Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaurs – A Closer Look

After a mere 12 years, it’s time to bring the Dinosaur Dynasty series to a close with the, er, penultimate book (at least according to the order presented on the back cover). If you’d like to look over the set in the correct order, I’ll list them at the end of this post. For now, here’s A Closer Look, published (as with all the others) in 1993 by Highlights for Children in the US and Watts Books in the UK, and authored by absurdly prolific pop-palaeo writer and occasional upsetting visionary of the evolutionary future of humanity, Dougal Dixon. Artists include Steve Kirk, Chris Forsey, Jim Robins, and there’s even a bit of Denys Ovenden. In fact, Ovenden supplies one of the most memorable illustrations to be featured in this volume…

…although not the cover image, which is by Steve Kirk as always. This is the only cover to not simply consist of one or more dinosaurs isolated against a graduated colour background, instead featuring a hatchling hadrosaur still emerging from its egg, all the better to indicate that this book will be about dinosaurian life cycles and behaviours. Indeed, a Guide to How Dinosaurs Lived. It’s a typically beautiful piece by Kirk, showing his usual careful attention to anatomical detail and striking, yet plausible colour schemes. It’s an excellent choice for the cover, with the viewer’s eye immediately drawn to the staring yellow eye of the animal (right next to the title), its moist skin and oozing egg indicating the recency of its hatching, hinting at the intimacy of the subject matter found within. Yes.

Did you know that DINOSAURS WERE REAL? (Or perhaps one should say, ARE real?) Probably, for as much as I like to think that people read this blog purely for my parochial references to British pop culture and specific Dutch theme parks, and cheap shots at chiefly right-wing political figures, it’s far more likely that you’re all dinosaur enthusiasts. But how do we KNOW about them? Where might Chris Forsey have got the idea to depict a herd of Shunosaurus stomping over the landscape together? Dougal Dixon is here to tell you. Forsey’s work isn’t quite up there with Kirk’s, and one suspects (as mentioned previously) that he’s not a dinosaur specialist, but it’s not bad by any means. In fact, the depiction of a mixed group of sauropods from such a tricky perspective is surely to be commended. Forsey’s dinosaurs have a rather ‘1980s John Sibbick’ air about them, while never being outright copies. Although only occupying about a third of the spread between two large areas of text (and a photo of some elephants), Forsey’s art manages to be oddly atmospheric and evocative in its depiction of a herd of dinosaurs on the move, dust clouds billowing, and I’m a big fan of the yellow-and-black pterosaurs. I’d also like to add that we need more depictions of Shunosaurus in the world – it seems like artists have forgotten about it. PNSO or Haolonggood Shunosaurus now!

Jim Robins is a lovely gent whom I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with on several occasions, so it’s always a treat when his work pops up in books like this. Here, Jim supplies a cutaway view of an animal important to the blog, for its genus lends its name to the wider clade that the blog is named after. (It’s CHASMOSAURS, get it? Not Chasmosaurus!) I won’t pretend to be remotely qualified to comment on all the intricacies of the internal organs and musculature, but it’s all gorgeously drawn and very convincing-looking. Not only are we treated to a stunningly intricate view of the internal workings of a mighty ceratopsian dinosaur, Jim has even included a poop. It’s a modest single poop rather than one big pile of shit, but then, Chasmosaurus was nothing like as large as Triceratops. Besides which, it’s an important link to an explanation of how dino droppings (dr-droppings? Droppings?) are important trace fossils.

While coprolites provided very solid evidence of dinosaur diets, even in 1993, it was trickier back then to ascertain the metabolisms of dinosaurs and whether they sported fluffy or fuzzy integument. Most artists were content to play it safe, but some (like Greg Paul and Luis Rey when he wasn’t being oppressed) dared stick a feathery coat on animals like dromaeosaurs, and such wild speculation managed to find its way into kids’ books of the time. The above piece (by Chris Forsey again) is a typical example, featuring a Sibbickian Velociraptor alongside a more daring, brightly-coloured, feathered version. For how would one even know that an animal was covered in feathers if the feathers weren’t VIBRANT? It’s why sparrows keep being mistaken for common lizards. In any case, this is a delightful example of palaeoart that could only have been produced at a fairly specific point in history, which is definitely one of my favourite kinds.

