My day was turning out to be the shitty culmination of a shitty week, when – dingdong! Mark Witton’s Pterosaurs alighted at my doorstep. What a beauty! I’m far from capable of reviewing it as I’ve only read the first 3 chapters (in about as many minutes), but it’s safe to say that my day is saved. More feedback later, but here a two-pointer spoiler for those of you anticipating your copies:

writing
Mark has a gift. He presents the uncertainties of science but never shies away from making his opinion clear.  With historical cases, he complements via omission, neglecting to name the workers behind outlandish ideas, while highlighting those who were precociously on the mark. With more modern workers, he presents the ideas with open sympathy, even when discussing Peter’s hypothesis, only to summarize point for point why it seems “the most unlikely hypothesis currently under consideration”.

Similarly, he respects the complexities without allowing them to clump up the text. In a subnote, he writes: “I’ve stuck with the term “protorosaurs” at the time of writing, for the sake of brevity and readability. Readers are invited mentally substitute something like “nonarchosauriform archosauromorphs” for every use of “protorosaur” if they feel like being more taxonomically savvy.” Of course, I will now spend the rest of the week trying to slip “nonarchosauriform archosaromorph” in as many casual conversations as possible. How cool is that?

illustration
Again, Mark has a gift, and I say this as someone who never tires of telling people that anyone can draw assuming that they do, in fact, draw. Mark isn’t the craftiest of illustrators, but I wouldn’t change a single of his drawings for any pile of slickness. Mark understands illustration, and he illustrates. As opposed to visualizing. He presents a scribbled Pteranodon longiceps historically hanging off a cliff, and the reader – without reading – immediately understands that this is illustrating an outdated concept. More than any other artist currently working with palaeo subject matter, I feel mark makes use of illustration to show what might have been, instead of purporting to visualize what was. This has to do in part with a twinge of naivety in his style, but I suspect is much more indebted to the wealth of knowledge that is assessing his every pencil stroke before, during and after his hand draws it out.

I can wholeheartedly recommend the book already, but I have to return to the shittiness of my other activities. More later, if you’re interested. Leave a comment.

A very inspirational interview podcast with Terry Whitlatch about protoceratopsian sphinxes, the usefulness of biologic intimacy for creature design and jarjar binks. Must hear.

Martin Baeker writes about Gerrothorax skull mechanics over at his highly recommended, German-language blog Hier wohnen Drachen. He also includes an image I made… the one that’s torso is too short. Ahem. A great article about the novel skull mechanics, in which the skull is more mobile than the jaw.

Nina Paley comments on art market economics. Must read, must buy for snarky, tongue-in-cheek investment purposes.

I’d hate to be in the shoes of this 15 year old schoolboy outed as a vandal of cultural history… after scrawling his name on a wall at Luxor. It does make me wonder how this sort of shitstorm might be orchestrated to the benefit of those consumers of rhinoceros, tigers and sharks – to name but a few of the species senselessly suffering for delusions. Nature is culture.

You want some film? Some good film? Learn what’s going on behind the scenes of your favorite films – which most likely rely heavily on vfx. Scott Ross and Scott Squires talk openly about the situation.

Ludwigsburg is a hop, skip and a jump away from Stuttgart, and when I was there I got bitten bit the palaeo-bug. I met Rainer Schoch, but despite his passion, he wasn’t the one to get me going. Rather, the passionate collectors Richard Leheis, Hubert Dona and others. Next to fantastic plants and archosaurs, one of the cooler finds in the area is Gerrothorax. A very cool new paper has gotten me all nostalgic, and nostalgia is best shared. Let me know what you think, keeping in mind that this image is from … 2009.

What a fantastic research project – and presentation video. It not only makes me salivate at the thought of getting my hands on this type of functionality – easily splicing elements of different video takes together – but also exudes joyful creativity from the research team. Fantastic. From the ETH Zurich and the Disney Research team.

And the Canadian government covers it up. More here.

Here’s a preview of an animation for the project I’m working on… one of the branch layers seems to have gotten doubled up.

Fantastic reconstruction of a chimpanzee from the mill, with very interesting insights into the technology used for muscle simulation, hair interaction and shading. Reminds me of why I prefer to work in stylized looks I also have an inkling that there’s a primate union out there about to strike in protest to now having lost all their jobs.

Animation in a science release about Allosaurus feeding. Wow. Get to the Witmer!

The view outside my window… precarious child-rearing.

Too garish, I know. Scribbled in ~2 minutes while watching documentary.

I’ve been following the debates of Paul Hansen’s manipulated prize-winner (above) with particular interest, but not much understanding. While I can understand the caution in aesthetically overworking images of human suffering, the line between ethical and unethical manipulation lies for me with where you might traditionally achieve in a darkroom situation, using light exposure times and masks to effect tonal brights and color saturations. To my eye, this seems to be the case. The only areas that even approach questionable territory in my opinion are where these masks are drawn so tightly as to effect a perceptional change of the relationship between items, such as the light catching the child victim’s face in comparison with the cloth he is wrapped in.

Science-art interface, anybody? Really cool tracking and visualization platform for dance, which is but a skip, hop and pirouette away from expressive biomechanics. I can imagine the visualization options presented in this toolkit to be of use in scientific analysis. Click to go.

airport doodle while reading the news