I'm Reluctant to Admit This...

The more I read about them (thanks to everyone who's lately sent me stuff), the more ceratopsids are becoming my favorite dinosaurs. Scott Elyard will never let me live this down. Specifically centrosaurine ceratopsids, because they go through really bizarre changes during ontogeny. And the early members of the group (Albertoceratops, "Octoceratops") are really freaking wierd.

Zip it, Elyard!

Are You Feeling Horny, Baby?

Run over to Andrew Farke's blog and congratulate the man on a publication well done. Along with a few cohorts, the Open Source Paleontologist studied Triceratops and Centrosaurus skulls to determine whether or not Farke's habit of playing with toys actually paid off. Turns out that Triceratops shows injuries to the squamosal bone in places where you'd think two individuals' horns would hit if they were fighting each other. But the same is not true for Centrosaurus. Of course, that animal doesn't have large orbital horns, but it may mean that centrosaurine ceratopsids were competing in different ways, perhaps going after flanks instead of heads. Indeed, the "pinnacle" of centrosaurine evolution, Pachyrhinosaurus, has a giant bony boss on its nose that looks more like a battering ram than a horn. It would make a very effective shoving instrument. Check out Andrew's blog for the whole story--it's very interesting, and I love it when inferences about dinosaur behavior are tested against the fossils. Sometimes, they match up!

Art Will Soon Evolve...

I don't often do teasers, but I feel this one is warranted. I have been recruited to something larger than myself, dear readers, something very exciting. Something you may already be aware of if you keep up with those on my blogroll. I'll have more to say in the near future, but do mark your calendars for March 1st...

South America

So my darling wife is a professor at Alaska Pacific University. Every year she takes a bunch of early honors students (high school seniors) on a trip somewhere. Usually, they go to Europe. Greece, Italy, France, Spain, etc. Well, this year they went to South America. Specifically Rio and Buenos Aries, in fact. She spent ten days there and took about 150 pictures, the cream of the crop I will now share with you all here. There are a lot of waterfall pictures from Parque Nacional Do Iguacu. And it's not like there's just one waterfall--they're everywhere.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a picture on our digital camera that isn't a waterfall, but--

Again with the waterfalls.

I swear to god there are non-waterfall pictures in here somewhere...

Like these cute little guys. They look like ring-tailed racoons. Can anybody tell me what they are? Gina said they were everywhere in the national park. They're as big as a sheltie.

And a happy lil' caimen.

And Sugerloaf Mountain, which she went to the top of.

And a gigantic statue of Teh_Christ.

And what appears to be our cat...with stuff on her. This was not my doing.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Also, don't know if you're aware of this, but we have a new President now. I'm happy that he's willing to sacrifice to bring about positive change. I just hope the American people are just as eager to pay an extra few bucks in taxes or buy a hybrid car instead of a gas-guzzler, things like that. After all, evolution doesn't happen to individuals, but populations. We all have to get in the game. I'm most happy about the fact that Obama is ready and willing to bring science back to the fore. Hopefully he will silence those ID whiners and start listening to the experts when it comes to the environment and the animals that inhabit it.

And no, the Loom did not leave my blogroll. It's still there, just under a different--and wholly justified, if not a little snarky--title.

Last Chance for Greatness!

Avail yourselves to help our friend Amanda, dear readers! She is this close to getting that scholarship. Click this link and help her out! Doesn't cost you more than seconds of your life, so there's no excuse!

Little Something I've Working On...

I don't like Halo. The story leaves me wanting and the Master Chief is kind of an empty shell. And he's supposed to be. Bungie's whole point was to put YOU behind his visor. You are supposed to feel like the Master Chief. Well, I don't. I like it when I know who I'm playing as. Well, who would make a kick-ass Master Chief? I'll tell you who:

Brock Samson.

Incidentally, if you don't know who I'm talking about, you need to rent The Venture Bros. It is the best cartoon I've seen in a very long time. So anyway, let's talk about the picture. It is entirely digital art, dear readers. I know I promised that Cthulhu would be, but I got sidetracked. Basically, I did a whole lot of things to get this far. First, I found this picture on the Interweb to serve as a base pose. Actually, I should clarify: I found a different, larger version of that image. God, that picture is small. Anyway, I then found a picture of the Master Chief (also thanks to Google Image Search) to serve as the model for the armor. Made a new layer and starting building the armor, layer by layer. Bodysuit, big pieces of armor, smaller details, and then his head. Oh lord, his head.

