I’ll just leave one of my wife’s paintings here: Lesser Bowertyrant (Gorgosaurus libratus) | cubelight gfx
??? He’s a pretty accomplished artist who has done some pretty amazing work. (Who also did the Snaiad stuff; indeed, this was my introduction to his art.)
They can, but they shouldn’t have scales—at least nothing like reptile scales. In spite of unfortunate (archaic) nomenclature that used to call protomammals “mammal-like reptiles” (they were neither), they have nonetheless far more in common with modern mammals than they have with reptiles.
