CRYOLOPHOSAURUS

Cryolophosaurus is my first attempt at repainting a Mattel Jurassic World dinosaur. My intent here was to give this animal an authentic color scheme...not that there's anything particularly wrong with the colors it was molded in, it's just part of the repainting exercise. Short of somehow flocking it with feathers, this is the best way to add a little bit of extra science to a pretty good toy.

Original Figure

One thing I wanted to avoid here are what I see as sort of "Cryolophosaurus Color Tropes". You'll often see the crest of Cryolophosaurus depicted in vibrant colors, almost always a stunning red. So, for originality's sake, red could not be the feature color of the crest. Also, a lot of art tends to show the Cryo in whites and blues, as if it were some sort of ice dragon. Most of the time this looks great, but I doubt the Cryo had to deal with snow and ice to the extent where it would make such a color scheme practical year-round.

Cryolophosaurus was found in Antarctica which, during the early Jurassic, had a climate much like the upper Midwest United States and lower Canada today. It would have been full of coniferous forests and plains. Since the Cryo was just shy of six feet tall at the hip, blending into the surroundings would have been a useful advantage in hunting, so I tried to pick colors and patterning that wouldn't look out of place on a largish predator trying to conceal himself in a pine forest.

  

 

 

Base colors are deep greens for the dorsal surfaces and muddy browns for underneath. There are some blotches of lighter green along the back to give a sort of sun-dappled cammo effect.

 

The crest ended up being multicolor but still not terribly obvious or out of place in the background of the forest. Seems to have worked out as a good compromise. There's really no rationale behind the yellow on the muzzle, just seemed like a good idea at the time. 

 

 

  Once I got started, I decided to extend the crest coloring down the neck and back along the spines the toy is molded with. Not sure why they chose to give the Cryo this feature, but it seems a shame not to detail it a little more.

 

The black "mask" around the eyes and down the neck seemed a good way to break up all the color on the head.  And although somewhat difficult to make out in the pictures, I gave the Cryo some reddish-orange vibrancy to the throat as an additional display feature just in case the crest isn't enough. I suppose with all this color flashiness it's probably a He.

Overall, I'm pleased with how he came out. Sure, now he falls in to the group of yet another green and/or brown colored dinosaur...but when those are the colors of your habitat, it only makes sense.