Ok, maybe not, there are some good things that came of it (e.g. feathered dinosaurs), but I've come to be annoyed by a way of restoring dinosaurs that has been ubiquitous for the past 30 years or so. Simply put, we really need to make our prehistoric animals animals again.
I've had the good fortune to dissect a good number of birds and to prod a few reptiles (living and dead), and I've noticed that it seems either very few people out there have done so, or simply ignored what they should have noticed; no animal is simply made from a skeleton with muscles stretched out like elastic bands and covered in a layer of paper-thin skinthey all have fat, some have subcutaneous muscles (though that's really more of a mammal thing), and lots of folds, flaps, and wrinkles in their skin. These things need to move around, they need to have energy stores, at the same time they need to have mass! Yes, it may come as a surprise, but dinosaurs were big, bulky things, their feet would sink into a mud puddle that was every bit a part of their environment as they were. Their thighs were probably hidden in their body with plenty of skin and fat surrounding them, you'd see some muscles, but they were not body builders by any means, and their cranial fenestrae would not have been visible through their skin. What people are drawing are hyperpowered-zombie-body-builder-x-treme caricatures, they are fantastical beings, they certainly aren't bulky, dirty, dull-coloured or camouflaged animals set into and fitting their environment. Dinosaurs were probably as lazy as any modern animal, they probably sat in the shade, chewed on some food that they would happen across while taking a relaxing stroll through their primordial forests, they wouldn't be running much unless they were chasing food or food being chased, and the less running the better. Animals tend to conserve their energy for when they need it. I'm not going to tolerate another bright red and green Allosaurus fragilis doing a pirouette while chasing at a million km/h a brigt blue Diplodocus longus rearing on its hind legs. Sure, pre-'renaissance' restorations may have operated under a cold-blooded dinosaur paradigm that is woefully outdated, but one thing that, e.g., Charles R. Knight (who I have to say was fairly run-of-the mill in artistic style) had over [take your pick of modern palaeolife restorers] was that he studied living animals and knew how they worked and was able to set them in an environment such that it felt as if they were a product of that enviroment with their physicality and behaviours arising out of the restoration as a whole, rather than overlooked or thrown in as an afterthought. I think the only contemporary restorer who achieves the same effect is Doug Henderson who is unique in focusing almost entirely on the setting, and then carefully fits his animals in, as opposed to drawing the animal first and then filling an ersatz world about it.
In the process of coming to this realisation I would like to dissociate myself from any earlier resorations that I have doneif I were to now draw a restoration the style would be almost unrecognisable. I hope one day I can use light to give these creatures mass, use muted, earthy colours just like those found in nature, in living animals, and make their colours fit their enviroment and bahaviour. I hope to give them an anatomy and a portrayal of behaviour that is consistent with those found in real animals, not fictitious monsters.














