Over a decade go, on the blog’s previous incarnation, I wrote a slightly unusual Vintage Dinosaur Art article about a single poster. Said artwork was produced to accompany the officially endorsed Natural History Museum (or, as it properly was at the time, British Museum (Natural History)) dinosaur toy line, made by Invicta Plastics of England. At the time, I mentioned that I knew of two posters, both with the same theme (an Age of Reptiles-esque seamless transition through time), but…
Our journey into the distant past (that is, the eighties) continues today! Last time, we looked at specifically the dinosaurs among Chris Forsey’s work for Creatures of the Past. Today, we will dive into the sea of the Devonian and work our way up past all those jolly otherprehistoricanimals. When it comes to Dunkleosteus, there’s really two ways to go about it. You can either make a somewhat naturalistic looking Dunk that doesn’t overplay it, you can give it expressionless,…
It’s time for more Vatagin! Last time I showed you some of the dinosaur-centric works of the old Russian master. There are still some dinosaurs left, but today I will cover mostly the otherprehistoricanimals in his portfolio. As I don’t have a way to date his works except very broadly, I will simply do so in the chronological order of the Earth itself. Vatagin’s most famous and prominent palaeontological works are those in the “History of Life on Earth” series…
After covering Konstantin Flyorov a few monts ago, I found there to be a lot of interest in vintage Russian palaeoart. There was a small but very interesting palaeoart scene in Soviet-era Moscow, linked to its tradition of animal and wildlife art, that is stylistically quite distinct from the western tradition. Today, I want to give some attention to the original Russian palaeoartist: Vasily Alekseyevic Vatagin (Василий Алексеевич Ватагин, 1883 – 1969). Vatagin was a world traveller, a keen student…
I’ve found another very old dinosaur book! This one was released in 1946, and it’s a short but sweet one. The author and illustrator is one Hilary Stebbing, a stalwart of children’s literature of the mid-20th century. It’s rare to find dinosaur art from the 1940’s, a quiet time for palaeontology for obvious reasons, so kudos to Stebbing for getting this book out! I always like to give some biographical information or historical context when reviewing a book like this,…
Stay safe. Stay at home, as best you can. Look out for each other. Flatten the curve. With that said, let’s look back at March 2020 in Mesozoic paleontology. In the News The world lost a paleontology giant this month as Dr. Jenny Clack, master of early tetrapods, passed away. Read Darren Naish’s wonderful tribute. Did non-avian dinosaurs glow? Spurred by a twitter conversation, Darren Naish, Cary Woodruff, and Jamie Dunning explore the possibility in Historical Biology [PDF link]. Read…
Many years ago, Marc introduced you all to the marvellous wonder that is Paradise Park. Early in 2019, he also introduced me to the place. Now I will re-introduce you to it, because I am on a mission to bring back Ugly Ugly Dinosaurs to LITC (or, as those savvy to today’s Internet lingo call them, Cursed Dinosaurs), and there is simply no place quite like Paradise Park. Enjoy! Although there’s plenty of tourism in the greater Brighton area, there…
There are certain books that you’ll be absolutely certain you’ve seen before, but just can’t quite place where or how. This was just such a book for me. T. R. (Tyrannosaurus rex) & Friends was published in 1988, and would’ve still been hanging around in bookshops when I first got into dinosaurs as a child, only 4 or so years later. When reader Elsie Swann sent over images from TR&F, the distinctive illustrations instantly rang a bell, but I didn’t…
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Chasmosaurus belli silhouette in custom bulleted list by Scott D. Sampson, Mark A. Loewen, Andrew A. Farke, Eric M. Roberts, Catherine A. Forster, Joshua A. Smith, and Alan L. Titus, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sourced from PhyloPic.