Gurney Journey

Dover Publications has just released a new expanded edition of Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara in their premier Calla line of illustrated books. (Link to book trailer video on YouTube)

This beautiful hardcover edition includes an exclusive peek behind the scenes, with 30 pages of sketches, storyboards, maquettes, photos of models, character designs, and models posing.

The purpose of the second study is to work out the perspective and overlapping.

For any scene this complex, it's a big help to break down the planning stages into several discrete stages, with the goal of solving a different problem with each sketch.


The original painting is on its way to Athens, where it will be on exhibit as part of the big science fiction exhibit that was most recently in London (link to video overview).
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The painting appears in the book Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time
Signed from my website store and Also available from Amazon

The Barbican Centre in London published an interview with me, in connection with the ongoing exhibition "Into The Unknown: A Journey Through Science Fiction." The exhibit will be up for one more month, ending September 1.
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Creating Dinotopia with James Gurney

Today, The Barbican Centre in London opens its massive exhibition called "Into The Unknown: A Journey Through Science Fiction."

Photos by Jack Vance of the Johnson City Times

Bill Lankford, 78, of Johnson City, Tennessee, built this amazing miniature of Dinotopia.

Over on Instagram, by popular request, I've got a survey of Dinotopia Theme Park concepts.
Chase the link and press Follow to get in on the fun.

A lot of people are surprised to hear that the illustrations in Dinotopia were painted in oil rather than watercolor. This one of Tok Timbu is typical. I sealed my pencil drawing on illustration board with workable fixatif and after that a thin layer of acrylic matte medium. When that was dry, I used bristle and synthetic brushes to apply the paint, mostly transparently. When I needed to thin the paint, I could use either mineral spirits or alkyd painting medium. At any time I could scratch through to recover the drawing or just to get light lines, like the hairs on the beard.
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You can get a signed copy of the 20th anniversary edition of Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time from me at my website.

Here is a one-of-a-kind prototype of a Bix puppet. It was made by Hasbro for a proposed line of Dinotopia toys that was stalled when the Hollywood film went into turnaround in 1997.