John C. McLoughlin's Archosauria was published in 1979 by the Viking Press and was, let's be fair here, RIDICULOUSLY ahead of it's time. He includes some fine pointillism illustrations. He is also one of the first people to depict most of his small theropods with fluffy feathers:
These Coelurus drawings are my favorites in the book. The detail is lovely. I like the hawklike facial study in the upper-left corner (though I'm not sure how accurate it is given modern evidence). And I especially like how McLoughlin includes a copy of an old illustration of each animal, as he does in the lower-left here. McLoughlin briefly covers other members of the Archosaur... group...? (Someday I will post my Rant Against Linnaeus' Classification System.) One of these is little Longisquama (here, called Longisquamata):
Here McLoughlin gives us one of the reasons why his book is notorious: he is perhaps best known for having some... interesting ideas about prehistoric animal anatomy and behavior. Longisquama, according to McLoughlin, had only one set of those... things on his back. And he used them to trap warm air pockets for insulation. And they are, without doubt, the predecessors of feathers. I almost hate to say that it's apparently just as likely that those things on his back are leaves that coincidentally preserved along with the one known specimen of Longisquama in a suggestive position... - Rumor Debunked! See Jan's awesome comment below. (Quick version: Longisquama actually did look like this.) It's also very strange that Coelurus, Longisquama, Saltopus, and other animals of that ilk all sport a fine coat of feathers - and Deinonychus doesn't. In fact, McLoughlin's Deinonychus is just weird all around:
Something tells me that this wouldn't work... Now, to be fair, there weren't many complete fossils of dromeosaurs back in 1979. There weren't many good complete fossils of tyrannosaurs either, which goes a way in explaining Sharkface McDerpasaurus rex here:
Uh... yeah. Old dinosaur books, as we have seen, depict all hadrosaurs as swimming swamp-dwellers. McLoughlin instead depicts them, more accurately, as upland animals more akin to a really big cow than a really big duck. That said, take a look at his Parasaurolophus couple:
It's good that they're not up to their balls in a swamp, but this might be too far in the opposite direction, and we all know we ought to avoid that. :) Next is one of the most unintentionally hilarious drawings in the book:
I am in love with this drawing. You can't not love an animal that defends himself by lying down. Good jarb, Spike! You just exposed your tasty flank! Now, if you are reading this and you've already heard of John McLoughlin, then you know what I've saved for last. If this is the first time you've heard of him, boy are you in for a treat. I said, and showed, that McLoughlin had some VERY unusual theories on dinosaur anatomy. None of them are as mind-bending as what follows. Ladies and gentlemen, John McLoughlin's reconstruction of Triceratops:
Take a minute or two. Let it allllll sink in. OK? Well, here are some other ceratopsians:
I do enjoy this paragraph that ends the Ceratopsian chapter, just because it's such a great mental image (click for big):
More, and better, has been written about this theory at good old Tetrapod Zoology. It's not really surprising that this has since been debunked (essentially for just plain not working). That poor Styracosaur looks to be in pain.
Now while we're on the subject of people with weird ideas about prehistoric animals, I wonder if DavidPeters has ever written a book...
As I mentioned before,Model a Monster, which is otherwise an innocuous and adorable book of arts and crafts projects centered mostly around dinosaurs, has an ending that is unexpectedly weird. Really weird. Like, "where did I read that creepy thing as a child that still haunts my mind well into adulthood?" weird. That kind of weird. It starts around page 150, where we are told how to "Make a monster diary". We're going to take an ordinary diary and imagine that each "day" is about eleven million years in the history of planet Earth. By this reckoning, human history starts around 6:15 PM on December 31. World War Two ended a third of a second before New Year's Day. I always found activities like this to be like a real life Total Perspective Vortex. And then, we get to play The Extinction Game. Yay...?
