A busy scene from the Cretaceous North America, with Albertosaurus chasing Maisaura and chicks (there’s a really 9ld version of this one where Albertosaurus had only a timid feather fan round its arms… things move fast!) , Originally the big hadrosaurs were supposed to be Anatotitan (not Edmontosaurus) and Lambeosaurus in the background, all being overlooked by Quetzalcoatlus.
Since the Big Golden Book of Dinosaurs should be readily available for everybody now, I’ll be posting in instalments some outtakes that din’t quite make it to the book (at least in their original form). This will give you an idea of the editing process and some of the politics and haggling involved. It was indeed a very long process of building and furnishing this mammoth effort… countless protagonists and scenarios were modified or discarded.
Needless to say this scene had originally T. rex unfeathered…the background had to be withered away in order to have the text inserted. It was a long, arduous work. Quilled Triceratops were a must and I pretended to create a motion , our of focus close-up effect with the Euoplocephalus maze.
More to come!
Some of these outtakes and others are now and will be available in poster size (some of them really big!) and amazing quality at a stall run by Stone Company at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology annual meeting in Los Angeles (a bit more than a couple of weeks from now). For more information click here SVP.
Who knows, I might even be there signing Posters together with copies of the Big Golden Book. I have been told that some (if not many copies) would be also signed by Dr. Bob Bakker.
So, maybe see some of you there?
Luis V. Rey Blog 
Absolutely stunning … cannot wait to get my hands on the book!
Amazing images. These tyrannosaurids really look dangerous with feathers, but also are accurate with the new interpretations. I think everything from the part that you must habituate to these new views on these dinosaurs. Although I see many reconstructions that takes theT.Rex as a giant chicken and the worst is to see it as a kind of artic animal with an excessive coverage. But your depictions are really cool.
Other thing, in the second image I suppose the Triceratops with spikes in the back are speculative, because in Psitaccosaurus are bristles similar to the protofeathers seen in theropods.
Thank you. The quilled Triceratops is no longer speculation… I have seen the new -still not properly published- integument and I can tell you that the animal had a rosetta patterned scaled skin with those quills exactly where I drew them. Another incredible detail (invisible in the pictures) is that the skin around the neck os completely covered in rather big >square< scales (somewhat like a crocodile!) Something that makes it even weirder than we ever thought!.
I suppose you may refer to Lane, a mummiffied Triceratops in which have preserved quills!!! I saw some images and are really amazings. I think Triceratops were scaly with this quills over their back and tail, but for what??? I dont think they were supposed for preserve heat so, protective??? sexual display?? Another amazing question!!!!
Quills might well have been for heat shedding, like in elephants. Same with the feathers on huge theropods. At least, that is what a new study on elephant hair suggests.
Yes, that is correct. The fact is that the quills are there and probably belong to the whole family (being for display, defence or insulation… who knows!)… right going back to heterodontosaurs and other ornithischians. Dinosauria is much more strange than we ever thought and much more varied too… after all 169 million years of evolution should produce incredible variety! I think we are just scrapping the tip of the iceberg.
So, as you say, it is possible tht the most ancient dinosaurs like Herresaurus or Eoraptor, and maybe, their archosaurs ancestors could have some kind of integumentation??? Obviously there aren’t many proofs on fossils and this is something more speculated. But as you say, who knows. Other thing is the presence in other groups. What about ornithopods like Edmontosaurus??? There are the famous mummies and many skin impressions and they show that these ornithopods had scales and no presence of feathers and many other covers. What’s your opinion???
i love your work man.. i actually got one of your illustrations from this book tattooed on my arm.. but it was back before you added the feathers to the rex the way you had it back in the paleoart book.. once again.. huge fan..