The ships in the harbor resembled giant fish. Flying vehicles called skimmers were fashioned after trilobites. Not a scrap of dirt or foliage remained in the island capital.
The book Dinotopia: First Flight (1999) follows the adventures of one young cadet who escaped that dystopian empire and tried to foil its plans to invade the rest of Dinotopia.
This painting will be reproduced in the upcoming book Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter. It was also included in the exhibition, concluded November 1 at the Ducal Palace in Lucca, Italy.
This work reminded me of some of the renderings for Daniel Burnham's Plan of Chicago. Like this one done by Jules Guerin:
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At first I was wondering why that photo of you looked as though it was taken by a sitting or kneeling (or short) individual. But after thinking about it for a minute… that was a conscious decision to frame the lightness of your face against the dark stripe, while having the darkness of your suit set off against the light lower walls, wasn't it?
ReplyDeleteI also think the vanishing point in this is pretty danged funny, though that doesn't seem as intentional.
I hope you don't mind my asking, Mr. Gurney, but since you've brought Poseidos topic up, I've always wondered why you went with a futuristic Poseidos in First Flight, if the slides and pictures Arthur and Will found in previous books had a more Victorian / Steampunk look. Nothing against it, just something I wonder about! ;)
ReplyDeletelove your smaller paintings. and how you pack so much detail in them.
ReplyDeletealso hope you are planning on having another video contest for your new book, and hope you are posting some of your video comercials too, haha!
JW--Yes, I was thinking especially of the Chicago 1893 exposition designs, not so much for the Roman designs (Poseidos is more South Asian), but rather because of the uniform cornice height, which conveys the feeling of a centralized, powerful authority.
ReplyDeleteJobot--that low eye level was thanks to my lovely wife Jeanette, who was indeed looking to put my head against the black background, and who is familiar with my vanishing points.
Andres--You're right that First Flight is designed as a futuristic past, rather than a historic present. I wanted to give Dinotopia a high tech past, kind of an inversion on the usual idea of progress--plus an excuse to design a lot of cool vehicles.
Super Villain--I remember your great video for the last book! I'm a bit behind on the YouTube videos for the new book, but I plan to work on them when I return later this month. "Video Week" should be sometime in December or January.
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I like the idea of a futuristic past. Kind of leads up to the more peaceful low-tech present of Dinotopia. I just hope the Ruby Sunstone which powered Poseidos is gone for good.
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