Make-A-Saurus: My Life with Raptors and Other Dinosaurs: 05/28/19

Make-A-Saurus: My Life with Raptors and Other Dinosaurs by Brian Cooley is a children's art book that explains how to make 3D models of dinosaurs. It's written by an artist who has made a career out of building museum quality models.

Though the book is eighteen years old it embraces the now accepted evidence that birds evolved from certain lines of dinosaurs. In 2000, this line of reasoning was only about ten or so years old and was only just starting to gain wider acceptance in paleontology circles.

The two ways this book reflects these changes in scientific thinking is in the stance of the model and in the inclusion of feathers as one of the materials needed.

The book includes everything from researching the dinosaur, to making thumbnails and sketches, to building the armature, to covering it in a variety of hard materials, to decorating it and painting it, and finally to making an environment for the model. The book is very thorough and something I would like to try in the future.

Brian Cooley, not to be confused with the man on CNET, is an artist currently living and working in Calgary, Alberta. His work has appeared in National Geographic (and on their covers). His fleshed out model of Sue is on display at the Field Museum of Natural History. He also has numerous models on display at the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller.

Four stars

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