What did the world look like to dinosaurs?

Seven-year-old Ben asked: "I was reading Dinotopia and I found the page where it showed the human vision and the dinosaur vision. Did dinosaurs really see that way?"

Hi, Ben,
Good question. Of course we’ll never really know how the world looked to dinosaurs, or for that matter, what things looks like to a dog or cat or bird. In fact, if you think about it, you can’t even be completely sure exactly how another person sees, and whether that’s different from the way you see, because you can’t climb inside their head.

But scientists are able to study the structures in the eyes of modern animals and they’ve found out some interesting things. 

Dogs, cats, deer, and other mammals do not have color receptors in their eyes that can sense the difference between green and red. So their view of the world may only distinguish light and dark, and maybe blue and yellow colors. Humans, apes, and monkeys have the addition of green / red color receptors, so we see those colors, too. 

Most birds seem to have as many color receptors as we do. But some birds, like hawks, may have sharper distance vision based on how their eyes are structured, and some other birds, like owls, surely see much better in the dark than we do. 

Mantis shrimp from Amasian Science

When it comes to color, some insects can see into the ultraviolet range, a kind of light that’s invisible to us. These unique abilities probably help bees and butterflies to see fruit or flowers. The mantis shrimp has 16 kinds of light receptors in its eyes, which apparently allow it to see images in polarized light and ultraviolet light that we can't see without special instruments.

Red faced Uakari Monkey from Flickr wbirt1

A good clue is that if animals have bright colors on them, then others of their kind can see those colors. That's why most animals aren't colored red, except for monkeys, which are unusual among mammals for having the same sort of color vision that humans have.

Inspector Myops from Dinotopia: The World Beneath

Returning to dinosaurs, if some dinosaurs were a lot like birds in other respects, they might well have had the added color sensing abilities of modern birds. Not only that, they might have been as colorful as birds.

So the illustration of "dinosaur vision" in Dinotopia may not be too far off.
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Read more about color perception in animals at Amasian Science
or listen to the Radiolab episode on color.

Get a signed copy of Dinotopia for your inquisitive person in your life:
Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time
Dinotopia: The World Beneath
or from Amazon: Dinotopia, A Land Apart from Time: 20th Anniversary Edition (Calla Editions)

Dutch Angle

On the newsstands now is a special collector's edition about dinosaurs from Scientific American. The cover image is the running Giganotosaurus that I painted a while back. (Thanks, Gene)

Note that this is the cloudless version of the image. A later state of the painting (below) includes cirrus clouds and a flock of pterosaurs.

For this picture I used a compositional device called a "Dutch angle," where the camera is tilted off its vertical axis to lend a sense of unease, tension, or impending danger.

The term Dutch angle (also called Dutch tilt, canted angle, oblique angle or German angle) comes from the movie world, where it was pioneered in the 1919 German film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

It was also often used by illustrators doing movie posters and paperback covers in the 1970s and 1960s.

This poster by Frank McCarthy has it all: guns, girls, explosions, bright colors, and a Dutch angle.

And John Berkey used it in this hydro ship, which would have looked more static if the horizon had been level.

Pareidoloop

Can computers generate faces out of random shapes?

Yes. All you have to do is combine a random polygon generator with face recognition software.

The computer generates clusters of random polygons until a face detector notices something that looks like a face. Then the polygon cluster continues mutating in a series of generations as the face detector increases its confidence factor.

The software, developed by people like Phil McCarthy, Roger Alsing, and Greg Borenstein, resembles the human propensity for pareidolia, a form of apophenia where we see faces in clouds or tree bark.

Pareidoloop, programming by Phil McCarthy

An infinite number of faces emerge in this artificial evolutionary process.

You can watch the genetic programming happen in real time at a website called "Iobound Pareidoloop". Here's one I watched just now. It took 409 generations and about five minutes. If I had let the process go longer, it would have looked more like a face.

Sometimes the faces take on the appearance of wailing spirits struggling to escape from the void, like Michelangelo's unfinished slave statues. 

