The Illustrated Triassic Club

Oscar, Darwin, and Wallace

Several readers may recall Marc's having covered Blackgang Chine's The Triassic Club before. After our return this Easter to view the newly installed robosaurs of Restricted Area 5, I decided to finally complete this little project which I had actually begun a year ago, that of accurately illustrating the gentlemanly trio (which, for me, also meant accurate period garments, naturally). This was not only overdue but was especially necessary, since the inclement weather during the latter part of our Isle of Wight visit prevented me from drawing a dinosaur on Shanklin beach as I did last time.

Sketchbook: The Challenges of the Smoking Brachiosaurus

Sexy rexy's got nothing on the nicotine-craving Brachiosaurus. My doodles always have at least one wonky limb.

Christoph Hoppenbrock

A brief preface, as is to be expected in this era of decreased activity here at the blog. I am very much committed to continuing it, but I expect that its focus will continue to shift. When I was a nine-to-fiver, I found it much easier to be up the latest research. I could spend lunches and breaks writing posts. Though they often betray my status as a novice in paleontological knowledge, this type of post has been very satisfying for me, and writing about hot new taxa is a perennial source of traffic.

As a freelance designer and full-time student though, it's simply not something I can do anymore, so those sort of posts have faded considerably. I feel like it's turning into much more of a paleoart-focused blog than a paleontology blog, and that's just fine with me. I'll keep sharing my work (of which I have loads needing to be photographed). Maybe Marc will even share some of his, if we nudge him persistently enough!

One thing I'd like to do is share more work of more recent artists. One of my greatest regrets was not being conceived a decade or two later, so I could have taken advantage of the social web when young. I'm envious of you whippersnappers who get to grow up with the access to paleontologists and artists that today's web allows. The era of open-access and the participatory web is going to drive scientific discourse, which is a really exciting thing. To that end, I think I could do more here to help give contemporary dinosaur artists a bit more presence online.

Enough navel gazing though, let's look at the illustrations of Christoph Hoppenbrock!

I became aware of Hoppenbrock's work at Flickr. He's a designer and illustrator with an impressive range of work, including wonderfully intricate 3/4 view worlds illustrated for the German Playboy. When I wrote to ask permission to feature him here, he added a disclaimer I have read on his illustrations before. Some of it is a bit out of date; in particular Christoph is hungry to illustrate some feathered theropods and fix the pronation issues in some of his pieces. Those bits aside, his work is certainly worthy of dinosaur lovers' time. And like I told him in my reply back, there are plenty of scaly theropod fans who will appreciate his lizardy compsognathids. When he expressed his mild shame at the outdatedness of some of his work, I told him that to me, what's more important is the unique character and aesthetic of the work; anyone can learn the fundamentals of anatomy, but not everyone has arrived at a style that will invite viewers in. That ability to imbue a work with an inviting narrative - whether subtle or expicit - is a lot harder to teach, and I think he's got that aspect covered. The small body of work he's shared online features a slice of Jurassic life, focusing on his home country's paleontological heritage. Enjoy!


Anurognathus and Allosaurus


A sleek and colorful Compsognathus


Pterodactylus grandis


Inside and outside Compsognathus


A mesozoic croc gets a dinosaur for dinner.

Check out more of Hoppenbrock's work at Flickr and his personal website.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Allosaurus by Doreen Edwards

Today, we check off yet another fine publication from Rourke, who did a series of books in the eighties dedicated to dinosaurs and assorted other prehistoric animals, from the obscure to the iconic. We'll be on the iconic end of the spectrum this time out, with the title Allosaurus, written by Ron Wilson with illustrations from series regular Doreen Edwards, who also illustrated the recently-featured Pteranodon.



As these titles were mostly done before the dinosaur renaissance really took hold, you see plenty of "man in suit" style theropods, standing with their backs at high angles, with tails dragging on the ground. And they're decidedly reptilian in aspect, almost devoid of the avian character most theropods are given today. I like Edwards' illustrations, which outclass most of the other artwork in the series, and I'd like to see what she would do with dinosaurs from a more modern perspective.



