The Palaeoartist’s Handbook: Recreating Prehistoric Animals in Art

Absolutely outstanding. This book is not a guide for how-to-draw (although the author does point the reader to resources for how to practice that), but rather is a guide for the process of recreating ancient animals that we cannot observe as living organisms. The goal is to produce scientifically credible and defensible artwork, grounded in physics, mechanics, anatomy, animal behavior, etc., that is also beautiful artwork. The author explores topics like skin, scales, fibers, and integument; mood, composition, scale, style; the collaborative process and professional practice between scientist and artist; and many more topics relating to how to create paleoart. Even if (like me) you are not an artist, this is still a great book because the artistic process shows how we can use available evidence to reconstruct and infer features about these animals.

This book is beautiful but It is a pretty heavy read. It is not a how to book with tips and art instruction if that is what you are looking for. If your trying to determine the fossil reconstruction of the jaw bone of your t-Rex, than this book is up your alley. If your in college studying to be a paleo artist, this book is a must have for your studies. If your trying to get tips for your hobby art, I think you will be totally disappointed. I would have been happy checking this out of the library. The author is a great artists, a few examples of how he creates art would have helped this book a lot.

Whether you're a casual or professional paleoartist, or maybe if you just appreciate the science behind the life appearance of prehistoric creatures, you will thoroughly enjoy this book. The text is highly readable but also contains enough information to keep even the practicing paleontologist interested. And that's not to mention the numerous fantastic artworks and useful diagrams. The only shortcoming I can conceive of is that hardcore artists may be disappointed by the lack of information on different artistic techniques, but that's a bit outside the scope of this book, which is mostly focused on the science and reasoning behind paleoartistic reconstruction. Overall cannot recommend this book enough!

You don't have to want to be a Palaeoartist to like this book, just an interest in Dinosaurs. I was very happy to find it full of new information. I've been studying Dinosaurs for a couple of years now and this is one of my favorites. It's up their with Steve Brusatte's The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs ( my current absolute fav ), David Hone's The Tyrannosaur Chronicles and great older books like Scott D. Sampson's Dinosaur Odyssey, Peter Dodson's The Horned Dinosaurs and Gregory S. Paul's The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs A tongue in check tittle to a great book.

Incredibly thorough & detailed guide to paleo art from a scientific lens. Not a "how to draw" book, more a guide on science of the art form, & how to approach your research behind your paleo art with scientific vigour.

My 12-year-old grandson is already a blog-writing palaeontologist and LOVES THIS BOOK!If someone of any age is into the detailed science of this field, they will be fascinated by this resource!

Great pictures and very interesting text on how illustrators work with paleontologists to recreate images of the past.

Gave this as a birthday gift. Our son was very happy! Highly recommended for aspiring paleoartists!

Palaeoart has often been viewed with suspicion. At one end 'Wrongasauruses' based on outdated models and concepts (and often plagiarized from older works) are dismissed by those who are abreast of the most recent science. At the other people who think they prefer 'proper art' dismiss the genre as something akin to fantasy novels, about which they are equally sniffy. They're just fancier dragons, aren't they? Then you get the Jurassic Park lot, who get really angry if you point out that Velociraptor was more akin to a faster, bitier turkey than a plucked and starved Deinonychus.For those who do appreciate Palaeoart, and its fascinating existence at the overlap between scientific rigour and artistic sensibility, the recent development of the 'All Yesterdays' movement (named after the book that might serve as a manifesto) has seen a remarkable broadening of the ambition and imagination of palaeoartists. Just as the slow, slug-like illustrations of the 1950s were replaced by more technical models of the 1990s (epitomised by the work of Gregory S Paul), the overly 'shrink-wrapped' hyper-predators are now being replaced by images of extinct animals that have fat, feathers and soft-tissues - and that do more than run around screaming at each other before biting bloody chunks out of some unfortunate hadrosaur. Some of them even fall asleep.Mark Witton's Palaeoartists Handbook therefore arrives with perfect timing. Broadly breaking down into three chunks, Witton first lays out a personal view of what palaeoart aspires to be and a history of how the art itself has arrived at the current point. This historical overview is a decent primer for anyone interested in the context of palaeoart and namechecks the key figures for further investigation. Witton then proceeds to discuss the process of reconstructing an organism and its environment from the bones upwards. This section is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand how palaeoartists work with fossil material to build a final image of a plausible animal, and also handy advice for anyone starting out producing their own. As someone not working in the field it was insightful to learn which aspects are more or less rigorous - I had always assumed that pupil shape was an artistic choice, but it can actually be inferred from the ecology and height of an animal. The last section deals with the technicalities of producing a final artwork - from composition to commercial considerations. The advice to scientists on how to critique palaeoart is particularly interesting - not least as it comes from a figure with a foot in both camps.The book is gloriously illustrated throughout, not just by Mark Witton but by many other artists of the highest quality - I particularly enjoyed the decision to include the soft-toy models of Rebecca Groom (though 'toy' does them a disservice) and the stylised cartoons of Johan Egerkrans, both of whom illustrate quite how far palaeoart can be taken whilst retaining the scientific core that must form its heart. Witton is never shy of showing his opinion - one imagines this book could be condensed into an excellent conversation over a bottle of wine - but never lets it get in the way of imparting information.In short, this book is essential reading for anyone aiming to produce palaeoart or to gain a better critical understanding of the way its produced. As palaeoart continues to develop and broaden its scope, this book provides a fantastic overview of where we are right now. It's a companionable, forthright and thought-provoking insight in a niche area of art, complete with images from some of the best in the world, and should be of interest far beyond the small world of palaeontology. A triumph.

This is a thorough examination of the processes involved in producing palaeoart. Essential reading for any budding palaeoartists, but equally essential reading for anybody with even a smidgeon of interest in palaeontology, scientific illustration, art history, natural history.....the list could go on! Beautifully illustrated and Mark's passion for (and his extensive knowledge of) the subject is clear on every page. I look forward to your next publication(S).

Mr Witton's second book manages to match his previous one in beauty and thoughtful scientific research; perhaps even exceeding it at points. The hard work and labours of love of a choice selection of the world's finest palaeoartists wet the reader's appetite to find out more about this burgeoning subject field.

This book has a lot of amazing information about the history of palaeoart and the purpose and methodology behind it, but where this book shines is in its own palaeontology. It goes into extensive detail about dinosaurs and their anatomy in ways that can really help the artist! A fantastic resource for both the dinosaur fanatic and the palaeoartist!

Wonderful and informative about the history and process of creating palaeo art, I hope to use this in my studies next year when i start university