
Lycaenops

by Daniel Eskridge
Title
Lycaenops
Artist
Daniel Eskridge
Medium
Digital Art - Digital
Description
Here is another creature that looks like it could come from an alien world. Of course, it is no imaginary extraterrestrial. It was once a real creature that walked the earth over 200 million years ago and predated the dinosaurs, and he�s the next critter in my paleoart series.
This is Lycaenops. His name means �wolf face� � though he doesn�t really look much like a wolf in the face to me. However, he was indeed about the size of a wolf. Lycaenops was a member of the Therapsids, an order that includes the ancestors of mammals. He probably munched on smaller reptiles and was apparently pretty fast on his feet, which gave him a great advantage as a predator. He might have been furry as this picture depicts, or he may have still have sported a lizard skin. I prefer the furry version as it makes for a nice artwork, though the jaguar-like coat is possible a bit of a stretch.
This is a brand new model by Dinoraul. I don�t usually get that �must have now� feeling when it comes to 3D models, but I certainly couldn�t wait to pick this one up. It�s just too cool looking. You�ll probably be seeing more of him in my art. I posed him using Poser, then imported him into Vue where I constructed the rest of the scene. Final rendering was done in Vue and took about 30 hours (most of the time was spent on the background clouds). Post production was done using Gimp.
Uploaded
August 18th, 2011
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Comments (4)

Dean Harte
just glad I wasnt around 200 million years ago and can enjoy this cool work from the safety of my computer :D Nice work Daniel, V/F!

Kristin Elmquist
And yes, I did read your description; however, the imaginative part that comes into play is the fur that covers the animal, and the setting. It takes a special mind to put this type of thing together. :)
Daniel Eskridge replied:
Thanks, Kristin! I understood you initial comment just fine. All paleoartists will agree that it does indeed require an awful lot of imagination. You be really surprised to see how little paleontologists actually know about how animals in the past actually looked. Quite often there is nothing more to go on for an entire animals other than a few molars and a piece of jawbone.