloughby. She requested a feathered dinosaur that I hadn't drawn before. I drew several sketches and she choose the one I did of Anchiornis huxleyi, which is a paravian (aka, part of the clade more closely related to birds than all other dinosaurs) for which the colors of it have actually been known and described from fossils. They examined the melanosomes present in a well preserved Anchiornis and were able to determine the likely colors and patterns it had by comparing the melanosome distribution to modern birds.

Some think that the crest of feathers on its head could be a taphonomic feature (which means that it is simply a result of how the feathers were arranged as the animal died, decayed, and was flattened by fossilization). I prefer to think of it as a crest unless they find conclusive proof otherwise, because it looks so cute with its red mohawk! I choose to make the crest half pennaceous and half filoplumes...probably not a very likely thing, but oh well...I think it looks neat. (It was probably just one or the other, but hey, who knows.)

As for the background, it's a misty hillside somewhere in late Jurassic Liaoning. I have no ideas if hills were present in Liaoning, but I don't see why they wouldn't be....


Thanks for looking!