drawn in...

[Production Note: The convention depicted in this post is fictitious and never happened. We are using pictures from various other events Traumador has attended this year which we were unable to post at the time.]

man the the first ever vivus dinosaur convention has been treating me good in regards to meeting cool palaeontology celebrities!

today was no exception, with me running into legendary palaeo-artist william stout!!!

he was a SUPER nice guy. proving it, he let me talk to him for nearly an hour (how many people at the best of times can put up with me and my tiny brain for that long?!?). not only was mr. stout very nice, but he had a ton of cool things to tell me about making palaeo-art and his interests in palaeo as an artist.

mr. stout also gave me an in depth look at his book dinosaur discoveries. the book is a collection of profiles covering over 60 fairly recently discovered dinosaurs. each profile has entire page sized illustration by mr. stout (all of which are ubber awesome!), and all the factoids the average person could want to know.

it is a fantastic book for expert and non-expert alike, as mr. stout's drawings are in a league of their own. it would make a great x-mas gift for that dino-fanatic in your life! hint hint :P

i had to buy my own copy, and mr. stout was nice enough to not only sign my copy...

as if that weren't enough but he also...

drew me my own little picture of a pachyrhinosaur! (i thought it'd be a little vain of me to ask him to draw a picture of me... so why not my favourite snack from alberta)

i can't say enough good things about mr. stout (other than once again appeal to you to buy one or many of his books or pieces of art :P), and it was a real blast/honour to meet him in person!

making my own dinosaur

[Production Note: The convention depicted in this post is fictitious and never happened. We are using pictures from various other events Traumador has attended this year which we were unable to post at the time.]

yet another action packed day here at the first ever vivus dinosaur convention.

today i met legendary palaeo-artist brian cooley, dinosaur sculptor extraordinaire! his works grace the halls of some of the best museums in the world... including my old home the royal tyrrell! so i know his art quite well...

turned out today he was leading a special activity secession called "make-a-saurus", and hearing my interest in his palaeo-art mr. cooley invited me to join in.

so what we were doing at "make-a-saurus" was pretty self explanatory and obvious. making our own dinosaur. the thing was i'd never made one before.

in good news mr. cooley had brought everything one could need to create their own dino sculpture. i just had to follow his instructions.
the first part was easy enough. bend wire into the shape of a dinosaur. this wasn't a challenge for my t-rex arms. while they might be short, a tyrannosaurs arms are incredibly powerful for their size!

so having bent all the pieces together i then had to tape them together into the frame for my dinosaur.

well okay, i tried to do this. it turned out to be a lot easier bending the wire than taping it together.

oh and speaking of tape, don't get me started on the stuff...

let's just say we don't get along!

finally having taped the wire together (and untaping me from the counter top!) it was time to beef up our dinosaur's "skeleton" with some foam.

i should point out at this point, that yes i ended up making a ceratopsian. not out of choice mind you, but due to my late entry they'd run out of t-rex kits. oh well, that was fine. at least this way i'd have a visual reference for butchers to look at when i go shopping for triceratops steaks at the supermarket (the human clerks always look at me funny when i ask for them!).

adding all the foam my little trauma-ceratops was starting to look a little healthier.

taping the outside so we had a surface to plaster of paris...

i now had a mummy-ceratops!

the last thing to do (once it'd all dried, and i'd gotten all the tape off me... AGAIN!) was to paint my creation.

you know not bad for a guy whose never taken a single art lesson before!

if you want to learn how to make dinosaurs as awesome at mr. cooley's (cause mine still doesn't remotely compare!) you should check out his book called, coincidental(?), make-a-saurus. it is filled with great tips and ideas for making your own dinosaur artworks.

it would also make a great x-mas gift this holiday season, especially for young dinosaur fans! be sure to pick up your own copy today!

comical run in

[Production Note: The convention depicted in this post is fictitious and never happened. We are using pictures from various other events Traumador has attended this year which we were unable to post at the time.]

so more news from the first ever vivus dinosaur convention...

today whilst wandering the convention floor i came across ryan north creator and writer of dinosaur comics. he is a super funny guy, and he keeps good company as you can see in the form of his small saurian friend there (well okay sort of see, sadly my camera didn't like the lighting conditions in the convention area. sorry about the fuzzy pic).

i highly recommend you pop over to his site and check out his webcomic today!

fossil of the weekend #86

a still unstudied titanoideid from alberta, part of the royal tyrrell museum's 25th anniversary display "alberta unearthed".

this large mammal was part of herbivorous group called the pantodonts which rose to prominence shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs. for reasons unknown they too would eventually become extinct, and leave behind no living relatives today...

my hatchling hero!

