Dinictis by ARVEN92 on DeviantArt (original) (raw)
Commission me: :origin()/pre00/051f/th/pre/i/2018/092/7/5/arven_s_2018_commission_prices_by_arven92-dc7a9jp.png)
Yayyy for personal artwork!
You may have already seen this piece if you follow me on Instagram or checked my recent Azara Species Sheet, as this was one of the images I used to build it.
Meet Dinictis felina, a member of Nimravidae, a family of extinct cat-like carnivores, also known as "false saber-toothed cats". As a matter of fact, despite looking like Smilodon, these fellas aren't cats at all! They are distantly related to them, but belong to a different family of animals that evolved similar characteristics. Like Smilodon, Dinictis had saber-teeth, a cat-like body and a strong, flexible jaw. However, it was also plantigrade, unlike cats which are digitigrade, and its feet had five fingers, instead of four like in cats.
In my Earth AU, Dinictis and the other nimravids gave rise to the dominant species of the continent of Athar: the Azaras and Azaroth.
This was lots of fun to paint! Paleoart is fascinating.
For the pose, I used the photo of a skeleton featured on Dinictis's wikipedia article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinictis…
and built the animal up from there 
Enjoy!
Art (c) 
More about Azaroth: :origin()/pre00/3203/th/pre/f/2018/292/4/a/azaroth_species_sheet_by_arven92-dcpt1kf.jpg)