Here, Allosaurus is skulking in the underbrush while two Archaeopteryx proudly display their colors above.


The story, set in a convincingly-staged Jurassic period (save for the fact that Archaeopteryx is not from the same area as the other dinosaurs in the book) is a complete downer. The titular dinosaur, a female, is old and unable to hunt like she once could. So she wanders around a bit, trying to find some grub. She watches as a young male takes down a Diplodocus. No cunning required: he just jumps it and bites its neck. Of course, the Diplodocus watches on in horror, defenseless.



She's chased off of the fallen Diplodocus by the male when she tries to join him. A pair of small Ornitholestes get their share, but our poor Allosaurus is forced to flee. I must say: that young male made quick work of that sauropod.



Stealing a page from the Ornitholestes' playbook, she tries taking down an Archaeopteryx. No dice.



And then she dies. The book ends with an act of cannibalism, which too few children's titles have the nuts to try. It's damned depressing, and I imagine a fair portion of children who read this book needed a good hug afterwards.



Frustratingly, I can't find any solid information on Doreen Edwards. There's a musician and an engineer by the name, but I haven't found any reference to an illustrator except in book listings. Doreen, if you're out there, give us a holler!

Allosaurus, Now and Then

I completely endorse changing museum displays as knowledge changes. But it's also cool when there's a continuity between the exhibits we see now and what past generations saw. For instance, the American Museum of Natural History's Allosaurus mount, in which the Jurassic theropod preys on a fallen Apatosaurus. Compare these two photos, taken nearly a century apart.


From Volume VIII of the American Museum Journal, 1908


Photo by Ryan Somma, via flickr.

Neat, huh? Finally, here's Charles M. Knight's take on the scene, one of the iconic images in the history of paleoart. You can see a second Allosaurus in the distance, standing upright in the formerly accepted theropod posture. Thanks to the fact that his supper is on the ground, this Allosaurus has a much more modern look.


Painting by Charles M. Knight, via Wikimedia Commons

I'll close with a typically wonderful piece of vintage science writing from the American Museum Journal piece the 1908 photo comes from. The writer is W.D. Matthew.

As now exhibited in the Dinosaur Hall this group gives to the imaginative observer a most vivid picture of a characteristic scene of that bygone age millions of years ago when reptiles were the lords of creation when Nature red in tooth and claw had lost none of her primitive savagery and the era of brute force and ferocity showed little sign of the gradual amelioration which was to come to pass in future through the predominance of superior intelligence.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Aurora Model Kits

In the early 1970's, the Aurora company struck gold with their "Prehistoric Scenes" model kits of dinosaurs and other ancient beasts. There's a tribute site to the model kits, run by a fellow named Ian, located here. The images below come from the site; there is a wealth of background information, images, and even original kits for purchase. The site is very 1.0, but that's no deterrent if the content is cool.

Image from Aurora Prehistoric Scenes

According to a 2007 post at Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog, comics artist Dave Cockrum designed some of the kits and their box art, though the above anachronistical joyride doesn't seem to be his. An interview at Comic Book Resources indicates that he was really only responsible for the T. rex and Stegosaurus.


Image from Aurora Prehistoric Scenes

Here's his T. rex box art, but unfortunately the Stegosaurus wasn't meant to be. It's a shame, because it easily twould have been one of Aurora's finest kits.

Image from Aurora Prehistoric Scenes

There's also a sketch of a proposed Parasaurolophus model on the tribute site, signed by Cockrum, but it must not have left the early planning stages. These old kits seem to inspire quite a bit of nostalgia, and I can see why. They have a pulpy sensibility to them, a mix of B-movie inspiration and scientific curiosity. When all of the kits were assembled, their bases could be fit together into a wild, improbable crowd of ancient beasts and cavemen. If I had been kicking in the early seventies, I would have been crazy for them.

Side note: sorry if this post popped up prematurely (and incompletely) in your blog reader of choice last night - I accidentally published it as I was starting the post. I deleted it immediately, but it's still sitting in my Google Reader.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Mickey and Goofy

Volume 6 of Walt Disney's Fun-To-Learn Library, published by Bantam in 1983, was titled Real Life Monsters. In it, Mickey takes Goofy on a globe-trotting, time-traveling trip to find well, real life monsters. This mainly means "reptiles." No illustrators or writers were credited.