I was getting nowhere fast with his head. I tried resizing my image and starting over with the head, but I just couldn't match the sheer awesomeness of Brock Samson with my own trembling hand, so I just found a picture of his noggin online, matched its size to what looked right here, and pasted it over my sad, sorry attempt. Then I added a new layer and drew some lines of continuity between the body and the head, erasing some bits here and there. I think it's turning out nicely. I employed the same methodology for the Energy Sword (Brock doesn't use guns--just knives), but it was more complicated. I did a whole lot of erasing, rotating, and resizing to get it to match my drawing. I'm still not super-happy with it, and I'll probably end up tracing over it in a new layer, which would also make it match the blackline of the main drawing.

Gotta figure out a background. Erik suggested that Brock be holding his helmet in his other hand (which is why I haven't drawn it in), which would be nice.

Anyway, as my first piece of totally-digital art, it ain't half bad so far!

Teh_Lamb of Headshots

Early attempt at coloring the comic in Paint, which didn't work too well. I notice now that a lot of the comics didn't survive the journey from old Dell to new one. Luckily, I kept all the originals, so it's just a matter of scanning them back in...

Hey, It Worked!

One more time, kiddies. My favorite ending of any video game. Can't watch it without tearing up.

Em-bed? That's Unpossible!

Let's just see what happens here. This is one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite comedies.

A long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far away, When Pigs Fly had a weekly comic. This comic had no official title, but it was hosted on my old blog (WPF v.1.0). It took a lot of work, honestly, which is why it didn't last. Each comic was hand-drawn--sketched, inked, scanned, shrunk, and edited (and worded) with whatever primitive digital editing software I had at the time. The frames you see were measured and hand-drawn, too, and they're pretty big. The comic originated on an 11x17" piece of paper, so there was a lot of space to fill. Despite these pratfalls, the comic lasted an impressive length of time, surviving for a few entries in the blog you currently read. No, seriously, click the "Comics" tag.

I bring this up for two reasons. First, I'm going to post my favorites from the old blog. Second, I'd like to get back into the habit, although it's not like I'm already weighed down with self-inflicted art projects or anything. Anyway, enjoy the comics. The one is more or less an homage to my McFarlane Dragons collection. I would totally buy this product.

Beipiaosaurus Part the Second

Cross your fingers--let's hope this sucker opens for you when you click on it. If not, admire it from afar. So basically, I took the low-res photo of the new Beipiaosaurus specimen and blew it up in Corel, then used my awesome new Wacom to outline the bones (as best I could) and point viewers to the awesome quills (blue) and throat pouch (red). Really beautiful fossil, but I wish I had a higher-res image! Actually, here's a question for you Photoshop/Corel experts out there: Is there a way to save the image without the canvas? I think that would make the resulting image a whole lot easier to see.

Editz: Yes, question from the back. Sean asks how much stock I put into the idea that the quills on Beipiaosaurus are homologous with those of Psittacosaurus. Honestly? Not a whole lot at this time. The quills are similar in that they're hollow, essentially tubular structures. However, the quills of Psittacosaurus are longer, thicker, and more flexible. They are also preserved only on the tail, although the fossil's uneven state of preservation might account for that. Here's what would convince me: a basal tetanurine theropod with feathers or better yet, a coelophysoid theropod with feathers. But then you'd ALSO need a basal ornithischian with feathers. Count thyreophorans out--I think they're covered (HA!).

Given the composition of most dinosaur skin impressions, I'd guess that feathers are NOT plesiomorphic for Dinosauria. These are animals with scaley skin and, oftentimes, armor. Would the feathers erupt from between the scales? I doubt it. Right now, I think it's safer to say that coelurosaurs developed true feathers, and psittacosaurs did their own thing.

Beipaiosaurus, Wowsers!

Ed Yong over at Not Exactly Rocket Science has a wonderful post up about an even more wonderful fossil of Beipaiosaurus, everyone's favorite feathered therizinosaur. Aside from the headline-grabbing quills, the specimen presents incredibly well-preserved skeletal elements previously unknown in the taxon, including a beautiful skull. I'd like to see what comparisons can be drawn between Beipaiosaurus' skull and that of Falcarius. The outline of the animal's neck and throat pouch is equally intriguing. Nice articulated hyoid bone, too.

