New Princeton Field Guides

[postsaurischian]

Here are some appetizers of the 2nd edition of the Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs (forgive the bad picture quality, I don't have a scanner):

  Tyrannosaurs running in the other direction now :



  Finally Guanlong .......



  ....... and Yutyrannus:



  Microraptor has new colours (a bit darker than they appear in this pic):



  Stuff for David Silva :





    A few new illustrations:



                         



  Two more newbies:

[suspsy]

Okay, I'm sold.

[The Atroxious]

Is it just me, or has Paul's illustration taken a nosedive of late? I look at these pictures, and while the skeletals are solid, the life restorations look like the 20 minute colored pencil sketches of someone fresh out of high school, rather than the work of a seasoned professional illustrator. I see a number of anatomy problems, especially concerning the wings, as well as things like depicting Deinocheirus as nearly bald. Moreover, value differentiation seems almost nonexistent, yet I look at Paul's illustrations from the '90s, and it's clear he had a good sense of value and tone.

Take a look at the images below and compare. What happened? It almost seems like Paul just doesn't care anymore and just churned out the drawings in the field guide to fill up space.

[Dilopho]

I don't get what you mean. I thought they were supposed to be static images.

[Takama]

The flesh on recontructions looke a lot worse then ever.    This is 2016, and he still making shrink-wrapped skeletons,  That Concavenator Drawing looks like absolute Garbage when compared to all the others.

[DinoLord]

Nice to see some new content, but that Concavenator looks like someone took a bite out of his back. At least his skin healed nicely! 

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

Take a look at the images below and compare. What happened? It almost seems like Paul just doesn't care anymore and just churned out the drawings in the field guide to fill up space.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who noticed. He used to be my favorite paleoartist but the only one of the new drawings I've seen that's on the same level as the first edition is the tyrannosaurus pair.
Also its interesting to see how minimal he is on some of the feathered dinosaurs. I would have expected him to have been more generous with the feathers since he was one of the first artists I know of who put feathers on dinosaurs.

[fason]

Take a look at the images below and compare. What happened? It almost seems like Paul just doesn't care anymore and just churned out the drawings in the field guide to fill up space.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who noticed. He used to be my favorite paleoartist but the only one of the new drawings I've seen that's on the same level as the first edition is the tyrannosaurus pair.
Also its interesting to see how minimal he is on some of the feathered dinosaurs. I would have expected him to have been more generous with the feathers since he was one of the first artists I know of who put feathers on dinosaurs.

the feathers are understandable on some , (possibly concavenator ) and the raptors seem decently feathered, (SEEM , im no expert on feathers)

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

Take a look at the images below and compare. What happened? It almost seems like Paul just doesn't care anymore and just churned out the drawings in the field guide to fill up space.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who noticed. He used to be my favorite paleoartist but the only one of the new drawings I've seen that's on the same level as the first edition is the tyrannosaurus pair.
Also its interesting to see how minimal he is on some of the feathered dinosaurs. I would have expected him to have been more generous with the feathers since he was one of the first artists I know of who put feathers on dinosaurs.

the feathers are understandable on some , (possibly concavenator ) and the raptors seem decently feathered, (SEEM , im no expert on feathers)

Maybe it's just the angle but the deinonychus looks like it's missing primaries.

[The Atroxious]

I don't get what you mean. I thought they were supposed to be static images.

Well, even comparing his earlier simple reconstructions, he seemed to use far more contrast in his values, and his mark making was far more consistent, fluid, and dare I say, confident. Take for instance these images:

The marks and values are absolutely exquisite in the former image, and lend the image, as simple and static as it is a sense of depth. In the latter, the marks are sketchy and go off in all different directions, lacking any flow or sense of cohesive texture. The values are similarly flat and dull, with little contrast to build visual interest and guide your eye around the image, unlike the first image.

Moreover, Paul seems to not have a particularly good sense of feather arrangements. The coverts don't follow the direction of the arm as they should, and the dinosaurs seem to lack primaries altogether (well, they have feathers that attach to the hand, but they're all the same shape as the secondaries, and they seem to all be parallel to the secondaries, while in reality primaries will be pointed in a slightly oblique angle to the secondaries in the folded arm position depicted in these images. The evenly parallel feathers also make the feathers look like the dinosaur has cardboard cutouts in the vague shape of wings glued to the arms, instead of the layers upon layers of flexible keratin filaments that make up feathered wings. The wings as depicted in this guide look weirdly flat, stiff, and uniform, unlike real wings.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who noticed. He used to be my favorite paleoartist but the only one of the new drawings I've seen that's on the same level as the first edition is the tyrannosaurus pair.
Also its interesting to see how minimal he is on some of the feathered dinosaurs. I would have expected him to have been more generous with the feathers since he was one of the first artists I know of who put feathers on dinosaurs.