Through the magic of Disney, Mickey takes Goofy back in time to check out some dinosaurs. It isn't long before Goofy witnesses something that will surely scar him, robbing him of the innocence that makes up such a big part of his bumbling charm. Mickey, hardened to the reality of nature's brutality, watches the slaughter as Goofy turns away in a vain attempt to erase the horror from his memory. It is futile, Goofy. You will never be the same.

Yes, Goofy, sauropods were the ultimate moveable feast, spending their lives dimly dreading the moment when some bored theropod decided he was a bit peckish, and might enjoy gnawing on a sauropod neck while it groaned in half-interested protest. Damn, I love the expression on bronto's face there. "Aggghhh, that's my neck, moron!"

Mickey might be forgiven if he at least gave Goofy a sound education. But alas, he commits that most basic of errors, calling any big old dead reptilian thing a dinosaur.

Maybe he doesn't explicitly call Dimetrodon a dinosaur, but what else is poor Goofy supposed to think? It's included with the dinosaurs, and Mickey makes no effort to explain what it really is. So shame on you, Mickey.

The idea that the sail was used to help Dimetrodon "keep its balance in the swampy land where it walked" might be the dumbest hypothesis I've ever heard. If anything, I imagine it would make balancing harder... oh balls, I've fallen into Mickey's little trap. I'm not going to debate him. He'll just Gish gallop me and I'll never finish this post. So here's a pretty blue Stegosaurus. I'm out.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: High-Kickin' Allosaurus

Here's a two-page spread from a 1979 Scholastic book called the First Picture Encyclopedia. It's a pretty sweet piece, complete with a gaggle of erupting volcanos, anachronistic fauna, Rudolf Zallinger-inspired Stegosaurus, and one heck of a high-kickin' Allosaurus, which I find particularly amusing. Not only would it be a crazy way for a big theropod to attack its prey, the stance looks pretty implausible.

The book credits four illustrators: Roy Coombs, Cliff Meadway, Mike Atkinson, and Graham Allen, with Coombs' name most prominent. None of them are particularly visible on the web. Mr. Atkinson has a website, but the style doesn't quite match what we see here.

Hello, Haplocheirus

Illustration by Portia Sloan, courtesy George Washington University

There is a whole lot of dinosaur news going on right now. Predictably, the dinosaur feather color story has made the biggest splash in the general media. But there have also been two new species described in the last week or so.

Here's that new alvarezsaur I posted about last week. It's called Haplocheirus sollers, a basal member of the group, and the only one known from the Jurassic period. The discovery of Haplocheirus is one of those lovely instances when scientists make a prediction about evolution and it pans out. Many features of Haplocheirus are transitional between the later, more specialized alvarezsaurids and their common theropod ancestor. And it was found exactly where an early member of the group should be expected - in Jurassic rock dating to when theropods were diversifying into their myriad Cretaceous forms.

The hand in particular is remarkable. When I was in high school, the cool program we all loved messing with in art class allowed us to morph two faces together, an effect used to great artistic success in Michael Jackson's "Black and White" video. Take a look at the theropod hand comparisons used by Jonah Choiniere, lead author of the Nature paper describing the find, in his latest guest post at Archosaur Musings. It's like he took the hands of Allosaurus and Shuvuuia and morphed them, and ended up with Haplocheirus. Maybe not exactly, but close. Haplo looks a lot like a generic theropod, showing that the things that made its later descendants look so birdish really were examples of convergent evolution - separate lines that arrive at similar bodily features because the pressures of natural selection happened to favor them. The deeply keeled sternums of alvarezsaurs and birds allow for powerful arm muscles - muscles that evolved for digging and flying, respectively. Imagine I'm writing "cool" several hundred times, so I don't have to do it.

Another new species is a tyrannosaur unearthed in New Mexico, Bistahieversor sealeyi. I'll post on this one tomorrow.