Sauropod book signing at SVP, and #Brontosmash animation
October 27, 2016
Quick heads up: Mark Hallett and I are both at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting in Salt Lake City. Tomorrow afternoon (Friday, October 28) at 4:15 PM we’ll be signing copies of our book, The Sauropod Dinosaurs: Life in the Age of Giants. If you’d like to get a copy of the book, or to have your already-purchased copy signed, please come to the Johns Hopkins University Press booth in the exhibitor/poster area tomorrow afternoon. We’re both generally happy to sign books whenever and wherever, but if you’d like to catch us both at the same time, this is a good opportunity. We’re hoping to do another joint book signing in Los Angeles before long – more info on that when we get it arranged.
In the meantime, or if you’re not at SVP, or if you just like cool things, check out this rad claymation video of fighting apatosaurs, by YouTube user Fred the Dinosaurman. I love this. My favorite thing is that if you’re familiar with the previously-produced, static visual images of neck-fighting apatosaurs (links collected here), you’ll see a lot of those specific poses and moments recreated as transient poses in the video. This was published back in June, but I’d missed it – many thanks to Brian Engh for the heads up.
Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week 
October 28, 2016 at 7:54 am
That animation is outstanding. Overlooking crudity of the technique, it’s by some distance the most compelling and believable representation of dinosaur combat behaviour I’ve seen. So glad it finally made its way to us!
October 28, 2016 at 11:24 pm
Book signed, mission accomplished!
October 30, 2016 at 1:19 pm
Mike: Fred’s a pretty talented guy. (Far too talented for someone still doing his exams! Grrr…) His 2D art is certainly not crude at all: aside from his Youtube channel, I gather he’s on Deviantart, and he’s taken it on himself to produce better art for dinosaur entries on Wikipedia. He’s added to the Pachycephalosaurus and Alioramus entries, at least. He’s also expressed a desire to move from clay onto more sophisticated stop-motion techniques and equipment. As a stop-motion fan, I can’t wait.
On the other topic: I’ve developed a liking for signed books lately, but Salt Lake City and Los Angeles are just a weee little bit outside my practical travelling range! Ah well, it won’t put me off snapping this up. I can’t not.
Such a good time to be a dinosaur book/art nerd…