Same. Greg Paul was one of my main childhood idols. In fact one of the things I admired so much about his work was how gorgeous his mark making was. The tiny little details, all smooth and perfectly blended to the point where it was hard to tell what medium he used blew my mind. I would stare at his drawings and paintings and try to work out his techniques, but his images were so well rendered that I never could. I wanted so badly to be the next Greg Paul that looking back, I can see a lot of his influence in my own childhood drawings. It is rather disappointing that this time around it looks like Paul phoned it in.

Incidentally, yeah, I noticed the irony of the guy who was a pioneer for the feathering of dinosaurs now drawing dinosaurs as feathered in the most minimalistic possible way.

[DinoLord]

A lot of the new images definitely seem more 'flat' than his older reconstructions. I'd venture a guess and say he was probably under some sort of publisher deadline pressure to get out this new edition?

[suspsy]

A lot of the new images definitely seem more 'flat' than his older reconstructions. I'd venture a guess and say he was probably under some sort of publisher deadline pressure to get out this new edition?

I think that's the most likely answer. His pencil crayon drawings are still pretty impressive.

[HD-man]

Are there any major differences btwn the new Introduction (I.e. The 1st 60+ pages) & the old 1? If so, what are they? Just wondering.

[Appalachiosaurus]

He has never been that good with wings, and he had to pump out dozens of drawings in a short deadline. Really, none of the pictures posted look bad at all. Maybe not his best, but miles ahead of every "Archeopteryx" on the first page of google images.

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

Take a look at the images below and compare. What happened? It almost seems like Paul just doesn't care anymore and just churned out the drawings in the field guide to fill up space.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who noticed. He used to be my favorite paleoartist but the only one of the new drawings I've seen that's on the same level as the first edition is the tyrannosaurus pair.
Also its interesting to see how minimal he is on some of the feathered dinosaurs. I would have expected him to have been more generous with the feathers since he was one of the first artists I know of who put feathers on dinosaurs.

The flesh on recontructions looke a lot worse then ever.    This is 2016, and he still making shrink-wrapped skeletons,  That Concavenator Drawing looks like absolute Garbage when compared to all the others.

I was thinking the same thing. I almost expected the feathers to be incorrect, and I certainly expected the creatures to still be shrink-wrapped, as I've gotten the impression he may be a bit set in his ways at this point, but I still expected the same level of aesthetic quality. Whatever he got wrong, you can't deny that old Paulian paintings are true works of art... I can't say that about these ones. Oh well. At least the skeletals are spot-on as ever.

I wonder if this is at all related to the fact that he lent his name but not his drawings to the Ancient Earth Journal series?

[Dilopho]

Hey guys, remind me sometime to take pictures of this old dinosaur book I have (pre-feathered Velociraptor era) that has a comparison between Greg Paul's almost naked Avivimus  and an incredibly bird-like, fully-feathered (seriously fully feathered) Avimimus.

[suspsy]

I picked up the new dinosaur guide on the weekend. Art quality aside, I enjoy it as a resource for skeletal drawings, but I really hate how Paul is such a huge fan of arbitrarily lumping dinosaurs together. In addition to claiming that Triceratops and Torosaurus are one and the same (Andrew Farke and Nicholas Longrich both have something to say about that), he lumps together Albertaceratops and Diabloceratops, Centrosaurus, Styracosaurus, Achelousaurus, and Einiosaurus, Chasmosaurus, Kosmoceratops, Vegaceratops, Pentaceratops, Utahceratops, and Agujaceratops, and Yi and Scansoriopteryx. But at the same time, he's fine with keeping Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus separate.

He also suggests that there may have been three species of T. rex that roamed North America. Not sure what to make of that.

[stargatedalek]

To be fair I do feel like there are probably to many recognized genera, (especially among North American ceratopsians) to the point I feel it actually devalues animals that are recognized as species because "all the worthwhile or cool dinosaurs have a genus name", but to suggest they were the same animal is silly.

[Halichoeres]

I agree that ceratopsians in particular are likely to be oversplit, but not to the extent that he's suggesting. It would require large terrestrial genera to persist for millions of years, which just isn't a common phenomenon. To simultaneously recognize Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus as distinct is pretty hilarious.

[DinoLord]

GSP's taxonomy is certainly interesting. He's had a few good hits (Giraffatitan, Mantellisaurus) but a lot more misses...