From a wildly speculative feathered Velociraptor we move on to a very conservative scaly Troodon (or rather Stenonychosaurus, probably) by Denys Ovenden – but what a fantastic illustration! Yes, it’s rather comical, what with the bug-eyed look of the Troodon and the position of the arms, in particular. But take a closer look – the level of detail in this piece is hugely impressive. The dinosaur is superficially scaly in a Sibbickian fashion, but closer inspection reveals intriguing textures on the tongue, intricate patterns in the iris, and carefully painted keratinous layers on the claws. It’s convincingly lifelike, and that’s entirely down to Ovenden’s skill in rendering tiny details, the likes of which might individually be missed, but add up to something that’s almost hyper-real. The dragonfly is an impressive work of art in itself, as is the caterpillar partly obscured by the page number. For my money, this is the standout illustration of the entire book. Even the background foliage is gorgeous.

Nothing else here has much of a chance of matching up to Ovenden’s Troodon, and that includes Chris Forsey’s rather lumpen 1980s-style Protoceratops that is, all the same, quite sweetly nostalgic in being so very of its time. Its hands and feet also make it clear that the artist really was paying attention to Protoceratops anatomy. And the spots are nice. My impressions of this might be coloured by the fact that Protoceratops was so often depicted as being very squat and sprawling in retro palaeoart; it does have a legitimate reason to be squatting here. (And that’s why it’s representing itself in court.)

Jim Robins returns for one of the many ‘dinosaur parades’ that he seemed to be commissioned to produce so often in the 1990s. Here, it’s all about dinosaurs that were BIG, some of which might have been chimeras, but it doesn’t matter. Dinosaurs still got really BIG. The Diplodocus here is strangely retro by Robins standards; it would resemble something from decades earlier if its tail wasn’t elevated above the ground. Also noteworthy is the Compsognathus that is clearly based on another, larger depiction of the same animal by Robins. (I’m sure I’ve featured it before, somewhere.)

Ceratopsians forming a defensive ring around their young in the manner of modern bovids is something of a dead palaeoart trope, proving very popular in the 1980s and ’90s but perhaps viewed as a little too suspiciously mammalian these days. Although, that isn’t exactly what’s going on here, as you’ll note that there aren’t actually any babies trying to stay out of sight in the middle of the circle; rather, smaller, younger animals form part of the defensive wall along with the adults. In that sense, this piece is somewhat unusual. For that reason, and for the very respectable effort at depicting these animals from above, I rather like this piece by Chris Forsey. Dixon also describes the tyrannosaur, Albertosaurus, as “hissing loudly” when it approaches the herd. It’s a reptilian form of vocalisation that would meet approval if featured in contemporary depictions, in spite of the fact that really it’s just Making Dinosaurs Reptilian Again. You know, MDRA. Stick that on a silly hat.

And finally…herding Pachyrhinosaurus, an idea strongly suggested by bonebeds and featured in an awful lot of palaeo-media through the years (up to and including the so-so 2025 incarnation of Walking With Dinosaurs). This is another piece by Denys Ovenden, and while not as impressive as the hunting Troodon, it’s nevertheless highly atmospheric. Quite apart from the bleakness of the stormy skies and volcanoes, and the downtrodden appearance of the animals, it’s easy to miss the small baby apparently stuck in the mire over on the left. The foliage is also, once again, quite splendid. Splendid, I say! Tally pip and what ho. I really rather like it.

…And that’s all for the Dinosaur Dynasty books, a series that I had but a small taste of as a child, but managed to fully explore thanks to this blog. While I’m acutely aware that hardly anyone’s reading blogs these days, I still have so much love for the format and for how much writing for LITC has improved my life that I doubt I’ll stop any time soon. As promised, here are my VDA reviews of all the Dinosaur Dynasty books, in order:

• Dinosaurs – Giants of the Earth
• Dinosaurs – The Real Monsters
• Dinosaurs – All Shapes and Sizes
• Dinosaurs – A Closer Look (you’re on this page, mate)
• Dinosaurs – Death and Discovery