The Waikato Museum in New Zealand hosts Dinosaur rEvolution!

Things are definitively looking up  for Dinosaur rEvolution, Secrets Of Survival. The efforts of Peter Norton and Gondwana Studios are now more evident than ever in this new outing at the Waikato Museum in Hamilton,  New Zealand.  Always trying to adapt to the venue, I think this time it gets closer than ever to the original intention of the exhibition. Those that have got Extreme Dinosaurs Part 2 The Projects might understand what I mean… I describe in detail there the intention of the project itself.

I think the time to get the exhibition to Europe and the rest of the world is getting closer! I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

https://www.eventfinda.co.nz/2020/dinosaur-revolution-secrets-of-survival/hamilton

 

Pterosaur squid eating? I did it first…

Well it is not very often that I post anything about pterosaurs,,, but since a  recent paper by Hoffmann et al. (2020) documented the remarkable discovery of a Plesioteuthis squid with a Rhamphorhynchus tooth embedded in its tissues reminded me of something that I did for Robert Bakker’s “Dactyls”  Random House book for kids way back in the early 2000’s … it may NOT have been a Rhamphorhynchus, but can somebody  spot the premonition? Pterodactylus may not have had the specialised teeth of Rhamphorhynchus , but since it was also probably a good fisher, this may have occurred too! A fossil like this shows squids’ tough skin indeed.. Fun illustration to see again, I think…
The  paper is accessible here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-57731-2

Strange tales of the road… Dinosaurs and me at Havana, Cuba 1958. A scrapbook.

It really is a long time and shows how back my interests and fascination with  dinosaurs go! Just found these pictures on my first visit to a dino-park ever… Bellomonte, Playa de Guanabo (in the outskirts of Havana, Cuba. These days disappeared and the area is known as a fashionable beach resort as far as I know).

I find extremely funny the advertising postcard with cut-outs of Zallinger’s Yale Mural,   (“… because you dream of prehistoric animals, I send you this…”  says my father’s dedication on the back).  Little did a four year old know that many years later he would be doing a remake of a Zallinger book with Dr. Robert Bakker “The Big Golden Book of Dinosaurs”

We first knew about this park thorough the advertisements that talked about “real” dinosaurs in “cartón piedra” (something that translates as “stone cardboard”… probably it was some sort of cement mixture)…

When we arrived to the site for the first time,  it was a bit of a disappointment as the models were really… terrible!!  Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus and Brontosaurus…   Life-Size  but…Even a four year old knew the difference and could be disappointed by what he is promised and  expects… and for what he finally gets, no matter how much he craves for it!

Unfortunately this was  the only picture I could find : Family members under the Brontosaurus… the T. rex was much worst and had three fingers like in the Fantasia movie 

Never mind, I have no idea how many times I made my parents and relatives take me to the park! It was “awesome” .

In the picture there is my grandmother and…  I’m the little guy beside the family  priest (Father Oriol) that I, funnily enough, remember fondly… mostly because the man had a hand for hobbies, DIY,  bric-a-brac  and once made me a fantastic moving dragon the breathed fire with wires and some sort of paste… at least that is what I remember. In contrast with the rest of the family, he never wanted to leave and stayed  in Cuba after  the Revolution until his death, working with the people.

So there… with me also playing with my first Marx model dinosaurs,  a couple of affectionate words about an episode of my distant past and my early love affair with the Icons of Prehistory. We all start with fascinating, vaguely scientific Icons (apply this to Jurassic Park) and some of us finish off with a craving for more of the science and less of the Icons…

For me this was a far cry from Extreme Dinosaurs Pt 2…!… by the way, if you still haven’t got it… what are you waiting for?

Starting 2020 at​ a strong pace. DINOSAUR PATHOLOGIES.

…27 of them and to the last detail!

