Thursday, April 24, 2014

Restricted Area Five

After 42 years and countless family photos, Blackgang Chine's much-loved 'Dinosaurland' is no more. The majority of the park's endearingly grotesque and climbable fibreglass creations have, alas, gone the way of their living counterparts. However, this is not to say that the park has given up on saurian-themed clifftop gardens - rather, they've been busy developing a revamped Dinosaurland, one in which the creatures aren't content just to stand there looking less-than-pretty. That's right - they've only gone and bought a load of rubbery robosaurs. Welcome, then, to the enigmatically named Restricted Area 5...home to the some of the largest ugly dinosaurs in Britain! So it goes.

All photos by me, unless marked 'NP', in which case they're Niroot's.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Vintage Dinosaur Art: About Dinosaurs

It might have one of the most generic titles going, but About Dinosaurs (1972) distinguishes itself with Michael Spink's highly distinctive illustrations. Ditching the normal quasi-realistic style that illustrators attempt in educational books like this, Spink instead opts for monochrome, crosshatched beasties against simple backgrounds with bold washes. It's a delightfully unusual approach.


Thursday, April 3, 2014

Vintage Dinosaur Art: All About Dinosaurs - Part 2

Onwards with All About Dinosaurs, a book written by the awesome Roy Chapman Andrews, he of Gobi fossil-hunting fame, and illustrated by Thomas Voter. Now, you know you're reading a vintage dinosaur book when...