Acquisitions

Found at Goodwill, but the cover had water damage so I didn't buy it. However I did photograph it for your entertainment:


Highlights: "The Hadrasaur (sic) From Hackensack", "The Sauropod Swing"

Dinosaurs, by David Lambert - has nice illustrations

Prehistoric Worlds

A general historical geology textbook.

Prehistoric Animals - entirely illustrated with photographs of models, gets extra points for invertebrates, Devonian fish and other non-dinosaurs.

Prehistoric Mammals pop-up book featuring a desmostylian

From the Texas Fossils book

Carnosauria, from the Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animals Fact Finder. More like UGLOSAURIA, amirite?

Reading comprehension worksheets, I wish I had these when I was in kindergarten

Creature sketches commencement post

No. 1 in series of creature requests, genus Pterodactylus, species indefinite.

Suddenly it rained today

Before I fell asleep last night I had a random vision of a drawing of a Parasaurolophus, in great detail, that I'd like to do. That isn't really good because I have commissions to work on... on the other hand it seemed like a good idea so I pushed the Record button and was able to remember it clearly in the morning. Don't know why I have these images of hadrosaurs all the time, first it's Olorotitan....

Since I was gone a long time (moving, other stuff), I'll give you a Touhou Arrange of the day:


arrange of Staff Roll theme from Perfect Cherry Blossom, by Neutral2

June Acquisitions (and dinos)

Secondhand things: FINALLY acquired Long and Hendersons' Dawn of the Dinosaurs for $6, and Feathered Dinosaurs for 7. I didn't want to pay full price because the layout is so screwed up, but still wanted it in my collection.


Enjoy some images from that "Adventures in the Wilderness" book, I forget the year of publishing but will edit it later...





In preparation for boxing up, snapshot of my dino figure collection so far (excluding JP Tapejara, Kaiyodos, and some random small figs and Chinasaurs.)



Your Touhou Arrange: Liz Triangle featuring lily-an, Yasaka Kanako's boss theme from Mountain of Faith (Suwa Foughten Field - The Great Exalted Battlefield)

Kanako is awesome

The Fossil Book, 1958

Carroll Lane Fenton and Mildred Adams Fenton

I got this for $10. It's really cool and has 482 pp. Actually it's pretty good where invertebrate fossils are concerned. From Acknowledgments:

Restorations of invertebrates are based chiefly upon our own studies. Those of vertebrates emobdy the work of Knight, Horsfall, Price, Germann, and other artists, and of such paleontologists as Osborn, Matthew, Scott, Case, Williston, Merriam, Stock, Simpson, and Romer. Restorations of plants reveal our debt to Seward, Wieland, Goldring, and other authorities.

In places you can probably see where direct inspiration was taken...

Dinosaurs and Flame Wars: repost and more

I got my popcorn out yesterday to read the March archives of the Dinosaur Mailing List If there were a Fandom Wank for science, the responses to Gregory S. Paul's initial post on ripoffs and price undercutting in paleoart would be a great hit. See also this article for an apparently biased view, if commenters have anything to say about it. (For the record, I agree with a lot of what he says but also agree with those who say it sounds like he is over-reaching with some of it...)

I actually bookmarked a post by Luis Rey. l ...don't know why, but I like this guy, lol. That was my favorite post in the whole thing. *fangirls*

And GSP totally dissed Mark Witton OMGWTF! Oh no he di'int!! Why do I know who these people are? Because I lurk on so many blogs where some of them regularly post. It's kind of weird... I've been reading TetZoo for so long and started seeing lots of people like this commenting there, and then went on to read lots of other blogs.

As for me, I know enough to follow discussions on the DML and elsewhere, but not enough to say anything about anything, and I'll leave it at that. That's why I Lurk Moar. :iconthumbsupplz: You can learn a lot from your betters! I don't even remember from one month to the next, which new taxon have been lumped or split, because I am not a scientist and have other things to read about/do(see here)




Goodwill finds: AAA Tyrannosaurus and 1988 Carnegie Brachiosaurus (a good 14' tall.)

But to me it looks different than the ones pictured here.

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Extra: Review of the worst movie ever put on film, pt 1 and pt 2

Book Hoarding update

A few things I picked up within the last few weeks... a couple are left out, I'll get to them in more detail in further posts, including a focus on the Golden Book.


When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1985) by David Norman, illustrated by John Sibbick.

Despite its printing date, this copy is in pretty extraordinary condition. There isn't even a single crease in the dust jacket. Great cover, or Greatest cover?? Fire, random volcanoes, the obligate pterosaur AND a T-rex viciously killing something-- what more could you ask from an '80's kids' dinosaur book? Samples below.




Epic 1980's Sibbick goodness/clunkiness abounds.


The Origin and Evolution of Birds (1999 2nd edition), Alan Feduccia.

1/2 Price has had a hardcover first edition since forever ago, but it's too expensive for me to bother with. Lo, on this random visit they had a paperback 2nd ed. for half that price. Sure, it's outdated and mostly discredited BAND cheerleading, but it has DIAGRAMS.


It's full of stuff like this. I only wish the full illustrations that were presumably made for the book were printed in color.

Save the Glen Rose Tracks

http://savethedinosaurtracks.org/

The preserved track is housed at Texas Memorial Museum on the UT campus and I've actually been there to see them. Apparently the outdoor building that displays them is insufficient to protect the slab from moisture and degradation and they need to raise money to move it to a prepared display area indoors.

Not sure, but... it may be the most famous ichnofossil in the world so it's really worth saving.

Home for Kaiyodos

So, I bought this shelf at Goodwill a couple of weeks ago for $4. It's exactly the right size for Choco-Egg premiums.

My almost-complete Series 3 of Dinotales, 3 Kabayas, and a few small random dinosaurs.