Following an initiative from Ruben Molina-Pérez, responsible for the “Records and Curiosities of the Dinosaurs”, two of the greatest  Mexican Palaeontologists, Angel Ramírez and Ricardo Servín Pichardo,  that supported and backed me up with Monterrey’s Gondwana Studios exhibition  “DINOSAURIOS HECHOS EN MEXICO” and afterwards “EXTREME DINOSAURS PT. 2 THE PROJECTS”  and I, got together once again to deliver a novel and very attractive book that will hopefully see the light soon in 2020… let’s say farewell to 2019  and welcome 2020 with something stronger!

Mark Witton’s review of Extreme Dinosaurs, The Projects.

Thank you Mark Witton… this review really does the book justice. High Praise from high places at the level of Paleontology… and still managing to positively dissect my work like a good fellow palaeontologist,  artist… and nerd…  aren’t we all?

https://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2019/11/book-review-luis-v-reys-dinosaurs.html?showComment=1575072531090#c2670421361318886343

… and hey, even legendary drummer genius Billy Cobham‘s grandaughter Isabelle has  now a copy (picture by Paul Price)… Good news everyone!

!

EXTREME DINOSAURS! Pt 2.The Projects is finally available!

Took a while and even a Kickstarter campaign that couldn’t quite make it… but I decided that the Projects needed to be available both in hardback and Paperback. Self-published and somehow in control of what I wanted to convey, this will give you a behind the scenes tour of what has been happening  in FOUR traveling exhibitions  (two of them fully curated by me and Peter Norton from Gondwana Studios) both art-wise and science-wise. It is not simply a picture book… the Dinosaur rEvolution project and the Dinosaurios Hechos En México (of Planetario Alfa fame) are fully backed-up and explained, sometimes with the help of prominent dino-personalities like Peter Norton, Dave Hone, David Sole, Angel Ramírez, Ricardo Servín Pichardo, René Hernández. and many more. Thanks to John Hutchinson, Michael Benton, René and Scott Hartman for the kind words of support on the back cover.

Obviously this is more an art book than a science book… but I want to prove that I have done my science homework too! Hopefully you won’t be disappointed.

Available at:

Amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0993386628/ref=dp_olp_new_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=new

eBay Hardcover

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Extreme-Dinosaurs-Part-2-The-Projects/303330290085?hash=item469fe4e9a5:g:TGkAAOSwMmVdrZVi

eBay Paperback

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Extreme-Dinosaurs-Part-2-The-Projects/303330290827?hash=item469fe4ec8b:g:TGkAAOSwMmVdrZVi

TetZoo.Con 2019… a throwback to better times looking into​ the future.

As far as biology-oriented meetings in England this TetZoo one has finally proven that this is the kind of gathering place for anyone interested in all things Paleo. Well organised,  the atmosphere was simply extraordinary, for old times sake!  We definitively had fun with this one…

Although I personally had little time to attend the talks, the ones I attended (like Rebecca Groom‘s painstakingly detailed making-of Paleo Plushies) were not only interesting but extremely detailed and well documented…  I was lucky enough to exchange a couple of my things for one of her precious Anchiornis paleoplushies

!

We had a stall of course. Carmen was very interested in exhibiting some of my old artwork, including pieces for Bob Bakker’s “Dactyls”, but I was much more interested in presenting for the second time ever my new book Extreme Dinosaurs Pt2 The Projects. Sold a few copies but unfortunately, they had to be all paperback  (a very limited edition)… the hardbacks didn’t arrive on time for the meeting!

This has >today< changed… more on that later!

Excellent paleoart exhibition cleverly organised in a few minutes by John Conway and ourselves. The revelation was that the old artwork ‘relics’ I exhibited caused quite a stir… I was amused when I saw a lot of people were touching the painterly relief texture of things like the first and fourth instalments of the “New Chinese Revolution”… it felt good to have a bit of a cardboard  throwback for a change

We had some meaty discussions with students and attendants… appreciated that very much…. Here’s Dave Hone posing with his beloved pterosaurs (only a close second to Tyrannosaurus these days)…and only James Pascoe wanted me to do a quick drawing in his book… I duly did it, even with my bad finger!.