I know it probably would have been easier to retype the questions, but I'm going to be using scans instead (click for the larger images). Because otherwise, I don't think you'd believe me at all when I try to tell you that what you are about to read is the ending of a book for children about making hand-made dinosaur models and toys. The instructions to The Extinction Game tell the little kids reading this to "find the answers to these questions". They can ask a teacher, librarian, or other adult for help in answering them. This is going to be sad/hilarious later. There are about two-dozen questions in The Extinction Game. Some of them have answers that are pretty easy to find:
Some of them... well, I don't know if there are straightforward answers for these, or if there ever will be:
So far so good. But the next batch of questions takes an unexpected turn, and the implications here are pretty weird:
This brings us to the next batch of questions, which... jeez, have fun fielding these ones teachers and librarians:
OK, this book was made in England during the Cold War (if you're under twenty, go download the "Songs from the Big Chair" album if you don't understand the mindset at work here; but download it anyway because it is awesome). Still, WTF?! And then, it gets worse:
Lest you think this is as weird and dark as Model a Monster gets, it is time for a little story! This is what was chosen to be on the very last page of the book. Enjoy. I'm sure all the little kids who just wanted a book about making model dinosaurs did:
We need something to laugh at after all those vast, galloping herds of Nightmare Fuel. So next, I'll review a notoriously strange dinosaur book from way back in 1979 by a fellow New Englander. What could it be???
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Art of the day! Consider this a teaser for that upcoming book. It's actually pretty remarkable how spot-on my memories of it were:
Colin Caket's Model a Monster, first published by the Blandford Press in Dorset, England in 1986, is one of my childhood favorites. This copy still has some paper mache stains in it from my failed attempts at creating the adorable models in the book. I was enthralled by all the cool art projects inside, and I'm sure this book saved many a kid during science fair season. This otherwise innocuous book about making dinosaur-centric art also takes a turn for the very, very unexpectedly weird towards the end, but we'll get to that later.
The "stars" of the book are these beautiful little balsa wood carved models. I wanted to make these so bad as a child. Heck, I still do.
Here's a simple way to recreate the super-cute Pterosaurs and cherry scene in "The Land Before Time" with some recycled shoe boxes.
And why build a snowman or sand castle when you could bring sauropod love to the beach or backyard? And speaking of sculpting things out of snow... sort of:
A stegosaurus ice cream sundae! God, that's cute! And this is basically what the book does up until around page 150, which is where things get weird. Really weird. Like, "where did I read that creepy thing as a child that still haunts my mind well into adulthood?" weird. That kind of weird. We will look at that weird part in the next post. Until then, here is some foreshadowing from page 29:
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Announcement: This Saturday is the first MA Independent Comic Expo, going by the adorable acronym, M.I.C.E.! I'd love to be able to go, but unfortunately will be away that day. Although I should be coming back with lots of sketches...
Also, my good friends over at Art Evolved have started a cancer research charity called The Pink Dinosaur Project. Please support us!
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Sketch of the day!
It's Balaur bondoc!
I like this idea but should try again with a much less wonky composition. That tail...
A treasure trove of retro-paleoart recent and otherwise, I have seen a lot of love online for Ranger Rick's Dinosaur Book (copyright 1984 National Wildlife Federation). While it never really gets as strange as Dinosaurs Discovered or the Rourke books, it's still pretty typical of dinosaur books from that time period. This one sports a wide variety of illustrators including Mark Hallett, Eleanor M. Kish, Rudolph Zalinger, and the legendary Charles R. Knight.
In case you ever doubt the impact of paleoart, think of Charles R. Knight. This drawing is one of his. Crack open an older dinosaur book and you will see this as the "default" action pose for small theropods.
In this John Dawson painting, we see an older theory about hadrosaurs that seems to (if you'll pardon the pun) no longer hold much water. They were supposed to be able to use their tails as a weapon. Exactly how this would work, what with their tails being held rather rigid by ossified tendons, I do not know.
