[Land Before Time] Pterano + Petrie Redesign

And now, for something slightly different. I give to you, stylized but [mostly] accurate renditions of Uncle ̶B̶a̶d̶t̶o̶u̶c̶h̶ Pterano and little Petrie!

You know, as much as absolutely despise inaccurate portrayals of dinosaurs/pterosaurs/marine reptiles/prehistoric species, The Land Before Time series holds a very special place in my heart. Especially the seventh movie, The Stone of Cold Fire. I feel so bad for my poor folks, considering how bad the movie is and how many times I forced them to listen to it I'm surprised they didn't go absolutely nuts! Truthfully though I really only watched it because of Pterano. Growing up, he was by far my favorite character. I had all kinds of pictures and stories about all the adventures I made up with the LBT characters, with Pterano, Rinkus, and Sierra almost always being the main antagonists. I also had little toy dinosaurs and pterosaurs that represented them, and I would play "Great Valley" with them. Of course, I always made the "sharpteeth" nice, and Littlefoot's mom and dad were alive/present, so I took some artistic licences.

Well, a couple of years ago we received a rather generous number of land before time DVDs from a friend, Stone of Cold Fire included, and I couldn't help but relive some old forgotten childhood memories. But there was a problem; after so many years since my last viewing of one of these movies, I had learned a great deal about both paleospecies and movies in general. Admittedly it was a bit of a shock to rewatch them after such a time gap. The plots were bland. The characters looked ungainly and outdated. The animation was terrible. Were these really the same movies I had watched and loved so long ago?

Alas, it was true. Without the rose-tinted glasses of youth and innocence the harsh reality of the movies was revealed. Aside from the first four movies, the films were nothing but bland, badly animated cash grabs that preyed on naive little children like me to beg their parents to buy or rent them. And sadly, The Stone of Cold Fire was amongst the very worst. Somehow the movie seemed so much shorter, and didn't seem as fun and adventurous as I had remembered. Without the vivid imagination and wonder of my youth, the movie had lost all of its magic and potential. And I was heartbroken. SoCF was my all time favorite movie growing up, and had inspired so many stories and games when I was young, and now, it was nothing but a bad direct-to-DVD failure.

But then around June, one of the movie critiques I watch on Youtube, Bobsheaux, made some Land Before Time reviews going over every single movie in the series, including SoCF. I will admit it was a bit bittersweet to see something I loved so much as a kid get torn to pieces, but, lets all be honest, most of movies deserved it. But, after watching the reviews and reading the comments, it got me thinking; what if someone redid them how they SHOULD have been done? I mean, maybe not a movie or anything, but maybe like a comic or a writing or something. Honestly most of the sequels sucked, but some of them had some really good things going for them, and if they had been given to the right people they could have been really good. Now, I myself won't be doing a rewrite or anything, as I'm already busy with the Pterraforming Project and my fakedexes, but I at least want to play around with some possible character redesigns in my spare time. This will at least include Rinkus, Sierra, and Petrie. I want the redesigns to be accurate, but also retain the Don Bluth style they were created with. Admittedly I'm not very good at it, someone like Kosperry or ZombieSaurian could probably do a much better job than me, but it's still fun to try to attempt.

There are a couple of things I kept from being completely accurate, like the placement of the eyes (Pteranodon eyes are very high up on the sides of the skull) or the shape of the beak (the whole head of a pteranodon follows an upwards curve before sweeping back at the crest), as I wanted them to at least be recognizable. I also [accidentally] made the brachiopatagium (wing membrane behind the arm) attach to the ankle, which from what I've been able to gather is no longer thought to be correct. It should be attached to or near the knee. Other than that though, the design managed to stay fairly accurate.

On a related note, man I didn't know how much I missed drawing Pterano. Good to draw you again old friend.