So Darren Naish and John Conway have done once again, and I hope the meeting gets bigger every year. It deserves it.  In between all that I appreciated the company of Georgia MacLean-Witton, Mark Witton, Rob, Jed Taylor,  (regretted very much not being able to steal one of his mini raptor sculptures), Steve White,  Filippo Bertozzo, Joschua Kruppe, James Pascoe, Dougal Dixon and many more… and we had to select some paleoart done in the workshop for awards…it was s difficult selection in general… some  people are already showing their extraordinary talents.

     

Obviously, everything was expertly covered by Georgia! even her pet Graptolites… what was that doing in a Tetrapod Zoology meeting?

So perhaps se3ee you next year again? Who knows!!

 

Dinosaur Isle Museum and SVPCA 2019…

With the goodwill, imagination and energy of Martin Munt, Gary Blackwell (and the whole team), after many years of sporadically attending SVPCA meetings, I think this year was probably the best organised of all I have attended so far.  The novel organisation of the talks not in seat rows in an auditorium, but freely seating around tables enjoying the sessions… that was an excellent idea.  The lunches were well catered for and generous, and obviously, it helped that in reality, all happened in a yacht club!  Very good exhibitors in general with a marvellous, reduced-scaled 3D printed Neovenator,  excellent sculptures of Andrew Cocks and marvellous fossils courtesy of several famous collectors, including a fantastic rebbachisaurid sauropod provided by famous TV star UK dinosaur expert Dean R. Lomax author of Dinosaurs of the British Isles… but unfortunately, the attendance was not extremely numerous.

Some people managed to get a copy of Extreme Dinosaurs Pt II at the conference… I thank you!

I’m eagerly awaiting the first reviews. Hope they will be kind with my not-so-perfect use of the English language! I would like to especially thank Richard Forrest, my old pals David Unwin and David Martill (trying hard to to debunk current thinking about pterosaur skin… we’ll see!)Remmert Schouten, Darren Naish, Mike Taylor (left us breathless with his sauropod pictures!), Cindy Howells, Jeff Liston, Tyrrell’s Museum ace Don Henderson, legendary IOW natives John Sibbick and his wife and many more, including a very interesting talk by David Norman reappraisal of Scelidosaurus (with new points of view that actually have a lot to do with one of the projects reviewed in Extreme Dinosaurs II:  Dinosaur rEvolution!), the unfortunately very brief (thanks to chicken problems) appearance of Georgia Witton McLean and Mark Witton and our dedicated hosts for making the event lively and welcoming…

Just a couple of suggestions: next time please don’t do >all< the dinosaur talks last day!

And SOS: PLEASE do something for that neglected Dinosaur Isle Museum... One of the most important landmarks in the UK’s palaeontology and one of the most prolific purveyors of dinosaur fossils of the land deserves better. Many sculptures were in such deteriorated state like I’ve never seen anywhere in the world… including my beloved, now really sad-looking,  Caudipteryx, designed and supervised by me and constructed by sculptor Jonathan Hateley, in the days of old, for some famous Dorling Kindersley books.

Maybe it’s all down to government cuts? I noticed to my relief that there was not a single Brexit bone in the house…  and not even some of the native Isle of Wight ones!

Thank you all for the support and great European solidarity!

See you at Tet Zoo next… this time with even better and a copious amount of copies of Extreme Dinosaurs The Projects Pt. II!

And by the way, I’m still waiting for an answer to my query regarding the function of Melanosomes and what it might mean fo the study of colour on dinosaurs! Ruffling feathers anyone?

EXTREME DINOSAURS II. THE PROJECTS.

Almost 20 years ago the book Extreme Dinosaurs, a compilation of artwork I had done from 1988 to 2000 was released. It was a novelty mostly because the colourful approach to dinosaurs and the de-facto depiction of feathered dinosaurs for wider audiences. I had stood on the shoulders of the giants of Palaeontology from the Dinosaur Renaissance and spread my creative wings. It was a wholly personal project that would have found objections in the whole world of publishing  and most probably never would have been published, if not for publishing “madcap” houses like the defunct Chronicle Books..,. however that book opened the possibilities of my participation in many projects for 20 years AND it is still fondly remembered by some.