EDITZ: Thanks to Ed and Dr. Holtz for sending me the paper.

The Xbox Post

Congratulations to me. With this post (the one you're reading right now), we've hit 360 total posts on When Pigs Fly Returns, which is far more than the original blog (When Pigs Fly) tallied. I plan to celebrate by posting long-lost comics from that blog, perhaps unseen by my current reader pool. I had dreams of being a comic artist one day, but it never lasted. The process was too tedious for me, although honestly, I was using pencils and Micron Pigma pens, so the process was also extremely long. Now that I have access to digital media, I may pick it back up. At any rate, I got a new book in the mail yesterday (see picture above). Another secret passion of mine is to become really good at drawing pin-up girls. No doubt influenced by Frank Cho and Playmates from the 50's and 60's, it's always been my intention to capture that "pin-up" look to my female characters. I was unconciously trying to achieve this with Selena Isley, but in order to really become good at this, I should probably study the masters: Gil Elvgren, Alberto Vargas, and to a lesser extent, Olivia De Berardinis.

I stupidly passed up an Elvgren collection a few months ago because the pictures were often small and shrunken so that multiple images could be collected on a single page, but it seems now to be out-of-print, and it's the only Elvgren book I've ever seen, before or since. I'll have to find it at Title Wave, our local enormous used bookstore. There's a De Berardinis collection at Barnes & Nobel, but it's something like $60, so I'll have to save up for it for a little while.

People, but women more specifically, are freaking hard to draw, as I've lamented before. As somebody so used to drawing animals with horizontal frames and four legs, human anatomy baffles me. Specifically the construction of the human pelvis, and the musculature surrounding it, is endlessly frustrating. But my theory is this: I became relatively good at drawing prehistoric creatures through sheer determination and never having a lack of reference material. I hope to achieve the same level of mediocrity for human females.

Confusing Pterosaur Take-Offs

This confuses me greatly. According to a new paper published in Zitteliana by Mike Habib, pterosaurs launched themselves into the skies quadrapedally with a "leap-frog" motion. I cannot, for the life of me, envision this. I remember seeing this concept as a poster session at last year's SVP, but there, as here, there are no figures showing exactly how this would work. What we really need is an animation. Can somebody explain this one to me?

Ridiculously awesome update: In the comments, Christopher pointed to the launch sequence of a vampire bat. I'm sold, and it would probably work for rhamphorhynchoids, too.

Crouching Daddies, Hidden Implications

By now, you're probably all aware of the new study published a few weeks ago in Science magazine about how male maniraptors brooded the eggs. It's old news, I know, but I'll lay out the basics for you anyway. Three dinosaurs have been found sitting atop nests: Citipati, Oviraptor, and Troodon. Everyone assumed they were females, but not so fast, kiddies! Now there's a way to tell. Remember way back when Horner and his colleagues sliced open a T.rex femur and found gold...I mean, medullary bone inside? Well, medullary bone has since been found in Allosaurus and Tenontosaurus. Finding medullary bone in dinosaurs isn't particularly surprising, as it's present in crocodilians and birds. For the uninformed, medullary bone is laid down in the long bones of archosaurs just before, during, and after a female becomes pregnant and provides the calcium needed to produce egg shells.

So if we assume that female archosaurs produce medullary tissue in their long bones in association with egg-laying (all signs point to "yes"), we can test those "nesting" theropod fossils to see if girls, but instead of lifting up their skirts, we're sawing their femurs in half. Anyway, it turns out that all three nesting dinosaurs, Citipati, Oviraptor, and Troodon, lack medullary bone, which means they're males. That means males brood the nest, a trait shared by modern paleognathine birds (ratites + tinamous), which most likely means that male brooding predates "modern" birds. Given the clutch sizes of the three dinosaurs, it also seems likely that, again like paleognathes, nests were filled by more than one female. So that's awesome--now we know a whole lot more about maniraptoran breeding behavior and physiology. We can probably assume that chicks were precocial and left the nest soon after hatching, although in some ratites, the chicks stay with the parent for several months to a year.

