Sand Bird

For Inktober, I also sketched some dromaeosaurids. Here's one of them with a bit of colour splashed on him: Velociraptor mongoliensis. remarked that the original secondaries I gave him were probably too small, given that Velociraptor had quill knobs on the ulna: the feathers were apparently sturdy, because they needed to be anchored so well into the bone. The animal probably actually did something with them instead of just, say, displaying. For this coloured version, I enlargened the secondaries some 30 %, but they still might be too small - depending on what exactly the animal used them for.

If Velociraptor often grappled with large prey animals (as the fighting dinosaur fossil might suggest) or each other, their wing feathers might need to be firmly attached, whatever size they were. At least in modern birds, a partially detached big feather might be life-threatening, because they won't easily stop bleeding. They need to either stay where they are, or get completely pulled off.

Black ballpoint pen on a sketchbook page, and Photoshop. Based on s skeletal reconstruction.