Turok-Son of Stone -vintage scene

[amargasaurus cazaui]

When I was young I used to walk home from school, right past a small store operated by an elderly couple. It was a tiny place that mostly offered canned goods and boxed items. The old man who operated the place was constantly smoking cigars and the entire place reeked of smoke, and he and his wife were bitter and sullen older people who constantly suspected any kid in the store was stealing from them.
At the front of the store was a small spin-rack of comic books and there I met one of the first true loves of my life. There on the spin -rack I found comic books about a character named Turok and his young friend Andar.The story is rather simple, a couple of indians become lost and trapped in a hidden valley that is full of dinosaurs, pygmy cave men, giant spiders and mammoths, dimetrodons, and so forth.Using only primitive weapons and their minds they are forced to survive and try to find a way to escape and get home. I used to watch for each new issue and plunk my allowance down and then read the entire comic over and over while I finished my walk home from school. For me this was a true superhero..forget spider man and the x men...these guys were fighting off dinosaurs !!!The series began in the early 50's with Four color comics and ended late seventies being published by gold key and whitman. Later in the nineties Valiant would resurrect the character and completely alter his storyline and concept...which I never did care for much.For me it would always be the original Turok character, with his young friend Andar, in the lost valley. As I got older I went back and began collecting the entire series and learned that it had begun in the early fifties and the original issues all featured hand painted and often full wrap around covers. For those that know comic books, they were wider from the spine to the page edge in the fifties, then got narrower during the sixites and then even narrower in the seventies. Also each generation dropped the page count, with the original featuring as much as 64 pages and the more modern ones as few as 24....and meantime the cover price went from 10 cents to 12, to 15, then 20 and finally wound up at 75 cents before the title ended.One thing I loved about the Turok series was each issue featured a full page article about some prehistoric animal or ancient man story .
  When I see those old full color, wrap around painted covers with dinosaurs, cave men, and mamoths, and the animals are drawn so retro as to be almost absurd, it brings back waves of nostalgia. Many of the original issues have gotten to be so pricey its a hard series to try and collect nowdays.











At some point I began going through my old models from when I was young and found this Corythosaurus from the late sixites, I had never finished building him nor painting him so off to Martin he went for a work up. The day Martin sent back approval pictures of the model I was sitting here examining a few old issues of Turok and it struck me that this dinosaur was like right out of an issue of the comic book. An idea began stirring in my head...Turok and Andar, and this dinosaur in a scene. I could picture what I wanted....the retro dinosaur rising from the lake like a phantom...of course we all know duckbills had webbed feet and lived in the water right? Turok and Andar have come to the waters edge to board their canoe and are suddenly menaced....they fire arrows and the fight is joined by the massive sea "honker".
Only problem is ...there are no figures of Turok or Andar, no models, and as far as I know, noone ever has tried this entire concept before. I began searching for ebay for suitable indians..they would have to be in scale to the dinosaur..and yet so many other things as well. No headresses, no guns and no horses. The indians would have to resemble turok and andar after all...aside from that I would need one of the figures to be a different scale so as to appear smaller beside Turok. I needed just the right plastic toy indians, with the right features and it was a hard search. I finally located a small group as well as a plastic canoe and sent it all to Martin. That is where the real fun began I am thinking. Martin had likely never seen or heard of Turok, so I also sent these cover illustrations as references. I had already seen the dinosaur and next came pictures of the base, sans the water...and then the indians were finished and attached with their canoe. Finally the water and the duckbill as well...and voila !!! To me this is the only known diorama ever attempted or at least done well of Turok and Andar and for me at least it really is perfect...I was speechless when I saw the pictures and I am delighted with it. Martin really did manage to recreate the hero of my childhood adventures in diorama. For me this is perhaps one of the best models ive ever gotten, and it all began as a silly retro dinosaur model and a brilliant modeler of course.














ARRRREEEEE-UNNNNK

[brandem]

that's brilliant stuff, I have a few issues of that, always love the beautiful cover illustrations.  I know it ended up as a middling but well know video games series but this stuff would work so well on television.

[Pinkamena]

That is amazingly cool! I love the detail...it's perfect! You must be super-pleased with it, Martin has done a stellar job

[Gwangi]

That's very cool, thanks for sharing. What a wonderful idea! Unfortunately I never had access to the Turok comics but wish I had and I'm sure I would have loved them. I'm familiar with the video games but the stories attached to those seem less compelling. I would love to see a diorama similar to this for "The Valley of Gwangi" or even "One Million Years B.C.".

