"Jurassic Giants of the Western World"
At Everything Dinosaur we always enjoy seeing how model collectors have used the prehistoric animal models that they have purchased from our website. We get sent lots of photographs of dinosaur themed dioramas and we enjoy looking at these pictures, we really appreciate the effort and skill that goes into such model making activities. Take for example, the work of Robert Townsend, he has built a thirteen-foot-long model landscape that depicts life in the Late Jurassic. With Stegosaurus, Torvosaurus, Ceratosaurus and a plethora of Sauropods installed into the sweeping panorama, we would suggest that the model depicts life on Earth around 150 million years ago.
A splendid Late Jurassic diorama.
Robert has carefully planned his prehistoric landscape, it is a marvellous interpretation of the flora and fauna associated with a famous fossil location such as the Morrison Formation of the western United States. In fact, Robert has entitled his model “Jurassic Giants of the Western World”, as indeed, during this time in the Late Jurassic, continental North America was dominated by giant mega-herbivores such as Diplodocus, Camarasaurus, Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus.
A group of Sauropods feeding.
These long-necked dinosaurs in turn shared their world with a range of Ornithischian dinosaurs such as the spectacular Stegosaurs and the rapidly diversifying Ornithopoda that would, one day, come to dominate plant-eating dinosaur populations.
We like the way that this Stegosaurus model has been posed in the background, behind the foliage, this helps to support the feeling of depth and perspective in this dinosaur diorama. A useful tip for all model makers is to try to create different points of interest within the scene that they are creating. For example, on the left side of the landscape, a Diplodocus mother and baby encounter a crocodile down by the river (see photograph below). The choice of foliage helps to enhance the view and draws the eye to what could be a dangerous moment in the life of a young Sauropod.
Diplodocus mother and baby encounter a crocodile.
A Brachiosaurus (background) and a Camptosaurus (foreground).
A sense of scale can be created by combining various models. In the photograph above, Robert has used a CollectA Camptosaurus replica in the foreground to help to emphasise the size and scale of the Carnegie Brachiosaurus which has been placed directly behind it.
The prehistoric scene has a plaque.
UK-based Robert has even added a plaque to his four-metre-long model display, our thanks to him for sharing pictures of his creation.