WIP WIP Asian-African Elephant project

[Harimau]

The Asian female elephants do not have tusks at all and not all males , the tuskless male elephants are called makhnas , sometimes only 5 in 100, and sometimes 95 in 100 don't have tusks , depending on the population . The elephant Tusks do not represent strength, it is going in the way so tuskless elephants can easily win the battle with big tuskers , it all depends on the body size , not the size of Tusks . I am sure that an African Bush Elephant could easily win in battle with a Mammoth that has oversized big tusks .

Only both male and female African elephants grow tusks , and we have 2 completely different species on the African continent , not related .

The smaller forest African Elephants are related to the Woolly and Columbian mammoths that interbreed somehow on the way in evolution , where the Big African Bush elephant and Asian go another way in evolution .

I always believed the Asian elephant was closer relative to woolly mammoth as they look so much alike with their forms .. but not true , they are not related . Who would expect that a small African forest elephant will drag the mammoth's genes in their DNA and be a true "sister" to them.

Hi Cath,
Sorry to have to correct you. What you initially believed is actually correct. The closest living relative to the mammoth (including the woolly, steppe, or Columbian mammoths) is the Asiatic elephant (see Woolly Mammoth DNA Reveals Elephant Family Tree). The African Forrest and the African Savannah elephants are closely related to each other, and diverged from the Asian elephant and the mammoths about 7.6 million years ago. Elephants are the biggest land animals in the world today. They were among the biggest mammals of all time. One of them, Paleoloxodon namadicus, is the largest mammal that ever lived. Not far behind are the Steppe mammoth, Mammuthus trogontherii and the downward curving lower tusked Deinotherium (the largest of which is D. "thraceiensis)

Paleoloxondon namadicus:

Deinotherium:

Steppe mammoth, Mammuthus trogontherii:

 

[MEC4D]

Hi Cath,
Sorry to have to correct you. What you initially believed is actually correct. The closest living relative to the mammoth (including the woolly, steppe, or Columbian mammoths) is the Asiatic elephant (see Woolly Mammoth DNA Reveals Elephant Family Tree). The African Forrest and the African Savannah elephants are closely related to each other, and diverged from the Asian elephant and the mammoths about 7.6 million years ago. Elephants are the biggest land animals in the world today. They were among the biggest mammals of all time. One of them, Paleoloxodon namadicus, is the largest mammal that ever lived. Not far behind are the Steppe mammoth, Mammuthus trogontherii and the downward curving lower tusked Deinotherium (the largest of which is D. "thraceiensis)


Paleoloxondon namadicus:



Deinotherium:



Steppe mammoth, Mammuthus trogontherii:

Here is your new actual Family tree far far away from each other ..

A new study reconfigures the elephant family tree, placing the giant extinct elephant Palaeoloxodon antiquus closer to the African forest elephant, Loxodonta cyclotis, than to the Asian elephant, Elephas maximus, which was once thought to be its closest living relative.

We’ve had really good genetic evidence since the year 2001 that forest and savanna elephants in Africa are two different species, but it’s been very difficult to convince conservation agencies that that’s the case,” Roca said. “With the new genetic evidence from Palaeoloxodon, it becomes almost impossible to argue that the elephants now living in Africa belong to a single species.

Palaeoloxodon antiquus is a sister to the African forest elephant; it is not a sister to the Asian elephant or the African savanna elephant
The mitochondrial analysis revealed that a shared ancestor of P. antiquus and the African forest elephant lived sometime between 1.5 million and 3.5 million years ago. Their closest shared ancestor with the African savanna elephant lived between 3.9 and 7 million years ago.

 

[Harimau]

That is correct, but Paleoloxodon is not a mammoth nor is it closely related to it as you can see in your tree.

 

[Ivory Elephant]

Any sneak peeks of the textures?

 

[MEC4D]

That is correct, but Paleoloxodon is not a mammoth nor is it closely related to it as you can see in your tree.

Same goes for African elephants lol

 

[MEC4D]

Any sneak peeks of the textures?

Not yet , as we are busy finishing stuff for Dawn 2 release at this moment
I made some tests early, but it was only a tests , not the actual final textures

It was after temporary rig I made in Daz Studio to check the African Bush elephant morph that Chris made
Rendered with Iray

 

[DanaTA]

Looks great!

Dana

 

[RAMWolff]

WOWSERS!

 

[Alisa]

Gorgeous -DEFINITELY

 

[Janet]

Not yet , as we are busy finishing stuff for Dawn 2 release at this moment
I made some tests early, but it was only a tests , not the actual final textures

It was after temporary rig I made in Daz Studio to check the African Bush elephant morph that Chris made
Rendered with Iray View attachment 73811

Wow! Just WOW!