[Production Note: The convention depicted in this post is fictitious and never happened. We are using pictures from various other events Traumador has attended this year which we were unable to post at the time.]

so we kicked off the first ever vivus dinosaur convention this week, and i have to admit it has been a lot more interesting than i thought. my special talent agent peter bond initially made it sound like it would just be us vivus OH-lympians attending (as the attractions). however today we learned my talent agent is a sneaky fellow, and has invited a bunch of other dinosaur/palaeontology guests for the public to meet.

i may not have noticed these other guest if not for a very familiar smell... on account of my somewhat super tyrannosaurid nose. this first (noticed) scent was one i associated with my childhood growing up around the tyrrell...

it was none other than world famous...

palaeontologist phil currie! who i MIGHT have sort of gotten a little over excited to see again, and might have freaked out by running up to him out of the blue.

not that it lasted too long. he is used to being rushed by crowds, whether they be human or saurian, and i hardly constituted the biggest rush he'd ever seen. my being a tyrannosaur was more the problem. while we are one of dr. currie's main research topics, the other vivus tyrannosaurs of the world aren't, shall we say, as nice as me (i'm looking at you in particular larry!).

in good news dr. currie was only momentarily startled, and eventually recognized me from our tyrrell days. we had a nice little quick catch up (okay most of it was me asking dr. currie stuff, but he did nicely ask me what i'd been up to...).

sadly as we were both here to talk to the public it was a brief run in, and we had to head off to talk to our adoring fans (okay dr. currie did, i just kind or wandered around trying to find anyone who wanted to talk to a real live tyrannosaur... sadly with so many other large dinosaurs around it didn't happen so often)

however in good news i did manage to make arrangements with dr. currie for a pretty huge appearance here on the tyrannosaur chronicles in the new year, so stay tuned!!!

next a very "funny" encounter

the first ever vivus convention

my special talent agent peter bond had gathered all us vivus-dinosaur OH-lympians at the royal british columbia museum for a huge event. peter was calling it a "convention", but what that meant wasn't exactly clear. all we'd been told was this was a chance for us to meet our "public", and that this would help all of our celebrity.

so we all wandering around the museum meeting people, and doing our best to be interesting. how this was any different from living or working at a museum was beyond us. again we modern dinosaurs pretty much spend most of our time in museums...

little did we know that peter had gone all out, and arranged several other guest stars to appear at this convention. stand by this week for my run ins with some really cool palaeo related people!

to be continued with some stars of palaeontology!!!

fossil of the weekend #85

a clutch of some of alberta's first ever discovered dinosaur eggs from devil's coulee, on display at the royal tyrrell museum's 25th anniversary display "alberta unearthed". these eggs are definitely hadrosaur eggs (as shown by fossil embryos found within) and were mostly likely laid by hypacrosaurus whose adult remains have been found in the same fossil beds.

fossil of the weekend #84

a double whammy of ceratopsian goodness today, brought to you by the royal tyrrell museum's 25th anniversary display "alberta unearthed".


first we have the holotype material of eotriceratops xerinsularis.

plus the beautiful reconstruction the museum made based on this material. very nice (also huge, which this photo doesn't really show off)!

vlog from the past!

it's time for a change. huge changes...

specifically i'm looking at some big changes here on the tyrannosaur chronicles. okay, i guess that is not specifically, but rather everything...

working in conjunction with my friends at prehistoric insanity productions we are looking at a huge change in format here. we're still in the early stages of setting this up, but expect big things in the new year!

as a preview of things to come, and because we've meant to put this up for ages, so here is a special treat from my days back at the tyrrell.

we shot this in 2006, and it was cutting edge at its time (we even had dr. currie on as an advisor!)... however there is more info on the subject these days, like anything else. i just say it as i'm posting it now 4 years later. please go easy on the info lag (imagine you are 4 years in the past).

oh and for some reason the camcorder picked up my name all funny...

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4