Pigeon Skeletal Study

Just a little something I made as a reference for bird anatomy. To make sure my construction lines aren't just flights of fancy, I wanted to be rooted in the way the skeleton fits everything together.

So I looked at a range of photos of pigeon skeletons, and some technical anatomical drawings too, but I think the only source that really faithfully captures the position of bones in a living bird's body is X-ray imagery. Only with birds, X-rays are hard to decipher because the bone density is so thin. Anyway, I hope I managed to reproduce at least the semblance of some anatomical accuracy here; when in doubt, I chose clarity of forms over the details of bone protrusions.

What surprised me here was how far back the legs join onto the hips. I had thought they were in line with the centre of gravity, but I guess only the feet need to be aligned on that axis there.

The photo, and everything else in this, is (c) me. But feel free to use it as a reference for yourselves too.