Honestly, I think the Hipposarus illustrate a long-held belief of mine, which is that when you're drawing or sculpting, the most important thing is for the "rough" version of the work to look good. Not just good anatomy, but a good, solid, aesthetically pleasing pose.
If the rough version is good you don't need a lot of detail to make the final piece look good, though of course you can go that route, too.
If the rough version is bad, you can put all the beautiful detail and shading on it on it you want: it's still not going to be as good looking as a rough but well-posed piece.
I think the problem is that the new Hipposaru is lovely shading and detail on a not-so-lovely base. The head position is awkward, the legs are hanging out everywhere. It's just fundamentally not beautiful.
The old Hipposaru has a few obvious problems (that line on the leg, the awkward position of the wing behind the head) and of course it doesn't have the lovely detail and shading. But the pose is pretty. It's compact and has a nice sense of movement (I agree it looks like it's landing). No legs hanging all over here.
I think that really the artist needs to go back to the drawing board and make the underlying pose, well, prettier. More collected, better sense of movement. The stuff that needs to be fixed isn't the details, those are fine, it's the basic pose that needs brushing up -- compacting, if that makes sense. Directed energy.
Please don't take this as a jab at the artist. These things happen.