 

[Ivory Elephant]

Not yet , as we are busy finishing stuff for Dawn 2 release at this moment
I made some tests early, but it was only a tests , not the actual final textures

It was after temporary rig I made in Daz Studio to check the African Bush elephant morph that Chris made
Rendered with Iray View attachment 73811

For a test that looks good so far

 

[MEC4D]

Thank you everyone , I never posted it anywhere because what you will get will be better lol
here some early work on sculpting bigger skin details , since I am not using photos for texturing , everything handmade in Zbrush , very time consuming task.

 

[Harimau]

Hi Chris,

I, too, am eagerly waiting for the elephant to come to "life", both the African and the Asiatic elephants and their little ones. My other wish is for a Deinotherium. It wouldn't be too difficult to convert an elephant to a long-trunked deinothere by converting the long upward curving maxillary tusks into short down curving mandibular tusks. Did deinotheres have long or short trunks? The presence of a elephant-like proboscis or trunk in Deinotherium is evident thanks to the size and shape of the external nares. Historic depictions commonly portray it as very elephantine with a long trunk and tusks breaking through the skin below an elephantine lower lip. In the early 2000s Markov et al suggested an alternative soft tissue reconstruction. They argued that, due to the origin of these animal's tusks, the lower lip should be situated beneath them as they evolved their classic downturned appearance. They further suggested that, while a trunk would be present, it would likely not resemble that of modern elephants and instead be more robust and muscular, which they reason is evidenced by the lack of a proper insertion surface. This has led to recent reconstructions with short trunks, some ridiculously short. The deinothere was a huge animal more than 14 feet tall with a short neck. How on earth is it going to get a drink? Some have suggested a giraffe style stance, but a giraffe has a very long neck and slim legs. Imagine a 14 foot, 4-5 ton short necked animal with collumn like legs doing that! Others have suggested that it wades into deep waters to get a drink. Not all drinking holes or rivers are that deep and why bother doing that in the first place. The trunk is much more than a drinking vessel to the elephant - it is also their equivalent of the arms, hands and fingers of a human. If unrelated dolphins and ichthysaurs can evolve to be so alike in form with their arms turned into flippers, why can't two closely related animals evolve similar types of trunks as they both grow bigger, taller and bulkier in parallel in a similar environment, especially when they share a common ancestor that already had a prehensile proboscis. So, in my opinion a deinothere, in appearance, is just an elephant with downward curving tusks in its lower jaw. And so I hope you will also do a morph for a long-trunked deinothere from the elephant model.

Here are 3 reconstructions from different pespectives done by Mauricio Anton, which in my opinion is the closest approximation (They are really not much different from an elephant):

Here are 2 reconstructions of "very thirsty" deinotheres with short trunks (one ridiculously short):

 

[MEC4D]

@Harimau the tusks are rigged and has own bones , so it is not just a simple morph as you may think.
Once the base African and Asian Elephant families are done we will think about other "related" or not "related" species that can be created from the base, as we mentioned early .
Right now lots of stuff is going on , in short the plate is full .

But thanks for the post , I like it and added to the list ..
The short trunk is ridiculous , looks like an elepork

 

[Nod]

And here are a few more screen grabs with the Asian, and Dusk 2 for size and shape comparisons.

View attachment 72894View attachment 72895View attachment 72896View attachment 72897View attachment 72898

Comapred to the legs, the feet are too big.
Looks nice though.

 

[Rhia474]

It looks amazing. And having all of those reference images...wow.
And elepork...rofl.

You know what I'm going to ask--have you tried any Poser tests yet?

 

[MEC4D]

It looks amazing. And having all of those reference images...wow.
And elepork...rofl.

You know what I'm going to ask--have you tried any Poser tests yet?

Thanks , I did not made the rig for Poser yet , still raw version in DAZ Studio , I tested just the morph Chris made

 

[MEC4D]

Comapred to the legs, the feet are too big.
Looks nice though.

I have to build ( sculpt) the skin on top of the shape so at the end everything looks just fine

 

[Chris]

Cath,

Happy to see that you posted your gorgeous African elephant image you created. It's stunning to say the least. Very compelling. It's fun to look it over and see at all the details you've included.

 

[Harimau]

An Interesting fact on elephants:

Elephants are large and long-lived animals and so should have a very high risk of developing cancer. Surprisingly, they are practically almost cancer resistant! Less than 5% of all elephant deaths are due to cancer (compare this to up to 25% in humans). It seems that elephants and their living and extinct relatives evolved to be cancer-resistant. For more information see How Elephants Evolved to Become Big and Cancer-Resistant | Association of American Universities (AAU).