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.
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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}!
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Art of the Day! Gestural figure sketches from a coffee shop.
