This wonderful 5 volume project by artist/designer Estrella Vega, came about through "...the realization that most people don't know what preceded the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs, because they were huge and fearsome looking animals, dominate our idea of prehistoric life. Though the Paleozoic doesn't boast huge animals (with few exceptions), it nonetheless laid the foundation of our modern world: from establishing the basic body plans of all existing life forms, to creating the coal deposits that fueled our industrial revolution. Through this series, I hope to demystify the events and life forms of that era to the lay person." The Paleozoic: a series about life before the dinosaurs by Estrella Vega — Kickstarter
Vega does a fantastic job of realizing her original idea with each of these 9ft long accordions comprised on one side of her beautifully printed color illustrations of the animals and landscapes from each time period and the reverse side has text and illustrations explaining the history and development of the animals and lifeforms forms illustrated overleaf. The five time periods covered are: 1: The Cambrian, 2: The Ordovician and the Silurian, 3: The Devonian, 4: The Carboniferous and 5: The Permian.
A smart presentation completes the package with one end of each accordion slipped into a sleeve in the hardcover jacket which allows it to be taken out and the whole accordion can be displayed free from the cover.
In summary, this is a really great educational project that takes full advantage of the features of the accordion format to realize the artists' original intentions, but what really holds it all together are Vega's beautiful illustrations and the vivid dioramas she creates for her histories of these fantastic creatures.
Each page of the accordion is 6" (h) x 4.5" (w), 24 pages, double-sided, fully extended at 9 feet and the whole set is available at the very reasonable price of $80 from her website at: Estrella Vega
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| The Paleozoic: The Cambrian (543-480 million years ago/mya) |
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| The back of the accordion with texts and illustrations explaining the animals and history of the time period. |
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| The Paleozoic: The Ordovician & The Silurian (480-444 mya) |
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| The Paleozoic: The Devonian (420-359 mya) |
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| Back of book |
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The Paleozoic: The Carboniferous (358-298 mya)
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| The Paleozoic: The Permian (298-252 million years ago/mya) |
