Terror Bird (blue)

So, my daughter fell in love with Terror Birds ever seeing the Howdytoons Terror Bird video. Now, keep in mind she's 4 years old, but she's a big fan of dinosaurs, prehistoric animals, and the color light blue. So, that's what she asked me to make - a Terror Bird in light blue.

This 75mm 3D print arrived pretty flawless. I loved the pose, and the rocky base is pretty nice. I primed everything in Mr. Hobby Mahogony Surfacer, then  I started airbrushing. I completed the base in about 3 hours using several shades of grey and brown. Then I came back with gouaches to give more tones. I really like gouaches so far. To finish, I added a few sparse bushes.

For the bird itself, I found a blue velociraptor drawing that I used for inspiration. Essentially though, I was spraying shades of blue and white over the main body. Now, I found that a lot of the paint rubbed off showing the brown undercoat. Fortunately, I like the look, and it makes some of the feathers look older or rough.

I used images of the Secretary Bird for the face, particularly the orange/red areas. The eyes were hard to paint, but I did them as good as I could. In the end, my daughter loved it.

Terror Birds are a colloquial term for dozens of large bird species of the family Phorusrhacidae. These birds lived in South America anywhere from 43 million to a few hundred thousand years ago. Because of their size, they had no predators, and existed at the top of the food chain.

Though flightless, Terror Birds used their strong legs to run down prey. Their beaks were incredible strong, and they used their beaks like an axe to break bones and crush their prey. Their hooked beaks gave them the ability to tear off flesh, while their strong legs held down the animals. All of this meant they could tackle anything, even larger prey.

However, as temperatures changed and seas receded, the land bridge between North and South America appeared. This allowed Smilodons and Dire Wolves to travel south. As such, these new animals outcompeted the Terror Birds leading to their extinction.

Often considered the largest of the Terror Birds, the Kelenken (the model here) grew to nearly 10 feet tall. It's skull was nearly 2 and a half feet long, most of which was beak. Most reconstructions suggest it had a feathered crown like Secretary Birds.

Today, the closest relatives of Terror Birds are the Seriemas, though much smaller and less scary.

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