But wait--there's more! The authors of the paper perhaps did not realize that if maniraptors bred like paleognathine birds, there are implications for sexual dimorphism, too. In modern paleognathine birds, sexual dimorphism is limited to small size differences between the sexes. In the ostrich, plumage in males is more "flashy" than females. In general, however, paleognathine birds have fairly drab plumage. The cassowary is the most colorful ratite, but that's because its neck skin is bright blue! Bright plumage seems to be linked with mating dances and competition between males for females...however, with the flashy performances comes maternal brooding, biparental care and altricial young.

Another possibility is that the three nesting dinosaurs are males by coincidence, and that those species bred like raptorial birds. In raptors, both parents share brooding duties. The young are born extremely altricial but develop quickly. Like ratites, raptors don't show much sexual dimorphism aside from size differences. However, the clutch size of the fossil brooders argues against a modern raptor comparison. Raptors will often lay only two or three eggs in a single large nest. Paleognathine birds lay many more eggs, and oftentimes, multiple females will deposit their eggs in a shared nest, which the male then broods. So I think the paleognathine interpretation is the right one. Now, as for sexual dimorphism and coloration, I wonder if we could carry the ratite comparison over to non-avian maniraptors, too. Food for thought!

The Best of 2008

Oh geeze, another subjective "Best of 2008" list. The newspaper called Wall-E the best Pixar movie since Finding Nemo, which I didn't like nearly as much as The Incredibles. They also gave LittleBigPlanet and GTAIV honors over MGS4. To me, these are silly errors. Thus, I offer up my own "Best of 2008" list, in categories I give a crap about. Feel free to repeat this list, tinkered to your specific tastes, on your own blog(s).

Best Movie: The Dark Knight
It's good because it works on so damn many levels. Christopher Nolan has got to be my favorite director right now. The man can't make a bad film. The Dark Knight is especially good because it's not a "comic book" movie or a "superhero" movie. It's a crime drama, first and foremost, and Batman just happens to be one of the characters. Even The Batman himself becomes unhinged. The only thing I didn't like was the Badpod, which felt forced. But overall, one of my favorite movies of all time, and definately my movie of the year.

Best PS3 Game: Bioshock/MGS4
Bioshock would be a better candidate if it wasn't a year old. In fact, it recieved numerous Game of the Year awards last year, when it originally released on the Xbox 360. But PS3 owners like me only got to explore Rapture this year, and boy howdy is it a wonderful game. The narrative structure in particular is deeply engaging and, at times, unsettling. It features the best opening sequence I've ever seen in a video game. But if we're going for best "original" game, I'm going with Metal Gear Solid 4, which provides a fitting end to a wonderful storyline. The cutscenes might be a tad long at times (stop...talking about...nanomachines!) but the gameplay is extremely open-ended and more than makes up for it. More than any other MGS, Guns of the Patriots is just plain fun to play (when you're playing it). And there are so many jaw-dropping reveals and setpieces that you can't stop playing!

Best Wii Game: Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Got more playtime out of this follow-up than any other Wii game. There are more single-player modes than you can shake a baseball bat at, and when you've got four people in a room together, Brawl is the best possible choice. The "story" mode provides hours and hours of platforming enjoyment, and the new characters (Pitt, King Dedede, Solid Snake) are wonderful additions to the formula. I wish you could say such nice things about online play, though. As it is, the Friend Code system royally screws things up between players, joining games is more difficult than it should be, and when you finally DO succeed in versing from afar, the lag is often crippling. This is a problem Nintendo has failed to address or even admit to.

Best Wii Online Game: Mario Kart Wii
Why can't they all be this good? The single-player game is a tad...frustrating thanks to the numerous unbalanced items that are spammed by the game's AI (blue shells, bullet bills, POW blocks), but the online play is second to none on the Wii. It's extremely easy to join a race, the Friend Code system is still there but it's not as horrible as Brawl, you can see when your friends are online before starting the game, online play is virtually lag-free, and best of all, you have a mock "Gamerscore." If you use the Wii Wheel for races, you'll eventually earn a "Golden Wheel" next to your name, implying some degree of awesomeness.

Best Game You Probably Ignored on the Wii: Wario Land: Shake It!
And all this time I thought the 2D platformer was dead on consoles. Leave it to 3rd party developer Good Feel to put a shocked look on my face. Wario Land: Shake It! is a brilliant platformer with stunning animation and backgrounds, a jazzy soundtrack, and unique gameplay devices that keeps you coming back for more. It would be my Game of the Year were it not for some frustrating level goals, distinct lack of worthwhile unlockables, and brevity. Still, finding all the secret stages will take you awhile, and you won't believe how beautiful a 2D game can be until you play this one. I hope upon hope that Nintendo keeps this genre alive.