Anyway, here are some hadros with unusually creepy eyes by Biruta Akerbergs. I have a feeling they may have been inspired by this guy...
It wouldn't be an Old Dinosaur Book review if I didn't have a Kissguanodon or a HMNH McJurassicPark Raptor, now would it? This John Dawson painting should fulfill one of those requirements at least. Love the "Aw crap" look on the Tenontosaur. And note the big Deinocheirus arms. I did a comic a while back about those arms and noted that I had a picture just like this lodged in my subconscious forever. Now I have some proof of it! Now, the problem with dinosaur books for kids is that they inevitably end on the mother of all colossal downers (mostly because older dinosaur books don't care about birds). There's really nothing I can add to this old Mark Hallett painting except that I hated it as a child and I strongly dislike it now:
I... wow. Of course, now I know why this painting bugs me: mammals galore, but where the hell are all the birds?
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A few weeks ago, this slice of crazy popped up in glorious "filmed in the dark with a shaky phone camera" vision. It has just recently been posted in "I can actually see the images onscreen" vision, and because every other "Pokemon" player has posted it, I guess I have to too. Even though this version of Pikachu and Meowth are going to haunt our dreams.
---- Announcement: So help me. I missed out on Talk Like a Pirate Day. But I'll be damned if I forget to tell you that today is Hobbit Day. Crank this tune while you read this. And remember kids, {enter obligatory snarky pipeweed joke here}!
---- Art of the Day! Gestural figure sketches from a coffee shop.
Few things are as much fun as visiting a relatively remote branch of your city library that you have not visited since childhood, and finding out that they haven't done much "weeding" since you were last there:
Oh, I had the hardest time leaving some of these. (LOL at the book at the bottom.) I've noticed there are a few blogs and other websites that have written about vintage paleoart lately. Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs often has a post about vintage dinosaur art, and has a corresponding Flickr group. Tetrapod Zoology occasionally has a neat feature about this subject as well. I stumbled upon a real treasure trove here, so I am going to have to throw my hat into the ring. Don't know if September will end up being Hilariously Outdated Paleoart Month, but anyway...
We'll start with one of the Rourke Prehistoric Animal Books. They were a library of books published circa 1984 by Rourke Enterprises, Inc. in Vero Beach, Florida. Each one focused on a different species. Usually they told of a day in the animal's life, from that animal's point of view. They were a staple of every 80's library for a long time.
Here's the title page, listing all the books from this series (there were several series within the series). I picked Archaeopteryx (sic) because I figured it would have the most comedic potential. I love the irony of that HMNH/"Jurassic Park"-style Deinonychus running beneath our heroine... (Also notable: That ain't no Ankylosaurus.) I am also kind of in love with this picture from later in the book:
Yeah... not much I can add to this.Archeopteryx is depicted with pretty wonky hand and leg anatomy throughout the book, so get used to it. Also, she has that classic "lizardbird" head and face that has only fallen out of favor in paleoart very recently. And, of course, being the only animal in the world with feathers at the time, Archy has to be the only animal allowed to be colorful too.
Over at DeviantArt, Chasmosaur immediately dubbed my "too far in the opposite direction" feathered dinosaur in "PSA Addendum" a "Sparkleraptor". And I had a good laugh over that -- and then I looked at old illustrations of Archeopteryx and realized that this is not a new thing. Almost across the board all the "nekkid" dinosaurs are the lovely shades of Crap Brown, Diarrhea Green, Intestinal Distress Puce -- while Archeopteryx looks like she wandered off the set of "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert". (By the way, if you do not know what a "sparkle-animal" is... you're probably better off.)
Remember how Dinosaurs Discovered included a weird stegosaurus with horizontal plates along with more traditional-looking stegosaurs? This book has it's cake and eats it in a similar way. Here's where it stands on the infamous "Ground Up"/"Trees Down" issue:
Not much I can add to this either. There's a brief section in the back of the book explaining some of the stuff in the main part, and they state that they wanted to show both theories. (For those of you who aren't Ornithologists, there is a lot of wank over whether the first birds started flying by wing-assisted leaping from the ground, or by aiming for the ground and missing. This is all operating under the assumption that "probably a combination of both, it depends on the particular early bird" is not an option.)
