Recreating an Age of Reptiles E-Book

Mark P Witton

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals have always fascinated people but they pose vast problems for the artist. How do you go about recreating the anatomy and behaviour of a creature we've never seen? How can we restore landscapes long lost to time? And where does the boundary between palaeontology - the science of understanding fossils- and artistic licence lie? In this outstanding book, Mark Witton shares his detailed paintings and great experience of drawing and painting extinct species. The approaches used in rendering these impressive creatures are discussed and demonstrate the problems, as well as the unexpected freedoms, that palaeontological artists are faced with. The book showcases over ninety scientifically credible paintings of some of the most spectacular animals in the Earth's history, as well as may less familiar species. Mark explains how each image was created with details of the artistic process, scientific grounding and collaborations between researchers and discusses the methods and goals of palaeoartistry - the recreation of extinct animals and landscapes in art. This book will be of great interest to palaeontological artists, researchers, museum curators, dinosaur enthusiasts and fossil hunters. Superbly illustrated with 90 paintings.

Leseprobe

RECREATING ANAGE OF REPTILES

Mark P. Witton

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2017 by

The Crowood Press Ltd

Ramsbury, Marlborough

Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2017

© Mark Witton 2017

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 335 6

Frontispiece: Attempts to browse by the ankylosaurid Polacanthus foxii are interrupted by avian ruffians. Early Cretaceous (Barremian), UK. (2014, revised 2015)

This book is dedicated to my many pets.

Doof, a chicken; Walter, a skink; Mrs Hawking, a chicken; Hogey, a python;

Verdigris, a gecko; Ringo, another chicken; and Georgia, a wife.

Contents

Acknowledgements

About the author and artist

Preface: How many ways can we reconstruct extinct animals

Careful now: we’re only predatory dinosaurs

Of Mesozoic seas

Sauropods: the (second) best animals

The Mesozoic was full of holes

A world of pterosaurs

Mesozoic synapsids: coming of age

Rethinking Dimorphodon

River masters

Local heroes

Controversial ceratopsians

Hey Triassic, you so crazy

An accidental Tyrannosaurus fan

Those persistent azhdarchid pterosaurs

Postscript: All those moments will be lost in time

Index

Acknowledgements

All palaeoart is the end result of countless hours of research and investigation. Sometimes the process is a solo effort, but we mostly stand on the shoulders of other palaeontologists and artists to produce new work. Particular debts are owed to those talented individuals who produce painstakingly, carefully rendered skeletal reconstructions of fossil animals. These are invaluable references without which our art would be nowhere near as accurate or interesting. The pool of artists able to produce good skeletal restorations of extinct animals is growing, but dedicated shout outs are warranted for Scott Hartman and Gregory S. Paul. These individuals deserve huge accolade for not only their work on reconstructing fossil animal skeletons, but also for making them so accessible. You can check out Scott’s work online at www.skeletaldrawing.com, while Paul’s skeletals are best sampled in his 2010 book The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs (Paul 2010, second edition, 2016). You can check out Paul’s other work at his website (www.gspauldino.com).

This book was not the result of a long-term plan, but instead the result of may years of working as a researcher and fledgling, self-taught palaeoartist. To that end, the co-operation, encouragement and insight offered by my colleagues has been appreciated. I particularly want to thank my fellow scientists, artists and chums John Conway, Michael Habib, Richard Hing, David Martill, Liz Martin-Silverstone, Darren Naish, Luis Rey, Mike Taylor and Matt Wedel.

Naturally, some of the biggest thanks for encouragement go to my family, who have full right to say ‘told you so’ about trying to make a living by drawing old dead things. Special mention must go to my wife, scale bar and proof reading assistant, Georgia, who’s weathered my reclusive, antisocial habits through many palaeoart and palaeontological projects. She does a heroic job of putting up with my affliction of always having half my mind lost somewhere in Deep Time, and her patience for my catchphrase ‘Sorry, dear, did you say something?’ is becoming the stuff of legend.

Finally, thanks to the online palaeontological community and those who follow it: books like this wouldn’t happen without your continued interest, enthusiasm and support. I hope you enjoy it.

About the author and artist

Dr Mark P. Witton is a palaeontologist and palaeoartist affiliated with the University of Portsmouth, UK. As a researcher, he is best known for working on pterosaurs, the extinct flying reptiles that once lived alongside dinosaurs. He specialises in creating scientifically credible restorations of extinct animals for publications and museum exhibitions, and regularly consults on documentaries and films featuring prehistoric animals. His credentials include designing creatures and providing consultancy for numerous films, including the Walking with Dinosaurs franchise as well as several BBC and National Geographic documentaries. His patrons include the American Museum of Natural History, New York, and the Natural History Museum, London.

His other books include a comprehensive overview of flying reptile palaeobiology: Pterosaurs: Natural History, Evolution, Anatomy (2013, Princeton University Press). If you enjoy the words and art featured here, please consider checking this out.

Website: www.markwitton.com

Twitter: @markwitton

Support for future projects: www.patreon.com/markwitton

Age of Reptiles. Noun.

1. The Mesozoic Era, the interval of geological time from 252 to 66 million years ago, characterised by the presence of reptilian lineages in dominant ecological roles in terrestrial, marine and aerial realms. 2. A 34m long palaeoartwork in the Peabody Museum, Connecticut, depicting the rise of reptilian lineages through the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic Eras, by Rudolph F. Zallinger, completed in 1947. 3. Comic series set in the Mesozoic Era created by Ricardo Delgado, published by Dark Horse Comics from 1993 onwards. Known to be highly influential to nine-year-olds obsessed with dinosaurs.

Children of the 1980s, such as myself, are among the last to remember ‘old fashioned’ restorations of Mesozoic reptiles as unironic facets of pop culture. Although a lot of revolutionary work on fossil reptiles took place in the 1960s and 1970s, a lag between the scientific frontier and popular culture meant that 1980s palaeo-media remained distinctly ‘vintage’. For non-scientists, the revolution was only fully visualised in 1993 when the dinosaur special effects of gave a clear sign that a change in dinosaur palaeontology - now referred to as ‘the Dinosaur Renaissance’ - had arrived.