Best DS Game: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
Just when you thought the series was getting stale (I certainly did after the lukewarm Portrait of Ruin), Konami switches things up in Ecclesia and gives you a whole bunch of reasons to come back to the cursed castle. The level design, new weapon system, and brutal difficulty keep things fresh and challenging, and it's just a beautiful game in terms of graphics and musical score. The challenging bonus modes, which you unlock after completing the game, add significantly to the already-high difficulty. If you're a gaming masocist, this one's for you!

Best PSP Game: God of War: Chains of Olympus/Patapon
Didn't think they could stuff a PS2-calibur game onto those tiny little UMD's, did you? Well, they did, and Chains of Olympus is, in some ways, superior even to its existing console counterparts. It's really hard, though, especially on the higher difficulty levels, but worth every bloody step. As for Patapon, it charmed my pants off (that sounds wrong). Not a whole lot to do after you've forged all the Golden Weapons and destroyed the final boss, but while it lasted, Patapon, was pure Mytheerial.

Best Fiction Book: Necronomicon: The Best Wierd Tales of H.P. Lovecraft
Keep in mind I'm not a big reader, but I recently bought this massive collection of eldritch horror, and I'm impressed by both its girth and its contents. Lots of Lovecraft stories I'd never heard of are in there, like "The Hound" and "Re-Animator." Early Lovecraft to be sure, certainly not within the Cthulhu Mythos, but good nonetheless. Any fan of the genre or the author would do well to pick up a copy. I recommend the hardcover version, as the paperback one sags under the weight of the terror within.

Best Non-Fiction Book: Tyrannosaurus rex: The Tyrant King
I love technical volumes, and this one focuses on everyone's favorite giant Cretaceous carnivorous dinosaur. Its contents are important in many regards, not the least of which is Thomas Holtz' slaying of Horner's irritating obligate scavenger hypothesis. There's also a bundled CD which the animal's complete cranial osteology and some animations of the skeleton doing a variety of things. Wonderful book!

Best Dinosaur-Related Paleontology Discovery: Myrmecophageous alvarezsaurs!
Currie & Longrich described an extremely fragmentary theropod, Albertonykus borealis, but more importantly, showed that the bizarre theropods were specialized social-insectivores (myrmecophagy). Although paleo-artists had suspected this for a decade, it's good to see hard science backing it up.

Best New Dinosaur: Skorpiovenator bustingorryi
I love abelisaurs, and this one is reasonably complete, with a beautifully-preserved skull. Expect a full abelisaur post later, as soon as my scanner problems are dealt with!

Best Non-Dinosaur Related Paleontology Discovery: Odontochelys semitestacea
It's a turtle without a carpace! I recently blogged at length about the discovery and its implications, so I won't repeat that here. Suffice to say, it's always amazing when you get a really significant example of a transitional form in the fossil record, and Odontochelys is certainly that.

Best Moment of '08: SVP
Nothing like the first time, I imagine. Sweetened even moreso by meeting many of my fellow paleo-bloggers like Amanda, Matt, Julia, Paul, Jerry (get a blog, Jerry!), Neil, and Nick. I even met Thomas Holtz and Michael Skrepnick. Really, it's hard to describe how awesome SVP was. It's a shame I won't be going this year, though.

Happy New Year!

It's a whole new year! 2009, baby! Didn't think humanity would make it this far, did'ja? A few notes: First, I never make any resolutions, as I then feel bad when I break them. However, there are a few things I hope to accomplish this year. Among those things:

1) Hit 180 pounds and stay there for more than, like, three days;

2) At the very least, start work on a new art show;

3) Make significant headway in my gaming backlog (even Dreamcast stuff);

4) Publish something. Something that isn't a coloring book.

Above, for the curious, is a Cthulhu design I've been toying with. Overall, I think the head is too big, but you can definately tell what kind of animal provided the inspiration. I kind of like the elephantine look--it gets away from the octopus/squid vistage that the beast has been stuck with since Call of Cthulhu was published, but work will continue...Oh, by the way, that's the first picture I drew with my Wacom. It's not as bad as I thought it would be! One a final design is imagined, I shall make Cthulhu my first piece of digital art! Wish me luck!