But they're nothing more than digital tea leaves, ink blots, random data.

Artists may feel a kinship for this process, as certain painters use a process of generating seemingly random shapes and then filtering out whatever doesn't add to the face-like appearance.

Roger Alsing has done an interesting variation on this idea. What if you set up the DNA for random polygon generation to match the Mona Lisa? Add to that the constraint is that you have to make the face out of no more than 50 semi-transparent polygons. Here's what the software gives us as it closes in on the finish:

Try out a demo of the software at "Iobound Pareidoloop".
More examples at Prosthetic Knowledge

Congratulations, Carol

We shipped out another big stack of orders of Dinotopia: First Flight today. Congratulations to Carol W. of Accord, New York, who was Order #50.

That means Carol won an original storyboard that I sketched while planning the book. For those who didn't win the grand prize, no worries: you'll receive an original drawings inside your copy as well as a signature, so everyone should get a fun surprise.

There are still two storyboard sketches left, for orders #75 and #100. If you order now, you might be a lucky winner.

Update: CONGRATULATIONS to Daniel B. of Indianapolis, whose order was #75. 
That means he wins the storyboard sketch, as well as a custom original drawing of a little character named Fritz in his book. Now #100 is still up for grabs. 
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You can order the book Dinotopia, First Flight at Amazon
or from me at JamesGurney.com or Dinotopia.com. (USA customers only, sorry)
Previously: First Flight Released

Solomon's "Sacred and Profane Love"

The British painter Solomon J. Solomon (1860-1927) was eternally dissatisfied with his own work. He once destroyed a painting called "Sacred and Profane Love," even after it was accepted and exhibited at the Royal Academy.


The Magazine of Art had praised the painting as "executed in a masterly manner."

"The picture marks the advance of an ambitious and earnest young painter towards his goal....Towering on the summit of a rocky peak stands the Angel of Holiness, full of kindness and full of dignity, sheltering a woman and her child with one wing, while the husband sits below at their feet."

Fortunately, because the work was exhibited at the Royal Academy, there's an old reproduction of it.
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Solomon's book on painting: The Practice of Oil Painting and Drawing

Snake attacks baby dinosaurs

A few years ago, paleontologists found direct fossil evidence of a dramatic scene where a giant snake invaded a nest of baby sauropods.

When I was proposing illustration ideas to the editors of Ranger Rick for their May issue about baby dinosaurs, I suggested that we reconstruct this fossil.


Here's the final oil painting. I chose an orange and cyan color gamut for a weird look, and I used photographic effects, such as lens flares to add a sense of vérité.

I referred to this fossil photo, along with a line drawing in the scientific paper showing the position of the snake, eggs, and hatchling.

I did a series of quick sketches in colored pencil, fountain pen, and watercolor to explore variations of angles, lighting ideas, and value organizations. These sketches were based on a beautiful sculpted reconstruction by Tyler Keillor.

But I wanted to sculpt my own interpretation of it, so I made a maquette out of plasticine modeling clay. I used that because I planned to recycle the material rather than saving it. Note the lens flare effects when it was set up out in real sunlight.

Link to science blog about the fossil discovery

Toonerville Trolley Toy

I'd like to introduce you to my friend Mel Birnkrant, who has one of the most amazing toy collections in the world, concentrating on comic characters from the 1920s and '30s. (Direct link to video).

When I visited him a few days ago, he showed me a favorite, the Toonerville Trolley. Wind it up and it wobbles along, then stops and shudders, until the skipper winds the crank and gets it going again.

I think Mel is like a cross between Gepetto and Santa Claus (he is also a toy inventor himself) and he has rekindled an old fascination of mine: animation of the Golden Age.

If you like these "Mel's Toy Minute" features, let me know in the comments, and we can make a few more of them next time I pay Mel a visit.

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Visit Mel's comic character toy website

Some of Mel's toy inventions

First Flight On Its Way

If you ordered a copy of the brand new expanded edition of Dinotopia: First Flight, good news! Your copy shipped out today. 

