In the Presence of Dinosaurs

Rating:
Summary: It`s entirly fantastic! A must-have for the dino freak
Review: This book is a true treasure. I have not heard of Larry Felder before,but he has quickly become my favourite dinosaur painter. The way the book is made is as unique as the paintings. It is not an encyclopedia,but instead a book of wildlife on Earth. The pictures are amazingly detailed and I can see that the animals` shapes and colours are based on carefull studies of real wildlife. For example,the Pteranodons looks and acts like pelicans,as well as the Parasaurolophus are similar to zebras. Most of the meat-eating dinosaurs are feathered and are sometimes similar to birds of prey or lions and tigers. The habitat pictures are among my favourites... Among my favourites comes the triassic chapter,the late jurassic,and the cretaceous chapters of the seas and the dinosaur migrations. I love drawing dinosaurs and when I look at the pictures,I learn to draw such dinosaurs too,although not as detailed as Felder`s. I will also base my story "A Dinosaur Story" on the behaviour and look of the animals in this book. Over all,this is a book that could not be much better. The only thing minus is that I think it is almost too short. A book of 300 pages would have been better and with more artists.

Rating:
Summary: In the Presence of Dinosaurs
Review: This is a truly beautiful book, elegantly written and stunningly illustrated. As a zoologist and paleoartist, I'm pretty critical, but Colagrande's science is solid, and Felder's art up-to-date and wonderfully realised. Occasionally his animals look a little top-heavy eg, Dilophosaurus (pp62-3) and Tyrannosaurus (pp156-7), and his backgrounds can have an unusually neat, parklike quality, and one or two feet don't seem to really make contact with the ground, but there is no doubting his mastery of his medium. The detail is exquisite, the settings imaginative, and colouration believable (none of Luis Rey's carnival animals!) My one real gripe, though, is that I wish there was an occasional burst of bright sunlight. Even on the pterosaur beach, there always is a darkness about the pictures. Shadows are always immensely, unnaturally deep. The world isn't always early morning, late afternoon, or just before a rainstorm. I'd love to see this talented artist throw some more light on his subjects now and then!
A beautiful addition to any dino-buff's library, none the less.