Vintage Dinosaur Art: Jurassic Park Institute – Part 1

It might be hard to believe these days, but the Jurassic Park franchise was once used as a force for palaeontological education. The Jurassic Park Institute website, a kid-friendly hub for dinosaur edutainment, went online in 2001 to coincide with the release of the infamously divisive Jurassic Park 3. This site was a mainstay for my generation of dinosaur lovers, hosting a huge array of articles, activities, and games. Arguably the biggest draw of the site was the Dinopedia. This was a hugely extensive online encylopedia covering hundreds of dinosaurs, all featuring striking artwork by artist and author Timothy J. Bradley. The Dinopedia supplied vital statisics and other tidbits of knowledge, providing one of the most accessible sources of dinosaur info anywhere on the early 2000s internet. It disappeared without warning in 2006 along with the rest of the Jurassic Park Institute website. Needless to say, this was a bad day for dinosaur lovers everywhere. In the intervening twenty years most of the material on the JP Institute site has been recovered, but just as much remains lost or is only available in very low quality. Hoping to rectify this, I reached out to Tim and he was kind enough to provide me with a selection of his JP Institute artwork in higher quality than I’ve ever seen it before. Let’s take a look at a few of them!

Starting off with Dilophosaurus, it’s obvious that serious effort was being put into producing credible reconstructions of the animals. This is a proper Dilophosaurus and not the frilled venom-spitter you might expect from something with the Jurassic Park label. Slick linework, dynamic posing, and eye-popping colours are signatures of Tim’s artwork. It’s delightfully 2000s in all the best ways! I’m a big fan of this menacing pose, and the tricky perspective is very well executed. I can say from experience that drawing dinosaurs from this angle is no easy feat.

Velociraptor is looking very snazzy here! Feathered dinosaurs of any kind were still novel at the time, but this goes to show how the Jurassic Park Institute was more than just a clever advertising wing for the Jurassic Park movies. Much like the Dilophosaurus, this is a science-driven reconstruction first and foremost. The yellow gape and blue eye feel very birdy and authentic, and the scuzzy feathers add to the ferocity of this scrappy little theropod.

As any dinosaur nerd worth their salt will tell you, Jurassic Park’s Velociraptor are really Deinonychus. The JP Institute Deinonychus makes that very apparent with an anatomy similar to the JP raptors, albeit with some feathers and brighter colouration. This high-kicking pose is positively Bakkerian, and it surprised me to learn that Robert Bakker actually reviewed all of Tim’s work for this project! His influence can be clearly seen here, with Tim’s Deinonychus reminding me of the ones in Bakker’s classic 1986 book The Dinosaur Heresies. As a little kid back in the early 2000s, this was almost exactly the way I was imagining dromaeosaurids. It’s hard to overstate how influential this art was on me!

Deinonychus‘ perpetual prey was also featured in the Dinopedia, and looks fantastic! This deep red and white striped patterning feels completely believable, reminiscent of some African jungle antelope but with a dinosaurian flair. It’s rare to see Tenontosaurus without a pack of flesh-ripping raptors stuck to it but Tim did an excellent job making it look interesting all by itself. There’s a great sense of heft and power in the posing here, and the length of the tail is emphasised without turning into the ridiculous Diplodocus-esque snaking thing that turns up from time to time.

Moving back to theropods with a classic horned Ornitholestes, as was the style at the time. Our favourite palaeoart meme is on show here: Ornitholestes chasing a bird! Tim’s Ornitholestes might not seem especially notable, but I’m very fond of the boxy snout with a slight downward curve. That’s a real anatomical feature that is often left out. The little protobird is a real cutie! We still don’t have any direct evidence of any Archaeopteryx-like birds from the Morrison Formation, but compositions like this are irresistible. It’s a reasonable speculation and it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if someone eventually describes a little Morrison avialan.

