Vintage Dinosaur Art: Gigantic!

The 1990s was a decade of unparalleled Dinomania; a time where dinosaur books threatened to spill out from bookstores and libraries and bury us all in literary celebrations of prehistoric life. It was a better time. The majority of books published back then were illustrated by artists just didn’t get dinosaurs, and worse still, by artists who just copied the art of whatever dinosaur book they could find at the local library. Patrick O’Brien was no such artist.

Gigantic! was published in 1999 and feels like a direct consequence of the Jurassic Park induced dinosaur craze, as evidenced by the decidedly JP-looking T.rex staring at us on the cover. O’Brien’s dinosaurs have a lot in common with those of Jurassic Park, but these are no mere copies. Patrick O’Brien is both author and illustrator of this book, as well as nearly a dozen others on topics including others on prehistoric life, naval warfare, knights, and more! The bulk of his work consists of maritime paintings, and that’s what his present day website focuses on. Check it out here!

Gigantic! continues a proud dinosaur book tradition of comparing prehistoric life with modern vehicles and other everyday objects, making for fun and shocking juxtapositions and plenty of fuel for the imagination. Images like these remind me of how I used to entertain myself on long car rides, imagining dinosaurs and other creatures prowling around the countryside or city streets. I don’t get the opportunity to do it much these days, but it’s still every bit as fun as it was back then.

The first animal in the book is this slightly elephantine Stegosaurus which reminds me a lot of James Gurney’s Dinotopia dinosaurs. The leathery, wrinkly skin is pure 90s nostalgia, regardless of how little sense it makes. O’Brien clearly had good references available since he gave his Stegosaurus gular armour, something that wouldn’t become commonplace until over a decade later. I think the scale is a bit off here, the dinosaur coming across as particularly enormous unless the car is meant to be very tiny. I’m no car expert, though, so correct me if I’m wrong!

Next up is another thyreophoran, Ankylosaurus! Once again, I’m getting the feeling the dinosaur is WAY too big. Ankylosaurus was enormous, of course, but this feels excessive! Comparing it with a tank is a classic trope, so putting them side by side was obvious and it looks awesome. Ankylosaurus is surprisingly poorly known for such a popular dinosaur, and most artwork of it is based on Euoplocephalus. The skull of O’Brien’s Ankylosaurus is unmistakably authentic, so once again, he had some good reference material on hand. The rest of the body is a bit more generic, and that knobbly armour is especially odd to me. Beautifully rendered, but very odd!

Keeping with this trend of “dangerous” herbivores, here’s Triceratops! The decision to have it face off with a medieval knight is tons of fun, though I can’t say I favour the knight’s chances. Let’s hope this Triceratops isn’t feeling opportunistically carnivorous today! I love the simple pattern on the ceratopsian, that little splash of red adds a bit of visual excitement without becoming garish. It’s a good example of how to use a relatively narrow range of colours to produce a striking pattern, showy animals don’t always need to be a living rainbow. Something fun to note is that the head on this Triceratops seems to be a better match for T. prorsus rather than the more common T. horridus. The text, being so simple, doesn’t draw attention to this but it’s still a neat detail!

 

Parasaurolophus, another JP dinosaur, is the only hadrosaur in the book. It’s an interesting reconstruction that seems to get the overall proportions right but has a subtle weirdness that is most apparent in the face. There’s a hint of a beak there, but the way the texture is painted reminds me more of Jar Jar Binks than a real hadrosaur. Still, it’s a nice effort and I like the gazelle-inspired pattern! The comparison with a trumpet player is a cute touch.

On to a dinosaur truly befitting this book’s title! Seismosaurus, now Diplodocus hallorum, was one of several semi-mythical superlative sauropods that showed up in every dinosaur book from the mid-80s to the early 2000s. Estimated to reach in excess of 40 meters (130 feet!) in length, the so called “earth-shaking reptile” was about as big as dinosaurs came in the world of 90s dinosaur science. It has since been downsized to a comparatively meagre 30 meters (98 feet) but that’s still nothing to scoff at! O’Brien falls victim to elephant foot-itis, but the skull of the Seismosaurus is proper diplodocid and looks lovely. I like the addition of little osteoderms, likely inspired by the presence of similar structures on the then-popular titanosaur Saltasaurus. Nothing of the sort is known from any real diplodocids, but it looks pretty neat and isn’t entirely outside of the realm of plausibility. Comparing it with a backhoe is another cute choice, I definitely thought of them and other “digger” vehicles as a sort of mechanical parallel to sauropods when I was a little kid.

