Achillobator giganticus
"Giant Achilles warrior "

Achillobator, Greco-Mongolian for "Achilles warrior", was a gigantic ornithodesmid similar to Utahraptor. Most ornithodesmids were a slender 6-10ft long or smaller, but these things could grow up to 17ft (the Megaraptor, once thought to be a 30ft dromie, turned out to be a regular-sized carnosaur). The size of this bird/dinosaur inspired me to restore it with ostrich-like feathers. Big flightless birds tend to revert to shaggy, soft feathers, often keeping long wing remiges for display reasons (kiwi take this to the extreme, having downgraded their feathers to the point where they resemble compsognathids!). Mongolia was then, as it is now, a pretty arid place, so overheating would have been an issue for a bird this size. Again, I stole the strategy ostriches use in the drawing, with lots of exlosed, semi-naked skin on the legs and neck. All skin impressions from paravians show a plume of feathers on the end of the tail, so even though this species was very derived, I decided to keep that feature, since it could still have been useful in display.

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