Again 20 years on, and the new madcap publisher is yours truly. I have decided to start a Kickstarter project to fund the publishing of my wholly new EXTREME DINOSAURS II, THE PROJECTS.  This time a compilation of most of the artwork I have done for exhibitions and  both the science and technical  background of how and why they were done.

The Projects are four, from the more general to the more specific. I created and put together Dinosaur rEvolution with Peter Norton and Gondwana Studios… the intention was to show a collision of skin strategies between Theropod and Ornithischian dinosaurs, in which only one group would survive extinction in the shape of Aves. Scales and protofeathers would give way to flight feathers… scales and quills would give way to plates, horns and armour. At the end all illustrated by a lavish combination of skeletons, casts and murals. The approach is somewhat controversial… but so has been most of my work all my life!

The second project is related to Archaeopteryx and Maniraptora... also part of the collective exhibition Feathers Fly; The Art of Archaeopteryx, organised by  Silver Plume Exhibitions.

The third one paradoxically started it all: murals for Hatching The Past, the now famous travelling exhibition by Stone&Co well known all over the world.

The fourth is a thorough explanation of how we made Dinosaurios Hechos En Mexico… -murals and all- widely reviewed in this blog stage by stage for a long time: from its inception to its apotheosis in the exhibition at Monterrey’s Planetario Alfa and accompanied by the essential skeletal drawings of Mexican Dinosaurs by Angel Ramírez.

The book would seem to many a simple excuse to show “paleo art”… but I’m hoping it is much more than that. Science and art all converging together  and mixing seamlessly.

Since again it is a very personal book that no publishing house has been able to take on board, I decided that to preserve the original concept and intention, the only way it would have been properly published is by yours truly. With your support this might become a reality. You might have seen some of the art inside the book before in this blog and elsewhere… but this time there will be a  full account and explanation of how and why it was done… and there’s no substitute to have a proper, printed book in your hands, instead of watching a computer screen… at least that is how I feel!

In contrast to the original Extreme Dinosaurs,  Extreme Dinosaurs II, The Projects is 140 pages of all new or revamped full-page artwork and the murals spread all along on some of them. The printing is going to be on good paper and the first edition will be  hardcover.  The project also includes some special gifts for contributors… like personalised B&W sketches of your favourite dinosaurs on demand. It is indeed as an ambitious endeavour.

We hope not to disappoint… Suggestions are welcome  You may like the new Extreme Dinosaurs… or perhaps not… but it won’t leave you indifferent! So, would you like a copy and see my own version of the latest crazy dinosaur stuff in your hands? Please go to:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/luisvrey/extreme-dinosaurs-ii-the-projects

…. and pledge! Thank you!

                                                           Here are some page samples…

 

Always trying to find new alternatives…

Tyrannosaurus rex has been depicted in every possible guise we can imagine… the next reconstruction always pretending to be more accurate than the previous. It is the favourite dinosaur par excellence. So I decided to have another try… a new possibility based on some beautiful pictures of vultures I have seen. Might not be that original and perhaps is a work in process… but I also attempted (timidly) to give it a beak instead of the usual lizard/crocodile snout. Given that the latest thinking covers most of the teeth, instead of lips I added a horny coverage. Indeed, the attraction of T. rex has always been the display of the powerful banana sized teeth in all their glory.

However, in my casts of T. rex jaws it is evident that even if they are fully fitted inside their sockets  (that in most of the skulls are not), there is a good part of the tooth inside soft tissue (being gums or something else) quite distinct from the enamel, that is supposed to be the visible part. In this reconstruction there >is< a T. rex skull behind all the external coverage.

I have always opted   for the crocodile smile and overlapping upper jaw with the teeth in full show… this may not be the case although we might be proven wrong once again. In the meantime, for your perusal, here’s yet another trial on how T. rex may have looked while having a restful banquet.