And congratulations to Peter O. of San Francisco. You were Order #25, and that means you'll be receiving the special copy with the actual original storyboard from First Flight included inside, along with a hand drawn and painted remarque.

If you haven't ordered yet, good news! There are still three original remarques waiting: #50, #75, and #100.

So if you order today you might be the lucky one. Plus everyone who orders from me gets a signature and a little drawing, and a few random people will get extra-custom drawings of the hoverhead Fritz with the painted flame effect, like above.
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You can order the book at JamesGurney.com or Dinotopia.com. (USA customers only, sorry)
Previously: First Flight Released

Hatching Triceratops

I painted a hatching Triceratops for the article on baby dinosaurs in the new issue of Ranger Rick magazine.

I suppose I could have painted the scene in sweet pastel colors and bright morning light, but I imagined it more as an urgent moment of crisis, where life hangs in the balance. So I set the scene at night, as if dazzled by the intrusion of a photographer's flash.

I limited the colors to yellow ochre and a dull slate blue, leaving out greens, reds, and pinks. The whole composition includes a wider shot of the nest, with shell fragments, and mud caked on the eggs. I painted everything in shallow focus to evoke the impression of wildlife photography.

This photo of a hatching turtle provided the stimulus for the pose. I liked the way it reached one foot to the ground, and seemed to be gasping for air. But a photo like this is just a starting point.

The shapes of very young Triceratops skulls are known from fossils.

I needed to know the exact light and shadow design of the whole scenario, so I sculpted a small maquette from Sculpey. 

The egg is a thin layer of Sculpey applied over a styrofoam egg. I didn't know what would happen to the styrofoam egg when I put it in the oven. 

It was awesome! It sort of shriveled up to nothing, leaving the Sculpey shell. I spray painted the maquette a flat gray and took it outside in sunlight to figure out the best lighting. 

Dinosaur Babies: The Crèche

The new May issue of Ranger Rick magazine has an article on baby dinosaurs that I illustrated. One of the paintings shows an adult Parasaurolophus grazing amid water lilies, while several juveniles hunt insects nearby.

I started with a pencil underdrawing on illustration board. I sealed the drawing with acrylic matte medium and then applied oil paint. I chose effects of light and color that would make the painting match up with the look of the wildlife photography that comprises most of the magazine.

The idea evolved from a variety of sketches that I did after reading the book Eggs, Nests, and Baby Dinosaurs: A Look at Dinosaur Reproduction by paleontologist Kenneth Carpenter, director of the USU Eastern Prehistoric Museum.  I also read several books about how crocodiles and birds raise their young. The purpose of the sketches is to try a lot of ideas and not get attached to any of them, but rather to use them as a stimulus for expert feedback.

The magazine's editors reviewed the sketches, as did Dr. Carpenter himself. He cautioned me against showing dinosaur young in the nest, pointing out that large-bodied dinosaurs brooding on eggs would crush them, and reminding me that for most dinosaurs, there's not that much conclusive proof of altricial (helpless or dependent) behavior among dinosaur young.

He said, "The parental care business is on shaky ground. Yes, there are oviraptorid skeletons that appear to be surrounded by eggs, but that cannot be translated into ALL dinosaurs as has been done....I do not think it co-incidental that groups of baby dinosaurs are NOT found with adults (except when faked). To me, that does not argue for babies remaining in a nest with parents lovingly bringing food, but rather babies on their own."

Following his suggestions, I moved away from illustrating a nesting scene, or even a scene of the parent actively feeding or regurgitating food for the young. Instead, I imagined the scene as a crèche of young sticking close to the adult for safety. Very young dinosaurs completely on their own would be killed by predators. The adult—which would not necessarily be a parent—might be eating a plant diet, but it might stir up some insects that the young would eat. This is a common behavioral scenario for many birds or reptiles, and does not suggest a very high level of altricial behavior.

Read the article online or pick up a copy at the newsstand.