My first image created with the recently-released Vue d'Esprit 4!
...and back to one of my favourite time-periods, the time of the dinosaurs! In this instance, that time is drawing to a close - the asteroid has struck, and the skies of Earth are dark and heavy with dust and ash. Dinosaurs not killed outright by the shockwaves emanating from the crash site in what is now the Yucatan, are finding their world irrevocably altered, with food becoming more and more scarce.
As a hungry tyrannosaur follows the scent to a dead ceratopsian, it finds the prize has already been claimed; and the squatter has no intention of relinquishing its claim!
20 years ago, I got a book called The Dinosaurs: A Fantastic New View of a Lost Era, illustrated by William Stout, in a wonderful style reminiscent of "Burne Hogarth meets Alphonse Mucha". This was back in the days when the concept of active, warm-blooded dinosaurs was still a new one. His marvellous "comic-book/art-nouveau" illustrations stuck with me throughout the years, in particular an image featuring two predators squaring off in the mists of a dry river-bed. That image was the exact inspiration for the image portrayed above.
Imagine my surprise when I found the book in my basement a few days ago, and looked to compare the image I remembered with the one I had just rendered - lo and behold (or not, as the case may be), there was no such image in the book! Nothing even remotely similar! I must have imagined the scene years ago, and applied Stout's style to the image in my head. Sometimes, I think I'm just - losing it!!!!
Updated 2001.09 - On posting this image the first time, I was reminded that grass didn't appear until after the end of the Mesozoic period. I knew that, and had populated the image with another plant. It still looked a little like grass, though, so I decided to replace it with the good old dependable fern, which was already ancient at the time of the dinosaurs!
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