The authors also state with assertion that Archy "is really a reptile that is halfway through evolving into a bird".
I... I...
(For the non-Ornithologists, I can think of at least three or four things wrong with that old chestnut that pops up in so many dinosaur books at the time. For one thing, evolution does not work like in "Pokemon". For another, if Archeopteryx is a reptile, you and I might as well be classified as reptiles. And so on...)
The book ends with Archeopteryx actually looking more like a viable animal in her own right rather than a horrible freakish lizard-thing trapped between evolutionary levels. And she gets the company of another Kiss-guanodon too!
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Art of the Day! Here are some reptiles that have achieved their final evolutionary forms! (Yup. that's another thing I couldn't type without cringing.)
Well first off, Guess who's exhibiting this weekend at ArtsFest? Sadly, I will not be able to attend in person, but if you're in the area and you want to own the original painting, "Support the Gulf", go check it out.
Second off (?), I really ought to wait until we get better art than this crappy little screenshot, but after five generations we finally have an honest-to-Arceus "Raptor Pokemon".
On to the topic. You may, if you like, consider this to be an addendum to Don Bluth Month.
When I was but a lass, I had read a few books about animation, it's history, and how it is produced. I had read Leonard Maltin and Jerry Beck's standard-bearing Of Mice and Magic, Charles Solomon's lavishly illustrated (and enormous) Enchanted Drawings, and the dueling studio histories, Disney's Art of Animation and That's All Folks! These are all wonderful books, but none of them really take you into the trenches -- or drafting tables rather. None of them really tell you the history of animation from the animators' point of view.
I was in my undergrad college library when this weird little book caught my eye:
That's really not the best cover art in the world, is it? But look at that list of contributors! How to Create Animation is a one-of-a-kind book, because it it made up almost entirely of interviews with animation artists.
Co-author John Cawley has been kind enough to post these interviews on his website, which is excellent of him, as some of the history revealed in this book is indispensable. (Note that not every interview from the book is posted online. You will have to dig up a hard copy for Bob Clampett, Jack Hannah, Chuck Jones, and Bill Scott. Also, the online version has no illustrations.) Some of the advice is very good too -- but the world of animation is very different from the way it was in 1990, when the book was published.
So that means, in this book,Glen Keane is JUST starting to design the character of Beast from "Beauty and the Beast" and is just starting to kick around ideas for "Aladdin". Most of the animators from Disney are JUST getting over the hangover they woke up with after "Roger Rabbit" and "Little Mermaid". The future couldn't be brighter for Sullivan/Bluth Studio, and television animation, especially on Saturday mornings, is unstoppable.
Suffice it to say, there are a few Funny Aneurysms in this book. The very worst might be Chris Buck talking enthusiastically about the new series he is working on based off Brad Bird's "Amazing Stories" short, "Family Dog". (For those not in the know, "Family Dog" was, prior to "Father of the Pride", the single most epic failure in the world of prime-time television animation. Hardly remember either of these? Exactly.)
It's always fun to read the history of a medium right from the mouths of the people who lived it. Some highlights from the book, including revelations that surprised me:
* I've never met anyone who didn't like "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". Yet almost all of the artists who worked on it cannot stand the movie! It's either because they thought Roger himself was annoying or because the movie was so hard to work on -- the book reveals that the film was in development limbo since 1983 at least. But what's also strange is the fact that a few artists who did not work on "Roger Rabbit" dislike it too, either because of Roger himself being annoying or because it "doesn't respect animation history" (what?) Especially odd, because this is probably THE movie that kick-started the new appreciation of classic animated shorts.
