Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Terrible '90s Dromaeosaur Face-Off: THE WINNER

There can be only one. The 'croco-raptor' certainly had its fans, but our champion ended up attracting over twice as many votes. This may have had something to do with Traumador pointing out that, hey, the croco-raptor wasn't actually that bad for the time, and blowing raspberries at outdated/misguided art is plain mean (which I concede). However, the whole contest is meant to be in the best spirit of fun; of course it's important to realise the context this art was produced in, and far too easy to sneer with the benefit of hindsight ("fun, too"). That said, some of the art was just dreadful, and perhaps our valiant winner fits into that category.

Here's to you, Zombienychus.



Well, that's the end of that. If nothing else, this tournament has surely taught us an important lesson - namely, that a lot can change in 20 years. Perhaps, two decades from now, some young twerp on a holo-blog will be lambasting the ludicrous palaeoart from 2011. On the other hand, will we ever see such a paradigm shift in the depiction of, in particular, maniraptoran dinosaurs again?

Also, it's been a giggle. Maybe, as I rapidly run out of ideas and money, I'll give it another whirl. Or perhaps we could look at terrible tyrannosaurs, diabolical diplodocids or plain offensive oviraptorosaurs? The possibilities for childish mockery are almost endless...I like the idea of examining palaeoart 'memes' too (even if it's been done).

One last thing: Vintage Dinosaur Art will return tomorrow, with another from me next week (updated following David's comment).

9 comments:

  1. Cheers to this shriveled monstrosity! It really was a tough choice for me, but this is clearly the peoples' champion.

    I've got a "regular" VDA post queued up for tomorrow, too.

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  2. Great news, David, thanks. Especially as I think the book I've ordered mostly features the work of a familiar artist.

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  3. It's another super-old historical one, too, so I'm sure it will generate LOTS of traffic.

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  4. Cheers for bringing those comments public (comment sections are most more like behind the scenes on blogs).

    I'd be game with meme hunting. I think the thing with memes is with some of them there are more examples and incarnations than any one person can track. Be interesting to start public "case files" on them. I'd love to host it on ART Evolved (now if only I had my childhood book collection here in Hong Kong).

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  5. Meme hunting, one attempt:

    http://chasmosaurs.blogspot.com/2011/06/vintage-dinosaur-art-bird-hunter.html

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  6. (Pours Gatorade all over Zombienychus.)

    Come to mention it, there are a LOT of weird older interpretations of Oviraptors out there...

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  7. @Traumador: No problem. It's actually something that I really like to do. Community fostering and all that.

    @Trish: Yes, you've looked at a lot of them on your blog! Maybe I could compliment what you've already done.

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  8. Perhaps, two decades from now, some young twerp on a holo-blog will be lambasting the ludicrous palaeoart from 2011

    I practically guarantee that'll be the case: as much as we think we've learned, the possibility of a paradigm-shifting discovery is always present. The worst you can do in palaeontology is assume that you are remotely close to the truth: that's just asking for your foot to go in your mouth.

    I mean jeez, look at Psittacosaurus. The thing had porcupine quills. Porcupine quills! Who in blazes could've possibly predicted such a preposterous thing?

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  9. @Taranaich: You're right. I doubt we'll see such a shift again when it comes to maniraptors, but there are all sorts of possibilities when it comes to other dinosaur groups.

    You mention Psittacosaurus - well, whoever would have predicted Tianyulong? Now there's a spanner in the works!

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