Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · 3h

Vanilla! I like the challenge of working within the constraints.

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · 8h

Couldn't sleep, tried something in Spore...

2 1 19

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · 13h

letterboxd.com/sketchyrapto...

Matt Dempsey’s profile

Matt uses Letterboxd to share film reviews and lists. 59 films watched. Favorites: Jurassic Park (1993), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), The Batman (2022). Bio: ...

letterboxd.com

4

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · 13h

Today's cinema trips!

I might raise the Avatar 2 rating to 5 just because of how blown away I was by the artistry of it all.

It was actually my first viewing, I missed the original release, and figured that TV would be an inherently lesser experience, so I decided to wait.

1 7

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · 3d

Watching Snowpiercer, spotted John Sibbick's Archaeopteryx.

1 35

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · 7d

PA12, via multijet fusion!

It's a really good detail-durability balance.

1 1

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · 19d

A dumb analogy - you wouldn't look at a freshly ironed shirt and conclude that fabric doesn't crease.

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · 19d

I think the allure of soft tissue has made people too comfortable with taking slab fossils at face value. It's not like they aren't useful at all for inferring life appearance, but you have to consider that these are non-rigid 3D objects that have been compressed into a 2D plane.

1 16

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · 19d

You also cannot rule out that decomposition processes unrelated to planar compression have also changed what you're looking at.

These fossils are still very informative, but you wouldn't reconstruct an animal's *exact* life appearance and functional morphology based on roadkill.

17

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · 19d

You just can't rule out that said compression has considerably warped the soft tissue outline in these cases.

And even if you could, in many cases you're still not dealing with clean projection of the body shape onto a perfect, standardised anatomical plane.

1 14

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · 19d

I think the allure of soft tissue has made people too comfortable with taking slab fossils at face value. It's not like they aren't useful at all for inferring life appearance, but you have to consider that these are non-rigid 3D objects that have been compressed into a 2D plane.

2 3 33

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · 26d

I really ought to go back and remaster the cover image I made for the first chapter so that it's more consistent with the others...

7

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · 26d

These three chapters were the ones thay we always planned to publish more or less in the same form that they took in the thesis itself, so having these out in the world is a bit of a personal milestone.

1 7

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · 26d

As of this week, three out of the four research chapters from my PhD have been published. Data from the fourth is currently being adapted for an in-progress paper.

royalsocietypublishing.org/.../10.../rs...
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

1 4 29

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · 27d

Yes. A bent-limb stance causes the bones to be loaded in different ways to an upright stance. To deal with this, the limb bones of sprawling or crouched animals have different dimensions that wouldn't be directly comparable to animals with upright stances, even if their centres of mass were similar.

2

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · 27d

The Alligator and Cheetah skeletons in this banner image were modified from CT scans originally publshed by Macaulay et al. (2023) and Coatham et al. (2021), respectively - each of these were major data sources for this particular study.

6

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · 27d

Forgot to announce I have a new paper out this week! Animals that are more front-heavy have thicker, differently shaped forelimb bones to deal with the extra load. Limb bones alone may thus be useful proxies for body shape - but posture complicates things. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

4 24 76

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · Sep 7

7 73

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · Sep 1

Style test for a tutorial series I'm putting together.

Will probably redraw the life head shot, as I kinda rushed it.

2 16 110

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · Aug 28

A lighting turnaround of the new-look Spicomellus I made for the PR materials. Was really cool to see this clip + the turntable on BBC news last night.

I'm really happy with the copper patina vibe I settled on for the colours. This was my first time working in Substance Painter!

34 160

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · Aug 27

6 27 120

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · Aug 27

1 4 65

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · Aug 27

Introducing a crazy new look for Spicomellus, based on new osteoderms unlike anything we've ever seen before. I was brought in to produce a life reconstruction based on the new material, published today in Nature by Maidment et al:

Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · Aug 27

Hi all, me, @richardjbutler.bsky.social and the amazing UK-US-Moroccan team are delighted to announce that.. we have a new specimen of Spicomellus AND IT'S WAY WEIRDER AND WAY COOLER THAN WE EVER IMAGINED!!

7 67 280

Reposted by Dr Matt Dempsey

Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · Aug 27

Hi all, me, @richardjbutler.bsky.social and the amazing UK-US-Moroccan team are delighted to announce that.. we have a new specimen of Spicomellus AND IT'S WAY WEIRDER AND WAY COOLER THAN WE EVER IMAGINED!!

33 370 970

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · Aug 26

Hey, follow me on Letterboxd: boxd.it/fvCuL

Matt Dempsey’s profile

Matt uses Letterboxd to share film reviews and lists. 28 films watched. Favorites: Jurassic Park (1993), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), The Batman (2022). Bio: ...

boxd.it

4

Dr Matt Dempsey @sketchy-raptor.bsky.social · Aug 26

I've been on a bit of a genre binge these last few days.

2 7