Alligator muscle study

I've returned with another anatomy reference model - a juvenile Alliagator! As with my Komodo Dragon, this is an idealised sculpted representation of Alligator muscle anatomy built atop an edited CT skeleton. Thanks to Raul Ramos for commissioning me to build this last year. Crocodylian muscles are well-studied, but the info is spread across dozens of papers that aren't always accessible/known to artists. My goal was to synthesise this material into a visually intuitive, artist-friendly resource.

The CT'd individual upon which I based this model was a juvenile ~1m long. Adults are a lot more robust. This model also is also light on intermuscular fat. Depending on body condition, major fat deposits may cause the abs, tail, neck, & throat muscles to balloon & sag more. Also, keep in mind that the axial body outline would be a good bit thicker with fat & skin added! The posterior third-ish of the tail alone (essentially, the paddle) would be ~twice the height as what you see here with just the muscles, mostly due to the tall triangular scutes.

The colour coding is the same as my Komodo Dragon (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/VJAYdP) for homologous muscles, making for easier comparison!

References used to build this model, including the real CT'd skeleton: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wx9gNG5QrfgUQuovQE2B_cf_nGaqbnR0/view