5 years

An Alanqa saharica patrols a North African riverbank for food. Crabs are filtering the wet mud and with some luck young crocodilians are hiding between the ferns and rotten wood, perfect prey for a man-sized Azhdarchid.
A large shape sticking out of the water pulls the pterosaur's attention, it's coming closer. Once the object has crossed the deepest part of the river a head appears in front of the sail. It's an adult Spinosaurus, though still not a fully grown one, with an Asteractanthus in its jaws. The shark is already dead and was likely caught between the small islands in this broad part of the river. It's not far from here where the freshwater turns into a brackish mix before meeting the ocean. Having reached a quiet place, the Spinosaurus is comfortable enough to consume its prey. The Alanqa doesn't know it yet, but this trespasser is hunting in foreign waters. Having followed the coast's border and explored new estuaries after being driven from its old territory by a stronger opponent, it's here that the dinosaur might have a chance of inhabiting a new home.

Sadly however, it's already occupied. The pterosaur noticed the nervous behaviour of the river dragon and out of nowhere, the animal suddenly makes a run through the shallow water. Out of the deeper part of the river another sail appears. It's larger and as the owner of the figure swims towards the intruder, its eyes, nostrils and headcrest appear above the surface, a silent threat of what's about to come. As soon as this adult touches the bottom of the river with its toes, it shoots towards the smaller congener who, now that time is becoming urgent to leave the place, flings his head into the air to make a turn for the deeper part of the river again. The shark's body leaves for an instant a red arch in the air from a fatal wound in its flank.
The king of the river creates a wall of water as his body plows itself a way through the substance, the combination of the sound of a large bow wave and the low grunt coming from the animal's throat make the intruder drop his prey before lifting his head. As it throws its head back into the now reached deeper part of the river, the momentum drags the rest of the animal to the sandy bottom where it punts itself to safety. Halfway through the river it appears again, floating, while looking back at its attacker who took the shark as enough payment for the tresspassing. Hungry but unharmed it slowly swims away, continuing the search for a home.

The Alanqa goes back to hunting crabs.



Januar 28 I was five years on Deviantart so that's enough to do a little remake, I thought. 
Spinosaurus aegyptiacus was the very first drawing I uploaded here on this same date in 2012 when I created my account. The drawing itself however is older, from November 10, 2010, so 6 years old already. That's ages ago.
It's from a time when I had no idea about up to date paleontology and drawing was rarely done with references. And those references were mostly from old, outdated books. That's also where I got my info from back in the day, together with documentaries like WWD and... *shiver shiver* Jurassic Park, though I was aware there were, for some reason, mistakes in those movies.
The drawing is one of those notebook paper drawings I made during the evening study in school when I still had some time left. Fun times, a lot of my best drawings of that time where made there, but this one is the only one who made it to Deviantart together with King of the Sky.
So, with me hanging around here for five years I thought it'd be nice to do a comparison. Luckily I have improved since joining here. Lots of nice people here who've helped me get into accurate paleoart. I'm not going to name them all because I'd have to delve deep into old and new comment sections to find them all and I don't have the time for that at the moment (packing stuff to leave for a few days with school), but thanks a lot for everything!

The next step I now want to be able to make is to get rid of linework and unlock a new level.
Watercolours sound interesting, I've worked a bit with those the past weeks, but it's far from something I'm happy with. Need to watch some tutorials. Also digital art is something I want to learn to work with. I'm starting to get familiar with it, but gotta keep pushing. And let's not forget my loyal colour pencils who've been with me throughout all these years. I actually still use some of the old ones I used five years ago (they just don't die) and I'd love to be able to make more drawings with them. 
Let's see what the future will bring. I wonder what I'm going to be making over another five years, same about what you guys are going to evolve into, but that's for later. Now I'm just going to learn to use other media and have some fun. The latter is important

Draw this again - Spinosaurus aegyptiacus



Animals visible: 

Spinosaurus aegyptiacus
Alanqa saharica
Asteracanthus aegyptiacus 
Coloborynchys morrocensis

Plants:

Weichselia reticulata
Agathis sp.
random horse tails
random moss
trees in the background aren't really meant to be something specific so see it as more Agathis sp., conifers and other trees that fit in such an environment.