A dinosaur utopia
Jan. 26th, 2014 02:20 pmThe Arkell Museum in Canajoharie, New York (a town celebrated by They Might Be Giants in a song--can your town say as much? Mine cannot--but more about Canajoharie later) has been assiduously advertising its exhibit of art from James Gurney's Dinotopia since October. Yesterday the ninja girl, the healing angel, and I went to see it.
Do you know Dinotopia? James Gurney imagined an island populated by sentient dinosaurs and humans, living together. Gurney's worldbuilding is fabulous, and his art is amazing--very much like N.C. Wyeth or Howard Pyle. Here are some examples from the Dinotopia website that we actually got to see:
flying on a skybax

Waterfall City in the Mist

One very intriguing artifact was an early sketch of the island that would become Dinotopia. In pencil, he has it labeled Panmundia, and then under that, a series of other possible titles, including Sauropolis, Saurotopia, and Dinotolia, and at the bottom, Dinotopia, with three underlines and a star beside it. Yep, that's the one!
( Read more... )
Do you know Dinotopia? James Gurney imagined an island populated by sentient dinosaurs and humans, living together. Gurney's worldbuilding is fabulous, and his art is amazing--very much like N.C. Wyeth or Howard Pyle. Here are some examples from the Dinotopia website that we actually got to see:
flying on a skybax


Desert Crossing


One very intriguing artifact was an early sketch of the island that would become Dinotopia. In pencil, he has it labeled Panmundia, and then under that, a series of other possible titles, including Sauropolis, Saurotopia, and Dinotolia, and at the bottom, Dinotopia, with three underlines and a star beside it. Yep, that's the one!
( Read more... )