It looks sweet. Oh, small pleasures in life.

Let's Build Some Kaiyodos!

I recently won an ebay auction for the (apparently) complete Series 3 set of Kaiyodo/UHA Dinotales miniatures. I haven't bought on ebay for a long time, but it was too cheap to pass up and since I just got a job and happened to have paypal money... well anyway I paid $35 WITH shipping and handling from Hong Kong, for 24 figures, which is way less than $2/figure. If you bought them individually they are anywhere from $3 to 15+ depending on the figure... you do the math.

I've had a really bad few weeks due to overwork, getting sick again, and exam week on top of it, so here was an afternoon well spent.

How do they fit all those into a tiny box that fits in my mail slot? Anticipation...



Turns out they were all sealed, i wasn't actually sure whether they were loose or not. First one is Trochosaurus, a cynodont thingie. Ruler for scale.



Partially-assembled Plesiosaurus skeleton. This was probably the most delicate figure.


I really love how this one came unassembled, it's the Maiasaura hatchling and egg... look at the detailed base with leaves on it. The plastic was a bit translucent red, painted over.


Detail where it's not even strictly needed. Shown: Glyptodon, Hemicyclaspis, and a trilobite.


Apatosaurus is one of my favorite. He just looks fantastic, the paint job is beautiful, he's so lively.


Looks so real I want him swimming in my aquarium. MARKETING IDEA: Cambrian creatures for your aquarium???? Is it done yet??



All of it assembled. Got this random shelf last week from a thrift store, don't know if it's their final housing but it was lucky I had it for now since I'd have had no safe place for such tiny things.

Weirdness: in the end I had 25 figures altho it's a set of 24. Ended up with three duplicates (a happy accident as it happens) and I don't have either Acrocanthosaurus, the live or skeleton, or the skeleton Deinonychus. I'm not that bothered, I got all the ones I REALLY wanted, not that I'd turn down Acrocanthosaurus but it's not really my favorite. I don't understand though how I got 22 here on my shelf, but am missing three from the set. Was the T-rex or another a 'secret' extra figure? Regardless, even with duplicates, even if I'd gotten a couple of damaged ones, etc, it was worth the pittance. I think the only reason it went under the radar was that the seller didn't label them as Kaiyodo but just under generic 'dinosaurs' tag. Would have been worth bidding higher, really.

Conclusion: If you've ever thought about getting some Kaiyodos you shouldn't hesitate. Despite the size they are every bit as quality as reputation has it. The plastic is hard almost resin type (?) and contrary to what you'd expect, the tiny little pieces snap together easily and soundly. They are very well made, and amazingly detailed. I love and treasure them... the only off one, Hallucigenia may need some glue on the tail end, everything else fit together with no problem.

Rubber dinosaurs interim post

Found these at a thrift store last week, they're thin, hollow ceramic, bottom is unlabeled, just firing marks as if they were home made or something. Was something like this commercially available, I wonder? They're delightfully ugly, well okay, the Stego is pretty cute but the other one is rather unfortunate.



I can't remember where the models for these figures are from, I know it's some old illustration and maybe a vintage toy mold based upon such. Particulary the crippled-looking hadrosaur I know I've seen before. Maybe I'm just losing my memory. Can't find anything at the moment in my image collection nor on the toy dinosaurs site I had bookmarked.

This is new (to me)


JP Dilophosaur, ugly and wrong and he's missing part of a finger! But kind of cute anyway.




Old, found this trike and baby at an antique store in Portland. There was a sauropod (of some kind) figure with it, but it wasn't nearly as cute. To be honest Trike isn't my favorite but I still like this one. It's a resin-type figure and there's no mark or ID on it.


New Carnegie and Safari
I want the Inostrancevia and Miragaia... Guanlong looks 'shopped right now, so it's hard to tell how it will come out? T-Rex is cute, but I'm bored of rex. Kaprosuchus looks pretty lively, though.

These are really pretty models

__

I saw two dinosaur-related books at the store the other night and both of them were a bust. Is there a really good explanation for why the publishing industry seems to be violently allergic to non-3D paleo art right now, or is it just cheaper for them or something? Because all of it is horrible.

There was also another re-packaging of something-or-other into a Children's Encyclopedia of dinosaurs, judging by the fact that most of the illustrations were from this Dixon encyclopedia I just posted about last week... but I couldn't tell if anything else in the book was new.




There are actually three versions of this track, I discovered after realizing the one on my mp3 player was not the same as this one. It took a long time to figure out that the one I had was the original, while this was the Cross-Hearts/Re-miniscence version, and there's a third version on an extra disc from the 3-disc Re-miniscence issue (3rd disc is instrumentals.) Anyway, this is the most energetic version, but all of them are good. Since it's from the same game, which I've played lately (Perfect Cherry Blossom), I'll add this other one that I'm also obsessing over



It's from the same album(s) so all the above holds true for this track as well, but this is a mashup of two pieces (stage 5 theme, and ending theme you get when you complete the game).

Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, Illustrated Encyclopedia

Four books on the right from the Goodwill. I sold a bunch of books and cd's I'd had for a good amount of money and used part of it for the dinosaur books on the left. The Greg Paul one was just published within the last month, got it half off. And I was just recently getting depressed because I couldn't afford to buy it.

Dixon's "Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia..." is an update of a book I've had for a while, that was published in 2006 and mainly features dinosaurs with some pterosaurs and marine reptiles thrown in. For that reason I never thought much about this book when I saw it, but it's been expanded pretty greatly. (I have yet to go through more carefully and see what dinosaurs were added, though.) There are no 3D illustrations, which is awesome.

Random diapsids!

Gorgonopsids!

Litopterns!

For a general-interest level book it's very worth getting.


I particularly liked this section in the Field Guide about biology and anatomy: