When Are Creative Liberties For Dinosaur Designs Okay?
So when it comes to keeping dinosaur designs scientifically accurate, which would include coloration. But one might question, when can one take liberties with dinosaur designs, or prehistoric animals as a whole? Well…..
Note, this also applies to other prehistoric life like Pteranodons. First off coloration, if one is making a dinosaur in the realm of say Clifford the Big Red Dog, then giving a dinosaur whatever color you want is okay. Another time this can work if you are making a more stylistic film that uses colors to convey the mood and themes, and or limit one's color palette. A perfect example of this is done by one Dead Sound in his Dinosauria series.
But if you are intending for the dinosaur to be realistic, then if say there are discoveries of the coloration of a dinosaur or prehistoric animal, then you would need to make sure to keep it accurate. For example, BMNHC PH881 had revealed Microraptor have black feathers with iridescent plumage. Carotenoids likely giving a Tyrannosaurus Rex's face and legs give it colors in the these spots of red, yellow, orange, pink, or purple. SMU 76532 and YORYM 1993.338 showing both Mosasaurus and Ichthyosaurus had countershading. TMP 2011.033.0001 having revealed Borealopelta markmitchelli seemed to have pheomelanin, giving it a reddish brown color with countershading. And one final example being IVPP V12415 revealing Sinosauropteryx was reddish brown with a ring tail.
Another way to be stylistic is to go down the path of speculative paleontology, as best seen in All Yesterdays. Basically, give prehistoric animals like the dinosaurs a variety of skins, growth, wattles, flaps, bulbs, etc. All while keeping in mind there some limitations in design, as we know what some dinosaurs looked exactly like. For example, the Archaeopteryx thanks to specimens such as the Berlin Specimen HMN 1880/81.
The next way to be stylistic is to create an entirely fictional dinosaur that never existed, or a dinosaur adjacent creature that resembles a dinosaur but isn't a dinosaur. For example, Devil Dinosaur, Anjanath, and Archen. Also, is meant to be a actual dinosaur or an evolved version of a dinosaur, then one needs to make sure the anatomy makes sense. A great example of this is Darren Nash's redesign of the Dinosaurid. Also, skin wrapping doesn't make a dinosaur more scary, it just inaccurate.
Now the final one is gameplay for well games. My main example is going to be Ark Survival for this, and no I'm not saying their designs are good. So when it comes to making games, you sometime need to change up how physics work and have people suspend their disbelief. This is done to do things like make fun gameplay, and not become frustrating. So in the case of Ark Survival you can ride on Pteranodons and Tapejaras, something that in reality would be just straight up impossible. But it works because well it makes for fun gameplay and ease transport. Also, making it where say a Ankylosaurus doesn't one shot basically everything is done to balance out the game. So creative liberties like some of the ones done in Ark work because they make the game more fun.
The most creative liberties that I can think of that can be taken, is making the dinosaurs more cartoony. An example being Yoshi. But if the cartoony dinosaur is say Velociraptor, there is still a need for accuracy via feathers and giving them fat.
And that's about how far I think creative liberties can go when it comes to designing dinosaurs. Written by Eris the Lorekeeper