We’ve seen a few smaller theropods, but how does Tim approach the big ones? With unique poses and sexual dimorphism, in the case of Megalosaurus! I remember being shocked with the sleek look and sharply defined muscles of these Megalosaurus. The contrast with the hunch-backed Neave Parker copies that populated so many books was fascinating and served as one of my earliest encounters with a total overhaul in the look of a dinosaur. Simple touches like the addition of a red flash on the dewlap and crests on the squatting individual does wonders to help Megalosaurus stand out amid dozens and dozens of similar theropods in the Dinopedia gallery.

Carcharodontosaurus, for instance, looks broadly similar to the Megalosaurus anatomically, but has a totally different vibe thanks to that imposing heft and black upper body. This image was always a top result in image searches during my childhood, reinforcing the image of the shark-toothed reptile as a beefy bruiser with a dark, scary appearance after being introduced to it as one by the game Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis. Those little blue crests and red eye are gorgeous little pops of colour that bring this dinosaur to life. It’s easily one of my favourites of Tim’s entire Dinopedia library.

Spinosaurus, the star dinosaur of Jurassic Park 3, was still a bit of an enigma at the time. It’s easy to forget that most of what we know about Spinosaurus has materialised in the last decade or so. The long, low build of Tim’s Spinosaurus is pretty close to how we understand it today, but the influence of Suchomimus and Baryonyx are definitely apparent in the rest of the anatomy. Comparing this with the way it looked in Jurassic Park 3 is a great window into a very specific period in the artistic history of Spinosaurus, where every artist seemed to have their own idea on how it should look.

Tim recently did another reconstruction of Spinosaurus based on Mark Witton’s recent skeletal reconstruction. I adore the spotty patterning on this piece, very eye-catching and fun!

An even bigger blast from the past is Tim’s Deinocheirus in full giant ornithomimosaur guise. Deinocheirus, much like Spinosaurus, has gone through several distinct artistic eras throughout the decades. This look was the one that dominated books of my childhood, having displaced the sauropod-gutting super theropod popular in the 1980s and early 90s. Artists took several different approaches to what a giant ornithomimosaur might look like, with many just looking like bigger versions of smaller animals. Tim went for the more sensible approach, bulking up the body resulting in a hefty looking animal despite the slim and graceful head and neck. Considering what we’d come to learn about Deinocheirus, there’s a lot to like about this reconstruction! The high-contrast facial pattern is just plain cool.

The other big-clawed Mongolian theropod makes an appearance: it’s Therizinosaurus! I can’t help but draw comparisons between Tim’s JP Institute Therizinosaurus and the one that appeared in Jurassic World: Dominion. This is a MUCH more appealing design to me, looking like a believable animal but with Tim’s characteristic style punching it up. I love the short, stumpy legs and bloated belly, conjuring the mental image of an animal not unlike a giant anteater in character. I imagine it lumbering around, drowsily browsing on branches and looking totally harmless but exploding into action if threatened. The choice to depict a pair mid-battle is a really inspired choice that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen before.

We’ll wrap things up (for now) with another formerly mysterious theropod that captured the imagination of dinosaur-loving kids of the 90s and 2000s. Megaraptor, now understood as a coelurosaur close to or part of Tyrannosauroidea, was first envisioned as a giant dromaeosaurid based on the presence of a 35cm long claw thought to belong on the foot. We now know that claw belonged to the hand, surely one of the nastiest weapons ever developed by any theropod. For a brief window of time following the discovery, late Cretaceous South America was believed to be home to Allosaurus-sized super dromaeosaurids. A mind-blowing concept on its own, it’s easy to see why it made an appearance in multiple pieces of Jurassic Park peripheral media. Tim’s forward-facing Megaraptor is positively nightmarish! The dart frog-esque pattern is brilliant, being equal parts terrifying and believable. Those wicked looking hand claws and gaping maw are enough to make you overlook the colossal sickle claw on the toe. Of all the predatory dinosaurs Tim illustrated for the Dinopedia, this one might just be my favourite.

There’s still a bunch of material to talk about, so I’ll be back soon with a follow-up with lots more of Tim’s art! Next time, we’ll focus on some of his sauropodomorphs. If you have any special connection to the JP Institute and its Dinopedia, please comment below and let me know!