Mesozoic Mind

 Hello, and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind. Today, let's try something new and delve into the work of a particular palaeoartist. Specifically, one who you may not know by name but may know his artstyle.  Joe Tucciarone is not exactly well known as his contemporaries from the tail end of the Dinosaur Renaissance, but if you see his art anywhere, chances are you'll know it. I sure do, as my family used to have a placemat just like the one pictured above. Whether it was on other merchendise, books, or online in edgy tribute AMVs, Joe's dinosaurs were everywhere. Look at them on his (now-archived) website  and see how many you recognise. The man himself Joe himself (at least according to his website) is an Ohio resident born in 1953 (and likely Italian-American) who specialises in space art as much as palaeoart (he loves both), getting his start at the Memphis Museum's (presumably the Pink Palace Museum and Planetarium - is that right Memphians?) planeterium in 1978, and wh...

David Armsby is a Scottish animator. He's done a lot of science fiction wio, but he has quite the affinity for dinosaurs, as evidenced by the triad of animated shorts he has made over the 2010's and into the 2020's.  Small Beginnings (2013) Small Beginings is about a newly-hatched baby T. rex who goes out with her mother only for another one to kill her, leaving him an orphan. Years later when he is an adult, she returns to the cliff where it happened, and goes back to her own nest to continue . As far quality goes, its fine on its own, although it does have a hefty dose of Early Instalment Weirdness to it: the short is made in full CG, one more cartoonish then realistic. The designs have the usual array of JP or Paulian: lipless jaws and tooth slippage and feel a bit too slender. In other words, there's not much in the way of heavy realistic research going on for the creatures within it, instead opting for something on the lighter side of the awesomebro styles. The to...

Hello, and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind. Today, we're starting a new themed month, Nostalgiavember, about many prehistoric-related entities of my 2000's childhood I enjoyed and loved or simply fondly remembered, even more then usual. I'm talking web videos, books, and movies, rather then the usual array of docs I usually deal in (which are already nostalgic themselves). Our first subject is a very short documentary, simply titled Dinosaur World . It's not to be confused with the unfinished BBC game, the chain of parks, or really, any other work with that title. The video was uploaded in Youtube’s golden age of 2007 but was actually made around 2004, and created by some young British kids named Sam Hart and Tony Hart (and thus are likely brothers or at the very least related from what I can tell), following in the footsteps of a grand british tradition. I hope both Harts have grown up and live good lives now even in troubled. Back on topic, it was made when independent ...

Hello, and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind. To cap off Juneseums month, here are the exhibits for extinct life I've visited in life, worst if not least good to absolute best. Do be aware that 1) I'm focusing on permanent exhibits, and 2) I haven't visited most of these in years if not months, so I don't have the most accurate memories at the time of writing, and I made have forgotten a few exhibits and a lot of the details over the years. #5 - Ripley's Believe it or Not, Niagara Falls This may seem like a weird place to list, but this franchise of the famous "museum" at the Tourist Trap that is Clifton Hill, Niagara Falls, does have a dinosaur skeleton and a few other fossils on display, specifically  Monolophosaurus , an ichthyosaur, and a proboschidean skull, and not a whole lot else (though I do remember a tuft of mammoth fur somewhere here). A further gallery also has an Allosaurus skull, which in total is a quota y. I am certain they're all casts an...

Hello, and we're back to Mesozoic Mind! For a weekend vacation to Ottawa, I visited the  Canadian Museum of Nature , a museum that serves as one of the national museums of Canada. It was pretty good, if fairly smaller then I expected and able to be seen in under two hours. Naturally, I capped off the visit with the museum's fossil gallery, where the vast majority of them are. (And you can too, with a museum's Matterport virtual tour they provide for free!) I admit my own experience was hampered by my own excitement and dealing with others, and I kind of rushed it. I'll still try to do my best here. The Fossil Gallery starts off with horizontal one hall that' fairly open but has a lengthwise dividing wall in the centre, while next is s vertical hall divided into both a walkthrough diorama and a section for cenozoic life. This is where things get interesting: the majority of it is on a raised platform accessible by stairs, overlooking the other half. The first galler...