[amargasaurus cazaui]

uh oh now you done it...I might just start mentally working on that entire Gwangi thing.....I am a big fan there too. Stay tuned..if I can figure out what and how I am gonna do it. Well...Martin will err...we will....I mean , well you get it. I just gotta give Martin another plug on this one...just stunned at how this turned out. He truly just keeps getting better ...

[Gwangi]

Gwangi models do exist (like the one in my avatar) so that part shouldn't be too difficult. Cowboy models should be abundant I would think, if you wanted them to look like the characters that might be a bigger challenge.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Gwangi models do exist (like the one in my avatar) so that part shouldn't be too difficult. Cowboy models should be abundant I would think, if you wanted them to look like the characters that might be a bigger challenge.

I would have said the same for Turok...but Martin's paint  brush doesnt seem to take no as an answer. I will begin running this one down and see what I come up with. I am so tempted to get bamboo or something and try constructing the cart they used in the movie...lol

[Takama]

I try to collect the Turok Archives Books. Which are Graphic novels that contain most of the Comics released in the Son of Stone series.  Your diorama is nice, and that Dinosaur really does fit in with the Son of Stone universe.

[tyrantqueen]

Love that knobbly old Corythosaurus It is a Pyro?

[CityRaptor]

It's Airfix. I have the Pyro Corythosaurus. Or rather the Jurassic Park Version of it...

I think these classic models work pretty well with scenes like that. That diorama looks awesome.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

I try to collect the Turok Archives Books. Which are Graphic novels that contain most of the Comics released in the Son of Stone series.  Your diorama is nice, and that Dinosaur really does fit in with the Son of Stone universe.

Thanks for the kind words , Nathan. If I can ever get the money ahead to get them I want the digest sized books as well, they basically reprint the entire run . For now I am still filling holes in my comic run and upgrading those, and its expensive to collect them in about any condition.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

City Raptor is right on target, indeed Airfix and yes, these old models all work nicely for these things. I had originally just sent the model for Martin to do, but when I saw it finished it put this idea into my head and now im glad it did. I do agree it came out well, thanks Cityraptor

[amargasaurus cazaui]

final brilliant touch !!

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Martin was busy again today..notice the nametag, ripples in the water and the small cliff face? This should be the final version.....




[IMG]http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg522/amargasaurus/turokfinishedmod_zps41c47751.jpg[/IMG

[Manatee]

The updates make it look that much more brilliant! Fantastic job coming up with this idea, and Martin Garratt for carrying it out in such a wonderful way.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

I went back and found the email I sent Martin.....imagine going from just this mental image, to the finished model like Martin did...that takes some mad cold skills......................"I have purchased a small batch of indians on ebay for our project as well as a small canoe. The theme here will be Turok and Andar have come to the river or lake edge to board their canoe and cross, when the monster rises from the water and stands confronting them. Turok will be portrayed pulling an arrow back to fire, with a few arrows already sticking out of the dinosaur to help with the image. I have a few different indians to choose from for Andar his younger partner. Once they come and I send them off I will forward some images from the covers of various turok comics from the 50's and 60's to reference the two indians to. Once this one is wrapped if possible I would like Martin to craft a nametag for the scene ....Turok-Son of Stone ......

   I am very excited about this project. I have collected turok comics since I was a kid and have a small fortune worth. They are very near to my heart and to my mind, nooone has ever created a diorama I have seen like this. The Dinosaur himself is just perfect already. We just need the scenery and indians for the piece to work."
That was what I gave Martin to work with. The only reason it is Andar firing the arrows and not Turok is that Martin had to go by the indian figures he was provided and choose the most likely ones..and in this case the smaller figure for Andar was the one firing arrows and the Turok figure was tossing the spear. Outside that one detail which was out of Martins control he matched every single aspect I described to the letter.....I am truly so impressed he could visualize just from my words what I wanted to see and then go two steps beyond that even

[amargasaurus cazaui]

I had been pondering this scene and wondered something...throughout this comic series it was known that Turok and Andar used poison tipped arrows to battle the dinosaurs. Given this fact would they have been able to consume the dinosaurs they killed or would the poison tend to kill them? Anyone know much about poisons and how this works?

[stargatedalek]

depends on what the poison(s) were made of
a lot of poisons (I believe dart frogs were one of them) can be boiled out along with the blood of the animal when its cooked

this is an amazing diorama, I've only read a couple of the comics (reprints) but I've always felt they were a lot better than the video games

[Uncle Rex]

As a kid, I was a huge fan of the Turok comics, as was my sister. I'm sure we had most of the issues, from the first issue to well into the 1960s. I wish I still had those comics.
Your diorama is awesome - captures the look of the comics very well.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

This model stays behind glass here always.  It is that loved.   Despite the crush here for display!ay room this one gets endangered species protection