* On that note, if animators who started work in the 70's have a Purgatory, Filmation is it. EVERYONE seems to have started out there. I guess you have to start somewhere, but yikes!
* It's often the unsung heroes and artists I never heard of who have the best stories in this book. Consider freelance animator Mark Kausler, who has probably got the most interesting resume imaginable, having worked at almost every studio. Or, Bob Givens, who started out working on "Snow White" and, by the time this book was written, wound up on... "Garfield and Friends"...
* If nothing else, this book proves that NOBODY saw the CGI revolution coming. Pixar gets one offhand mention in the introduction as a small studio that makes interesting little shorts and commercials and such.
But even with this last reveal in mind, the animators still have one indisputable piece of advice that they all agree upon: You need to learn how to draw. There's no getting around that. Take some life drawing classes, go outside and sketch, train your eyes to see.
All in all, this is a fascinating book and I wish the authors would consider creating an updated version. My only real complaint: boy do I wish one woman, at all, had been interviewed.
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So I just caught up on some podcasts and guess who got a mention towards the end of this episode of the lovely "Science... Sort-Of"?
It may still technically be summer, but there's a cold chill in the air at night, the pumpkin beers are out, and the Big Party (I refuse to call it iParty because, come on) is stocking it's shelves with Halloween Costumes! Hooray!
I haven't decided on who/what/where I want to be this year. I briefly entertained the idea of somehow assembling a Neytiri costume and... that plan still seems reasonable. Because the officially licensed "Avatar" costumes, to my astonishment and self-kicking lack of camera on hand, look like crap.
I'd like to say that this is some kind of cash-in. That somebody took a generic bodysuit, sewed whatever leftover tails they had lying around to it, and spray-painted the whole thing blue. But no, this thing right here is apparently the official Neytiri costume,and it retails for $72.00.
It's not the most upsetting women's costume available, however. That award would have gone to this little number here. What you are looking at is called the "Sexy Cookie Monster Costume". It is real and I have seen it for myself. It reminded me why this old, old, old Infographic from The Onion is getting less and less funny and more and more horribly prescient every year. However, it isn't the worst. Because in searching for a picture of the Sexy Cookie Monster, I found the worst ever Halloween costume for women. And it is the worst ever, because somebody went ahead and stole The Onion's idea. Ignoring the brain-breaking reality of an actual non-satire real life Sexy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costume for now, here are a few new animated film trailers that... broke my mind for other reasons. (You can read previous trailer reviews here.)
And here is the new trailer for Dreamwork's "Megamind", which is, of course, in three-effin'-dee. I wasn't all that excited about and looks... well, it looks like the very definition of "m'eh":
This thing is called "Alpha and Omega", from a brandy-new studio called Crest Animation, and it is -of course- also in three-effin'-dee. I am going to go ahead and pretend that this is, in actuality, "The DeviantArt Movie" (to go along with "The Social Network" "The Facebook Movie":
But really, the only bad things I can say about "Megamind" and "Alpha and Omega" is that they suffer from lack of imagination. Uninspired animation, boring music choices (it says a lot that the music cue at the 1:50 minute mark of the "A&O" clip made me groan instead of cheer), and generally reminding me of older, better films. And I say that because this next trailer is for "Quantum Quest". It is "a sci-fi action film set in a scientifically accurate rendering of our solar system in 3-D stereoscopic (that) blends computer animation with billions of dollars of fantastic images captured during recent NASA space explorations". While I hate celebrity voices as a selling point in an animated film, it is worth noting that the promotional material proudly boasts that the cast includes "two Captain Kirks, two Darth Vaders, two Jedi Knights, and Neil Armstrong" OMG WTF LOLers!!! So with all this in mind, it's kind of a tragedy that "Quantum Quest" looks like this:
The Maine Wildlife Park in Gray, Maine is another of my absolute favorite places to sketch. There's no real substitute for sketching from life. Especially when you run into a good model like this porcupine:
And this moose:
The Park is run by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and started out as a facility for raising game birds like pheasants and turkeys. Formerly known as the Gray Game Farm, it expanded it's purpose to rehabilitating injured animals of all species.