Let’s just take a moment to bask in the glory of this T.rex. Compared with the unimpressive image of a seated king, fitting as it may be, the sheer scale of Tyrannosaurus doesn’t quite come across in this painting. Still, the T.rex itself is incredible. There are hints of Jurassic Park in its design, but it isn’t a pure copy. The huge teeth, dripping with strands of saliva, is truly menacing and the sense of both power and agility in the pose communicates everything kids love about the tyrant lizard king. Just about everything about O’Brien’s T.rex screams 90s in the best way possible, and this is exactly how I envisioned it in my early childhood.

It wouldn’t be the 90s without hyping up Giganotosaursu as the bigger, badder usurper to T.rex‘s throne. 90s Giganotosaurus are a varied bunch, some are like oversized T.rex, some are generic megatheropods, etc. This one feels very allosaurian, with a slimmer build than the T.rex despite being significantly larger, and a head very much inspired by the Carcharodontosaurus skull reconstruction frequently pictured beside Paul Sereno. The comparison with a flame-streaked monster truck is so 90s it’s giving me temporal whiplash. You just don’t get stuff like this these days.

Giganotosaurus is far from the only challenger for T.rex‘s title as largest land carnivore. Behold, one of the strangest Spinosaurus I’ve ever seen! Carnosaur-headed Spinosaurus isn’t odd for the 90s but the sheer size of those crests along with the long legs and crocodylian tail scutes makes this a real weirdo. It’s hard to believe that Jurassic Park 3 was only a couple of years away, even if this particular flavour of Spinosaurus was rapidly falling out of favour by the time Gigantic hit the shelves. What better option to compare the great fin-backed theropod than a finned Cadillac? Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, a match made in heaven.

Not all the animals in this book are giants! Compsognathus gets a feature as the “smallest of them all” as was its lot until the 2000s introduced us to tons of miniscule near-birds. It’s a cute little compy, looking pretty similar to the Jurassic Park version but with a pretty blue streak to brighten it up. I can’t quite tell due to the angle but it looks like this might be another two-fingered Compsognathus, a semi-frequent oddity of 1990s dinosaur books. Compared to the avian theropod, it feels almost unnatural. The expression on mommy duck is priceless. How would you feel if you stumbled upon a bastardised mockery of your own distant family members? Not so funny, is it?

Finishing off the book is a huge spread featuring all the animals in the book, including a handful that I didn’t show for risk of uploading the entire book! Take note of the poor beached Dunkleosteus. A landbound plesiosaur, Elasmosaurus, is inaccurate, sure, but at least one can imagine it hauling itself along. Dunkleosteus (or Dinichthys, the book considers them synonyms and uses both names) looks absolutely miserable, it’s even screaming out for help! The comparative bulk of the Tyrannosaurus compared to the taller Giganotosaurus is pretty neat to see, and I’m not sure of any other 90s books that compare them in front view. Giganotosaurus seems to have been longer than T.rex but when seen from the front it’s all too obvious which was more of a bruiser. A Sibbickian Quetzalcoatlus is hanging out by a Deinosuchus (called Phobosuchus) and both are welcome additions to any book on Mesozoic giants. Our other newcomer is Brachiosaurus, tallest of the tall! Since Seismosaurus is here, I’m actually a little surprised they didn’t pick the mythical Ultrasauros instead, but you can tell they struggled to even fit it on the page.

And that brings us to a close, hope you enjoyed this little window into 90s dinomania! This book was one of my childhood favourites and was on perpetual loan from one of my local libraries. If you’re interested in getting your own copy, it’s common and affordable on various second-hand online bookshops and I’d highly recommend it.

On an unrelated note, I want to apologise for my absence from the blog as of late. Things have been very busy and between work, parenting, other projects, and the general state of my country, I’ve had a rough time committing to sitting down and writing. This post is a step in the right direction, hope to see you all again soon!