100 years of special effects on Film...

You may want to turn your speakers down a bit.... bad choice of music.

Self Portrait?

Digging through my old books  I came across an old favourite. The Evolution and Ecology of the Dinosaurs. L B Halstead. 1975. Illustrated by Giovanni Caselli.

Buried within remains what must be the earliest artwork of that mine that exists. I have vague memories of drawing them and I know they were all drawn on separate occasions. The pencil figure in the top window is the earliest of them all, I have an impression that they both represent myself. So this is my first Self Portrait, from about the age of 4 or 5, I guess... 

 the next guy must be a Cave Man...

 I Hunt Big Chicken!

Posting this I remembered a funny story...

One day at First School, around six years old, we had to take a book in one day. On the day everyone had their books such as The Mr Men, Rupert the Bear, Peter & Jane, The Big Red Rock Eater... 

I had struggled to choose a book so had loaded four books into my bag. Two Encyclopedias on Animals and Two on Dinosaurs.

I learned a lesson that day when I had to struggle home from school with bag full of massive books.

:)

The Right of Spring

While on the Dinosaur topic, I found The Right of Spring chapters from Disney's Fantasia on YouTube so I thought I would post them here...

GENESIS

EVOLUTION

EXTINCTION

DINOSAURS

I have a child-like obsession with dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals just now. Ignited anew by my research into Human Anatomy and also Comparative Anatomy; the function and evolution of the Vertebrates. The Evolution of the planet and it's life forms, sitting in the vast cold space of the Universe is the most humbling and fascinating subject.

Any how... I plan to make a couple of Dinosaurs to roam around my desk here (watch this space) so I ordered some Schleich dinosaurs to play with, errr... I mean for reference, along with a couple of books including the utterly absorbing: Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs.

This Month's Imagine FX (issue 29 April 08), and 3d World magazine (issue 102 April 08) both have great Dino features including tutorials from Weta artists Greg Broadmore and Steve Lambert and an article on Dinotopia creator James Gurney....

http://www.imaginefx.com/

http://www.3dworldmag.com/

I went on a hunt around the internet to gather some reference and discovered some cool dinosaurs on YouTube.... check this workshop for the Waking with Dinosaurs Live experience...

And a clip from the ludicrously grand TV show Walking with Dinosaurs...