Gurney's freelance illustration career began in the 1980s, during which time he developed his characteristic realistic renderings of fantastic scenes, painted in oil using methods similar to the academic realists and Golden Age illustrators. Gurney and Kinkade also worked as painters of background scenes for the animated film Fire and Ice, co-produced by Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta. Prompted by a cross-country adventure on freight trains, he and Thomas Kinkade coauthored The Artist’s Guide to Sketching in 1982. He then studied illustration at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California for a couple of semesters. He studied archaeology at the University of California, Berkeley, receiving a BA in Anthropology with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1979. James Gurney grew up in Palo Alto, California, the youngest of five children of Joanna and Robert Gurney, a mechanical engineer.Įncouraged to tinker in the workshop, he built puppets, gliders, masks, and kites, and taught himself to draw by means of books about the illustrators Howard Pyle and Norman Rockwell.
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Gurney, who also taught himself how to draw, also worked with animation icon Ralph Bakshi for a time, prior to writing Dinotopia. The dinosaur Torvosaurus gurneyi was named in honour of Gurney in 2014.
He also holds as BA in anthropology, and even has a dinosaur species named in his honor. and yet its illustrations, worldbuilding, and visuals have largely inspired both George Lucas's Star Wars (from the prequel trilogy to the present-day Disney helmship), and even James Cameron's Avatarįor those unaware, Dinotopia, or Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time, was originally a book written, and illustrated, by James Gurney, an artist who also studied archaeology and anthropology. The boys also learn that the incredibly powerful Sunstones, which serve as Dinotopia's only real power source but also represent the only thing that's keeping the carnivores away, are failing all over the island and only the forbidden ancient ruins of underwater dino temple may hold the key to Dinotopia's salvation.It seems, to my knowledge, that the work Dinotopia is relatively obscure. However, Cyrus approaches Karl claiming that a way out does exist but only if he gets him the necessary artifacts to chart the course out of there.
While rebellious Karl plans to leave the island no matter what and find out what happened to their father, David is much more open to the idea of joining the Dinotopian society but rather disagrees with their decision to have him join the skybax riders, a unit of elite Pteranodon fliers that represent Dinotopia's main defense force and are led by the no-nonsense air commander Oonu. However, once the boys' learn that there actually is no way off the island because of the underwater reefs and storms that surround it, their individualistic personalities quickly clash with the more collectivist mindset of the islanders. A young, friendly, overly enthusiastic, English-speaking dino-scholar and troodon named Zipeau also befriends the two and eagerly agrees to welcome them into his own home until they can find their place in this amazing society, mostly resembling a highly advances version of Europe's medieval civilization. She gladly agrees to show the boys around and introduce them to Dinotopia's peoples and culture. The boys travel to the island's capital, where they meet Mayor Waldo and his disciplined, orderly, caring and quite lovely scholarly daughter, Marion, who along with the senate helps her father and her mother, Matriarch Rosemary, run the island in peace, love and understanding. He informs them that the island is called Dinotopia as both humans, who have reached spiritual, philosophical and intellectual enlightenment here a long time ago, and dinosaurs, who somehow survived here and evolved into sentient talking dinos with human intelligence, live there together in utopian pacifist harmony, save for the carnivores. The two manage to swim safely to shore where they meet Cyrus, the local misanthropic pariah who holds a serious grudge against the islanders. Trapped in the sinking plane wreck, the father orders the boys to abandon him and save themselves. The plane gets caught in a storm and crash-lands near an uncharted island. Half-brothers Karl, a born rebel, and David, the more curious and scholarly of the two young men, are flying a small airplane over the ocean with their rich father.