Dinosaur Art II

A worthy sequel, just as impressive as the first, with a range of new and sometimes stranger discoveries captured in stunningly vivid colour paintings and other quite beautiful illustrations .When I was younger I would have struggled to believe how many rare fossils would be found over the coming decades, in particular those with the unexpected epithelial details found so delicately preserved around them, which have made many palaeontologists rethink just how these animals might actually have looked and lived their lives in the worlds long lost to us. Its very fortunate that the imaginative challenge of illustrating them has now fallen to the modern skill sets of a new generation of artists and a great deal of this volume is filled with brilliantly detailed depictions of just how these creatures, influenced by those new insights and theories, might have looked . A renaissance in paleo art indeed.Here then are ten new illustrator's , each with a section containing a strong portfolio of their best work, with a detailed briefing on how they each approached their subjects through the available art mediums, either traditional or digital, to produce the final design. More than a few of these included here may surprise the casual student of palaeontology . I particularly liked the recently discovered feathered and furred dinosaurs, and all the new depictions of those older, more "traditionally" prehistoric monsters of my youth ,so that they don't look as reptilian and primeval. These animals are now colourful, sleeker and I think more relevant representations to the variety of subtle evolutionary and ecological niches we now know they existed in. And the inclusion of a wider range of species is a fascinating and an awesome testament to all the hard work undertaken around the world by palaeontologists and museum staff, so enabling the artists to obtain a much more varied and accurate vision of these creatures . I particularly enjoyed the selection of artists who have specialized in species not often seen illustrated outside their countries of origin, allowing us a rare glimpse into the prehistoric past. Gone but now definitely not forgotten. I have been a huge fan of paleoart since I was a boy. The majestic primal power of many of the illustrations of Neave Parker, Maurice Wilson, Rudolph Zallinger and Zdenek Burian hold a special place of affection on my bookshelves and in my imagination . Reading this book and delighting in nearly all of what I saw here , I would like to think they would be as similarly impressed and entranced by the sheer quality and variety of the new images rendered by this current generation of artists as I was.

This is a good book although I preferred the first one myself. There are some very good illustrations included. Some of the artwork is not for my taste but I would recommend for any dinosaur lovers, although given that they are quite pricey if I were to choose one I would get the first book.

A 'must have' book for all dinosaur fans comes highly recommended