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Work in progress on my next drawing, which I've decided to call "The Faces of Australovenator". Here are three different approaches to restoring the same species.

The top one takes the approach that the species was scaled (which I find unlikely, since it's most likely either a tyrannosauroid or a coelurosaur at the very least, which means it definitely was mostly feathered), and I've given it the croc-like facial integument inferred by Carr in the paper describing Daspletosaurus horneri. I've also given it a kertinous boss around the eye as inferred for that taxa, although it's pretty questionable how likely this would have been for Australovenator wintonensis in particular. The only posterior cranial elements we have describing the orbital region are from Murusraptor, and it's hard for me to tell if it would have had this structure or not...it looks fairly smooth, so maybe not, but I decided to go with it anyway.

The second one takes the keratinous approach around the eyes plus segmented keratin on the snout, with gradually fading feathers on the facial region.

The third one is the most speculative, combining cornified keratin on the snout and above the eyes with NashD1 's ideas about theropods having "flesh antlers" in the dorsotemporal fenestra region. Of course, this region *could* just be for vascular thermoregulation...but I really don't see why *some* species couldn't have had this feature. I also gave it wattles around the eyes, colorful ricti, and an expandable throat pouch.

I've really taken a liking to this idea of expandable flesh antlers on that region of the head...again, I think it's pretty plausible that some species could have had it. I thought Australovenator might be a good candidate, as it's not too large as far as theropods go, and didn't have any bony crests...so why not a dermal display structure? It's pretty speculative combining all four display structure together, but hey, why not.

Hopefully I'll be able to shade this sometime soon, but until then I figured I'd show it off because I'm pretty proud with how these turned out.

Description
Work in progress on my next drawing, which I've decided to call "The Faces of Australovenator". Here are three different approaches to restoring the same species.

The top one takes the approach that the species was scaled (which I find unlikely, since it's most likely either a tyrannosauroid or a coelurosaur at the very least, which means it definitely was mostly feathered), and I've given it the croc-like facial integument inferred by Carr in the paper describing Daspletosaurus horneri. I've also given it a kertinous boss around the eye as inferred for that taxa, although it's pretty questionable how likely this would have been for Australovenator wintonensis in particular. The only posterior cranial elements we have describing the orbital region are from Murusraptor, and it's hard for me to tell if it would have had this structure or not...it looks fairly smooth, so maybe not, but I decided to go with it anyway.

The second one takes the keratinous approach around the eyes plus segmented keratin on the snout, with gradually fading feathers on the facial region.

The third one is the most speculative, combining cornified keratin on the snout and above the eyes with NashD1 's ideas about theropods having "flesh antlers" in the dorsotemporal fenestra region. Of course, this region *could* just be for vascular thermoregulation...but I really don't see why *some* species couldn't have had this feature. I also gave it wattles around the eyes, colorful ricti, and an expandable throat pouch.

I've really taken a liking to this idea of expandable flesh antlers on that region of the head...again, I think it's pretty plausible that some species could have had it. I thought Australovenator might be a good candidate, as it's not too large as far as theropods go, and didn't have any bony crests...so why not a dermal display structure? It's pretty speculative combining all four display structure together, but hey, why not.

Hopefully I'll be able to shade this sometime soon, but until then I figured I'd show it off because I'm pretty proud with how these turned out.