Here is something very special I have always wanted to get a good glimpse of: the incredible dinosaur mural in the Jurassic Cafe at USH. Recently, I found out the creator of this mural was none other than
Greg Pro, the guy who you also may remember did this fairly famous piece of concept art for Jurassic Park- The Ride:
I had a chance to chat with Greg Pro, and with his permission, I have uploaded some unique concept scans of the mural in progress (as well as an additional dinosaur mural in Jurassic Outfitters, featuring T-Rex and it's babies), along with some separate text details for some of them, included. In addition to that, one of my friends, Bernard, had once gone to IOA, and they actually feature an almost EXACT copy of the same mural in a different location! He was able to get much better photos than one would ever in the cafe, due to people always being right next to it and the way parts of it are cut off. His photos will give you a much closer look at various parts (however, some appear to be "touched up" compared to the original). Here is just a brief sample of what is included between the two sets:
Notice anything in-particular in the photo above? Standing in the background are a pair of Carnotaurs. Fans of the sequel novel, "The Lost World", will remember these dinosaurs very well. You can even notice one of them sort of disappears into the background... just like the chameleon-esque ones in the novel did. When asked, Greg said it was indeed a reference to the novel.
In addition to these scans and photos, I have included my own scan of a limited edition print of the raptor section of the mural. The scans featured in the following .zip are pretty high quality, but if you want the best quality for it, you can download the BIG file
here in .tif format.
As for a master shot of the entire mural (both parts), there unfortunately really isn't a good scan/photo of it overall. Perhaps some of the photos in these sets could be pieced together by a intelligent individual, but the closest I have seen so far, of the USH original, was done below. I unfortunately don't remember who did this, but I have had it for quite some time. The white spaces in each part are where things like lights and etc are that obscure the art (although, the IOA version is mostly clear of anything obscuring, should be noted). Full resolution version is included in the .zip below.
CLICK HERE to download the .zip of all the images (about 42MB).
Now... does Greg have his own copy of the actual finished mural? The answer is an unfortunate no. And there is some other news that may come as a shock to some of you. But first, let's hear a bit about the experience of making the mural itself:
Yes, it was a fun experience, but also a nightmare to deal with [corporate, at the time]. I still enjoyed it. I remember watching them film 'Eraser'. I was able to go on all the sets. The construction crews just let us walk right in. We just acted like we were supposed to be there and they didn't bother us. It was amazing. I saw a couple other stars which I can't recall the names at the moment.
The work was tiring. I had a few directors that enjoyed pushing me to the limits on all of these murals. I had to do a lot of research and learn as much as I could about the period. It was great practice as an artist. I never met Spielberg, but I'm sure we passed him several times. You would have to at that studio. There were so many films going on all at once.
Now, here comes the shocking news:
The sad thing is that it was so poorly managed[...] that all the files and artwork were lost. They contacted me recently asking if I still had any of the original paintings because the old murals were in poor shape and they needed to re-print them. I of course don't have those two paintings. I still have the smaller ones and many sketches, but the originals were stolen from MCA. I offered to re-paint them over the printed canvas for almost nothing just because I wanted to make sure it was done correctly. The main director was pushing for me to do it, but [corporate] said no. I then offered to do it for free. Still no. They sent me a small pic of how it turned out [... and it just isn't the same anymore].
Can you guys believe that? I certainly couldn't when I heard it. Which makes the set of photos now available here that much more valuable. Although it is gone forever from USH, it is STILL at IOA in the Discovery Center, as mentioned earlier (if a bit "touched up" in places).
Someone HAS to take photos of how the mural looks now. I'm almost too scared to see it in person myself, now.
Greg noted that he also did storyboards for the ride itself! No word yet on if he still has these available to show.
I hope everyone enjoys these photos and is gracious for Greg for allowing me to share his scans/photos, along with my friend and, well, myself I guess.