Today, the Wildlife Park serves as a shelter and rehabilitation center for wild animals who, for some reason or other, cannot survive outside the zoo. Representative species of most New England mammals are one of the Park's highlights. (Though you will probably run into some Hazards of Sketching In Public, like I did. See the quote I overheard in the page below. And the dreaded All Animals are Domesticated trope affects this park like no other...)
A few days ago, I had a teeny tiny flight-capable maniraptor with a beak sized and shaped very like an embroidery needle who subsists on a diet of straight-up sugar water hovering and feeding just a few inches from my squishy, easily-injured big clumsy primate eyeballs. It looked like this:
(I apologize for the blurriness, but it's a wonder I got this photograph at all. If you look close, you can see the very beginnings of the namesake sparkly red throat feathers, meaning this little guy is a young male.) Yes, the Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds are showing up en mass at my feeders. I had just one up during much of the summer, but I now have three, of varying sizes and shapes. They're all the standard kind you can get for under ten bucks at Evil Big Box Store, but honestly they work quite well. They seem to enjoy the little feeder that looks similar to this design best (mine has many more feeding ports). But the Opus Oriole Feeder (which the Orioles have staunchly ignored, go figure) is gaining in popularity, especially after I made smaller hummer-friendly perches with garden wires as seen here:
I never know what the consensus is on store-bought nectar mixes. Every spring it seems as though we get a warning not to use red dyed food, even though I've never heard any circumstantial reports that such food is dangerous. But I stopped using store-bought food last summer just in case -- and also because homebrew nectar mix is so ridiculously easy. Here's what you do:
1) Put three and a half to four cups of water in a teapot (the less water you use, the sweeter the mixture will be; my hummers seem to like the 3.5 cups best). Bring this to a boil. 2) Put one cup of sugar in a heatproof container. A large-ish saucepan works well, just as long as it can contain the water you are currently boiling. 3) When the water is boiled, remove it from the heat, then pour it in with the sugar and mix it together. Set it aside to cool and fully dissolve for a while, then refrigerate it in a pitcher or repurposed iced tea bottle. And you're done!
Some notes: No, it isn't dangerous for humans if they accidentally drink this; it's just sugar water. Yes, you must use sugar, not honey and certainly not fake sugar/Splenda/Sweet-N-Low/whatever. Nor shall you use brown sugar, confectioners sugar, or powdered sugar. Just ordinary table sugar will do. My rule of thumb: if I wouldn't put it in my coffee, I wouldn't make the Hummingbirds drink it either.
Wikkid Important Edit: Sheri Williamson of the lovely "Life, Birds, and Everything" blog commends my use of homemade sugar water because the dyes and preservatives used in store-bought nectar mixes are linked "with DNA damage (oh God, WHAT?), abnormal behavior, abnormal sperm, reduced reproductive success, reduced body and brain weight, and... increased hyperactivity symptoms." The idea of a hummingbird suffering from increased hyperactivity is going to be tonight's nightmare fuel.
And please brew some nectar and set up a feeder. It's been an unusually dry summer and these little guys have a hell of a lousy trip ahead of them.
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Sketch of the Day!
You haven't had enough of Hummingbirds have you?
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There's a new teaser trailer for "Tangled" "Rapunzel" out and...
I've said before that if you go back and watch old trailers for the Disney classics, NONE of them inspire confidence. But this... this is like a "Scott Pilgrim" level of boneheaded advertising (and I say this because if "Rapunzel" bombs, it'll be for the same reason "Pilgrim" did: the wildly misaimed and utterly baffling marketing campaign.) Between this and the loathed "BLAM!!!" -uh- things, this is why you can't have nice things, Disney.
