Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaur (DK Revealed)

Regular readers (we have some, right?) will be aware that our sole criterion for a book’s inclusion in Vintage (=Old) Dinosaur Art is that it be 20 years old. Consequently, books from the early 2000s have now entered our purview. It was a time when, in the wake of Walking With Dinosaurs, publishers demanded increasing numbers of CG creations in lieu of more traditional illustrations and model photography. Dorling Kindersley (aka DK) very much followed this trend, inserting very dodgy CG-o-saurs into their books with merry abandon. This is just such a book, but fear not, for the more traditional ways hadn’t died out yet…

Each of DK’s ‘Revealed’ books features spreads covered by acetate sheets that, when peeled back, reveal something or otherwise transform the image – as hinted at by the iffy CG tyrannosaur on the cover, being peeled to reveal its equally dodgy skeleton. (Hang on, is that the skeleton from the Dinosaur Hunter edutainment CD-ROM?) Dinosaur was written by Dougal Dixon – one of the 3 popular dinosaur books he wrote that morning while eating his eggy soldiers – and published in 2003. Happily, that means it followed 2001’s Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Life, and so could reuse some of the superior art from it.

This Suchomimus, for example, is quite lovely. It was sculpted by Jonathan Hateley, under the supervision of one Luis Rey. Hateley isn’t credited in this book, but thankfully a quick post on Facebook cleared things up (thanks to Luis himself and Darren Naish, among others). For the time in which it was made, it really is exceptionally good; you might dispute the pseudo-beak (Darren certainly does), but in overall form it’s absolutely superb, not to mention exquisitely detailed. All the models in this book (including the recycled 1990s Compsognathus over on the right) blow the CG efforts off the face of the Earth, but this Suchomimus might be the best of ’em.

Hateley’s Giganotosaurus model (as featured in the 2001 encyclopedia, among other publications) makes a cameo appearance here, appearing on the title page. It’s another lovely piece, and one that I’ve seen in person at the Dinosaur Isle museum on the Isle of Wight, where it resides in an upstairs room that’s only sometimes open. (Sorry, Agata.) The Suchomimus can’t be seen as it was sold on eBay a few years back, probably to Zubin, the bastard.

Still, gorgeous model photography isn’t what sold us this book – where are the grand REVEALS? Well, here’s one, in which Camarasaurus (actually quite realistically ugly) is being threatened by a pair of Allosaurus, clearly modeled on the WWD creation, except rather than just inaccurately having a crest directly over their eyes, here they have their eyes…in their crests…above their orbits? Or something. And the Camarasaurus has elephantine skin, just to upset me.

Flipping the acetate sheet reveals this gory scene, in which the malformed WWD-ish allosaurs have successfully downed the camarasaur and are now tearing it to gory shreds. I do commend the bloody brutality of this scene (especially for a kids’ book), but the angle on that foreground allosaur is very, very unfortunate. That’s not what an allosaur’s skull is like, that’s not what an allosaur’s teeth are like, and that right forelimb is looking rather awkward, there. Still, it could be worse, right?

Like this. This is worse. At least the WWD Allosaurus provided a fairly decent reference; the same can’t be said for the WWD T. rex, which looked as if its head and body were created separately and then haphazardly joined together (which, from what I’ve heard, might actually have been the case). The same is true here – Rexy’s head, quite apart from being a rather malformed thing in itself, doesn’t seem to be attached to its neck in any way that makes sense. If there’s one thing to be said for this, it’s that at least they didn’t use that CG skeleton again – rather, the transparent sheet has a photo of AMNH 5027 on it, instead, neatly showing how this life restoration doesn’t match a real T. rex skeleton very well. They tried, lads, they tried.

Another ‘reveal’ involves a Troodon egg giving way to a hatchling, which appears to be violently smashing its way out of its egg like it’s the chestburster in Alien. You know, just like a modern-day reptile. The angry snarl on its face really seals the deal for me. What a marvelously silly piece – I love it. And the gorilla-suit fuzzy adult in the corner, too (a crazily speculative alternative take to the scaly one printed on the acetate sheet).

We could probably do with a palate cleanser after all that, so here’s some more model photography. I believe these Pentaceratops are more Hateley creations, which would certainly explain them being as pretty as the are. It’s a shame that they’ve been composited (in 2003 stylee) into a photograph of some woodland, so we can’t get a proper good look at them – there’s evidence of careful attention to anatomical detail alongside a very fetching paint job, especially on that striking frill. No doubt that 2001 encyclopedia contains further shots of this model – maybe it’s time I finally got hold of a copy!

The above Velociraptor and Protoceratops would appear to also have been sculpted by Hateley, based on their style, although I’m not certain and am quite happy to be corrected. I’ve mostly included them to contrast with a different take on Velociraptor that’s probably already caught your eye, peeking out from below (it’s that yellow face), although it’s worth noting that this is about as good as scaly ’80s-early ’90s style Velociraptor models got. By 2003 they probably should have at least been sticking some feathers on the poor dears, but these models are almost certainly older than that, and it’s notable that they avoid many of the terrible tropes of the ’90s – they’re well proportioned, with heads that are the right shape, hands that are facing each other and arms in a position that begs for an incipient propatagium.

There’s also a Protoceratops. It’s pretty nice, too. Does anyone care about Protoceratops? No? Moving on, then.

And finally…it’s Luis Rey! DEINONYCHUS! Only, it’s not Deinonychus, but Velociraptor. And it’s feathered – in 2003! But of course it is. Luis would have feathered his dromaeosaurs back in the 1993 Usborne book, if only they’d have let him. This model would have looked pretty radical when new, but would now be considered under-feathered (as Luis would be keen to point out). I still think it’s a remarkable achievement, and definitely a stand-out piece in this book. Although the integument looks sparse by today’s standards, this is still an exceptionally well observed, beautifully detailed model that’s, for me at least, utterly believable as a living being. And that’s about as high a praise as one can give any work of palaeoart.