RIP Brian Franczak

[suspsy]

Just read on Facebook that paleoartist Brian Franczak recently passed away. Apparently he'd been suffering from dementia for some time to boot. He was one of the biggest names in paleoart during the 1990s, and definitely one of the finest. Farewell and thank you, sir.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=brian+franczak+dinosaurs&client=safari&hl=en-ca&prmd=inv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjPud-hkr7rAhXDVt8KHZGhCCkQ_AUoAXoECAsQAQ&biw=375&bih=553

[Stegotyranno420]

Just read on Facebook that paleoartist Brian Franczak recently passed away. Apparently he'd been suffering from dementia for some time to boot. He was one of the biggest names in paleoart during the 1990s, and definitely one of the finest. Farewell and thank you, sir.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=brian+franczak+dinosaurs&client=safari&hl=en-ca&prmd=inv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjPud-hkr7rAhXDVt8KHZGhCCkQ_AUoAXoECAsQAQ&biw=375&bih=553

Oh dear.
One reason I admired his art was that he made a great balance of "Naturally Calm Dinosaurs doing natural things" and "Awesome Cool Dinos". They seemed cool, yet they were still animals.

RIP Mr. Franczak

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Terrible news, I had heard he had some problems for a long time, he was on ebay briefly and we talked a little. I recall his work and articles in PT as well.  I think his work speaks for itself though, just beautiful.

[Shonisaurus]

It is a shame when an outstanding paleoartist dies, with him an encyclopedia of knowledge dies. My condolences.

[Jose S.M.]

Certainly a great artist, I wasn't familiar with his work but from that link I can see he was very talented.

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

Very sad news. Brian Franczak was one of my favorite paleoartists. He also worked with the Dinosaur Studio and some of the Battat figures are based on his paintings.

[Tyto_Theropod]

I'm very sorry to hear this.  I hadn't seen much of his work before now, but although I hadn't put a name to the artist I was familiar with some of it, including the Albertosaurus, which is the first image in the link.  This piece, along with the others of his that I'd encountered, really impressed me.  In fact, I realise now that his pictures were an early inspiration for me when as a teenager I started my own far inferior attempts at dinosaur art.  Not only that, but they fired up my imagination at this time when the adult revival of my childhood dinomania was beginning.  Mr Franczak had a real knack for conveying atmosphere, and I loved his subtle use of colour.  More than that, his art really gives you the sense of window into the Mesozoic and helped me to imagine it as a real, big world with real animals and way more depth than the cardboard volcanoes of my childhood games.  All in all, then he was a gifted painter and everything you'd want in a palaeoartist.

It especially saddens me that he suffered from dementia.  At around the same time that I revived my interest in dinosaurs, my grandfather, who had also had dementia, passed away.  We'd been very close and I was devastated.  Over the next year or so, losing myself in the Mesozoic served as a distraction and helped me to cope.  But in a way I'd already lost my grandfather I'd known long before he died, because by the time his body gave out his mind was already fogged.  It was tragic to watch, because he'd been such a clever, dignified man, and he slowly descended into spending most if not all of his time utterly confused, not knowing where he was or recognising any of his loved ones, including my grandmother, who he'd been devoted to.  It's truly a horrible thing to watch someone going through, and I profoundly hope, both for my own sake and those of anyone living with me and/or caring for me when I am a figurative dinosaur, that it isn't something I've inherited.

So my heart goes out to Mr Franczak's loved ones, and I hope that wherever he is he has found peace and is no longer suffering - and maybe, who knows, he might get to walk in the cool shades of a prehistoric forest and meet some dinosaurs.

[SidB]

His paint scheme was employed for the iconic Battat T-rexes of Lorusso and Wenzel, which were my personal holy grails of collecting for a very long time
Sad. Kind of like an axe blow near the roots.

[Faelrin]

This is very sad to see. He was one of my favorite paleo-artists too. He had such a gorgeous style, and his works were so immersive. I was not aware he was suffering from dementia though. That's quite awful honestly. My condolences to any family and friends he had that may be here. He will be dearly missed.

[suspsy]

Here's Darren Naish's writeup on Brian Franczak. It's sad how there's almost nothing about him to be found online. And he was only 65.

http://tetzoo.com/blog/2020/8/29/brian-franczak-1955-2020

[indohyus]

2020 has been such a hard year in many ways. Goodbye Brian Franczak, and may a flight of Archaeopteryx squawk you to thy rest.

[ItsTwentyBelow]

I was just thinking about Brian Franczak, so was sad to hear this upon researching him.

His paintings were my favorite of all the artists in the little dark green 'Familiar Dinosaurs' guide. I remember always searching for the paintings that showed his distinct signature. His art is probably the reason why I have such a soft spot for the Battat figures overall.

Cool to find out that he actually did the artwork for the original Jurassic Park action figure collectible cards! I never, ever made the connection as a kid that it was the same guy. I need to go dig those cards out of the box at my parents' house one of these days and sleeve the ones I can find...

[brontosauruschuck]

Poor guy. Dementia is an awful, awful way to go.

[The Atroxious]

Really unfortunate news. All the good people are passing this year. I'm not going to lie, I didn't recognise the name and had to google it, but once I did I knew exactly who this guy was.

I remember being five years old, still riding the high of the dinosaur enthusiasm brought on after seeing Jurassic Park. I had gotten a bunch of books about dinosaurs from the library, and I remember one in particular to this day: It was a tiny thing, glossy pages alternately featuring bits of text and gorgeous illustrations. These were the most awe inspiring paintings I had seen in my short life. I pored over the book repeatedly, and one illustration in particular of a Velociraptor on a sand dune stuck out to me. I had written a couple of stories before, my first about a dog that I don't remember much about at all, and another about a very rich triceratops. The illustration in the book made me want to try something different, a story about a baby Velociraptor who gets separated from her parents and has to survive in the wild. I remember getting stuck on figuring out how a baby Velociraptor would figure out what to do, so I straight up plagarized the text about Velociraptors from the dinosaur book I was inspired by, putting it in my story as some kind of inscription that Nassy, the baby Velociraptor could read. I remember wanting to have an encyclopedia type archive she could reference, but I had no idea how to write in that style, so I literally just ripped from the book itself. Sadly I lost both the file and the hard copy of this story long, long ago, but it was by far my most ambitious project yet, and the earliest story I remember so many details of.

Now, looking up this guy on Google I realise that he was the one who did the paintings for that gorgeous little book, and the one who inspired one of my most fondly remembered childhood projects. I'm incredibly grateful to him and his work for inspiring me so deeply to pursue interests that I still hold to this day. May he rest in peace.

Note: For anyone interested, this is the Velociraptor painting I'm referring to. I just noticed that it seems to have feathers on its neck. Interesting.

[ITdactyl]

somehow missed this thread, and I had to check the wiki only to find out he made some of my favorite paleo art. I spent hundreds of lunch breaks staring at his art in my school's only copy of the "Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs" and yet I only got to know the artist now. His rendition of wuerhosaurus is forever stuck in my mind for the bold choice of yellow.  Seeing that in the early 90's when most dino art was still locked in the greys and greens was inspirational and refreshing.

'Really thankful for his contributions to paleoart and for my part, I'll definitely try to get to know the artist of paleoart that I like moving forward.

[Halichoeres]

This is so sad to hear. I have a set of trading cards with his dinosaur paintings; even at that small size they show how expertly he used light and how well he conveyed the heft of large animals.