All Yesterdays---A Very Intriguing Book

[Patrx]

I received the physical copy, myself. There's something to be said for art printed on paper, hah.

If I have any qualms with this book it's that it's too short  I hope it's the start of something, as has been mentioned, a paradigm shift of sorts, and that we'll be seeing more palaeoart of this nature in the future.

[mmfrankford]

I know it has me thinking about my illustrations. The ideas in this book are inspiring.

[tyrantqueen]

Seeing all the rave reviews for this book, I decided to give it a chance and picked up a physical copy. It's not as bad as I thought it would be (I especially got a laugh out of the furry Iguana....rofl ) I liked that the ideas were imaginative but not completely unbelievable. I also liked that they didn't go on a feather spree, and stick feathers on every dinosaur they possibly could (like sauropods and hadrosaurs, when we have evidence saying that they were scaly anyway...)

I don't think this is a book suitable for kids though, unless they're very mature. It has quite graphic illustration of a stegosaurus' and citapati's penis.

[suspsy]

It's a mark of how peculiar our society is when a Tenontosaurus getting brutally torn to shreds by a pack of Deinonychus is perfectly acceptable for a children's book, but a Stegosaurus's penis is not.

[Gryphoceratops]

It's a mark of how peculiar our society is when a Tenontosaurus getting brutally torn to shreds by a pack of Deinonychus is perfectly acceptable for a children's book, but a Stegosaurus's penis is not.

Good point.  They play nature documentaries with animals mating on it during the daytime hours when kids can watch.  Or how about at the zoo when animals decide to go at it!?    

[tyrantqueen]

It's a mark of how peculiar our society is when a Tenontosaurus getting brutally torn to shreds by a pack of Deinonychus is perfectly acceptable for a children's book, but a Stegosaurus's penis is not.

Good point.  They play nature documentaries with animals mating on it during the daytime hours when kids can watch.  Or how about at the zoo when animals decide to go at it!?   

True, but most documentaries don't really show the genitalia in obvious detail. I am wondering, if there are any users who have kids, would you be comfortable with your children seeing artwork like this? Just curious.

I also thought that Darren Naish badmouthing David Peters in the text was pretty low and unnecessary, but that is neither here nor there.

[Gryphoceratops]

It's a mark of how peculiar our society is when a Tenontosaurus getting brutally torn to shreds by a pack of Deinonychus is perfectly acceptable for a children's book, but a Stegosaurus's penis is not.

Good point.  They play nature documentaries with animals mating on it during the daytime hours when kids can watch.  Or how about at the zoo when animals decide to go at it!?   

True, but most documentaries don't really show the genitalia in obvious detail. I am wondering, if there are any users who have kids, would you be comfortable with your children seeing artwork like this? Just curious.

I also thought that Darren Naish badmouthing David Peters in the text was pretty low and unnecessary, but that is neither here nor there.

Sometimes they do.  I remember finding out what an elephant's junk looked like while watching animal planet at age 9 lol.  And still zoos, farms and such places.  Can't really get around that.  I don't think the book is really meant for little little kids anyway though. 

Darren Naish has had sort of an ongoing battle with David Peters with regards to prehistoric animal reconstruction.  I haven't read the book though.

[suspsy]

Interesting. I was not aware of this feud.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2012/07/03/world-must-ignore-reptileevolution-com/

I have to say, Peters' reconstructions of pterosaurs are pretty bizarre.

[Arioch]

Peters has proven to be pretty uncapable of taking any kind of criticism and too eager to bitter comebacks, to the point of hounding every paleontologist that ever disagreed with him in their blogs. You shouldn't feel bad for him even if you agree with his ludicrous way of reconstructing archosaurs.

[mmfrankford]

Sad thing is Peters is not a bad illustrator, he just took a hard right turn somewhere? 

[tyrantqueen]

I'm aware of the controversies surrounding David Peters. I own several of his books (before he started illustrating odd things).

I don't agree with his ideas, but I think it was a cheap and lame shot of Darren Naish when Peters had no chance to defend himself.

[suspsy]

I don't see how it's all that cheap a shot given that Peters is essentially passing off his outlandish notions as facts. Type "reptile evolution" into Google and his site is one of the first matches. Students or lay people looking for information on the topic can easily be duped into thinking Peters' distorted family tree of reptiles is legitimate. Also, anyone who defends a theory by telling his detractors they need to come up with a better one in order to disprove it is only kidding himself. That's not how the scientific process works.

I will say that this has always been one of my favourite pieces of dinosaur art, even though I'm not sure about a Quetzalcoatlus climbing a tree.



I'm also not too sure where the rest of its right wing went. Did the T. rex already scarf it up?

[Jetoar]

Impressive image  .

[tyrantqueen]

I think the weird stump with the blood leaking from it is supposed to be what is left of the wing (also combined with foreshortening may be why it looks so odd)



Personally, my fave Peters image is the black tyrannosaurus he illustrated a long time ago:



So cool 

[suspsy]

Well yeah, I always saw the bloody stump. I'm just curious as to what exactly happened to the rest of the wing. Perhaps one of the T. rexes seized the Quetzalcoatlus by the wing, pulling it down from the tree and wrenching off the wing in the process. The second T. rex immediately snatched up the rest of the Quetzalcoatlus and began to run off with it, thus the scene depicted in the painting.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

I think cheap shots come in many sizes and shapes actually. Is Darren Naish here to defend himself for instance?  It becomes a self perpetuating habbit for people I think...and each believes they alone have a right to judge and continue that cycle....sadly just like I am doing now.

[John]

This book is right up my alley.. I got it in the Nook version.  I don't have a Nook but I have the Nook app for PC and Android tablet. Problem is that on both all the illustrations are cut in half or are cut in half and repeated. .  Fortunately I can read it with a Firefox web app and it displays properly.  Still kind of annoying.  But great book. 

Look, spiky bits.

It seems that the main purpose of this book is more of a critique of what the authors percieve to be a lack of imagination on the part of other artists than anything related to science.On a personal note,I hope that all other artists don't start aping this style,as I think some of it,like the cotton ball looking Leallynasaura looks really stupid...

[Patrx]

Out of curiosity, John, have you had a chance to read the book? It seems I got quite a different impression of it than you did. As for the Leallynasaura, lots of animals look rather goofy to lots of people - no reason prehistoric animals ought to be any different  I think that's part of what the book is trying to get across - that we tend to put our expectations and ideas of what looks "cool" into palaeoart - which can, at times, get in the way of reconstructing them as real, possibly "strange-looking" or "ugly" animals.

[tyrantqueen]

It seems that the main purpose of this book is more of a critique of what the authors percieve to be a lack of imagination on the part of other artists than anything related to science.On a personal note,I hope that all other artists don't start aping this style,as I think some of it,like the cotton ball looking Leallynasaura looks really stupid...

I agree, I thought that Leallynasaura painting was terrible. It didn't look believeable at all to me, just a puffy blob. I like most of John Conway's work though.

[John]

Out of curiosity, John, have you had a chance to read the book? It seems I got quite a different impression of it than you did. As for the Leallynasaura, lots of animals look rather goofy to lots of people - no reason prehistoric animals ought to be any different  I think that's part of what the book is trying to get across - that we tend to put our expectations and ideas of what looks "cool" into palaeoart - which can, at times, get in the way of reconstructing them as real, possibly "strange-looking" or "ugly" animals.

Don't get me wrong,I can understand the author's point of showing them as real animals,like the Tyrannosaurus lazing in the sun after a meal rather than the usual image of it charging the viewer,bellowing with it's mouth open,but the puffy tailed,cottonball looking Leallynasaura is overdoing it.