Well, everything old is new again.  In the history of our study of dinosaurs, we went from thinking they were the bones of known creatures that had died, and were buried where they were, through catastrophes (like Noah's flood).  As we studied more, we realized that they were indeed far older than anyone could imagine.  Sir Richard Owen studied the finds available to him and noted that the animals combined anatomical (skeletal) features of birds and reptiles, and he's the one who coined the name, too.  He thought they were relatively active animals, unlike reptiles, and the next generation of paleontologists did, too.  This included a general idea that dinosaurs were warm-blooded in some fashion, just like birds.  But by the 1890s and into the early 20th century, the images of dinosaurs as active animals was replaced by the idea that they were a zoological dead-end, and that they had to have been generally sluggish, cold-blooded animals, who just lay around while mammals ate their eggs.  That idea prevailed until the early Sixties, I think, when the studies from the 19th century were revisited by men like John Ostrom, and his student, Robert Bakker, and by the latest discoveries of men like Jack Horner.  They rethought the interpretation of the fossil record, and came back to the idea that dinosaurs were generally warm-blooded, whether through internal mechanisms, in smaller animals, or by ectothermy in the case of large animals (ie, keeping warm just by being large, and having a smaller ratio of surface area to mass).  That's pretty much where we are today, but making refinements to our theories to explain the record, as new discoveries are made, like finding more evidence for feathers in many species, or finding rare examples of evidence for soft tissues, previously unknown and only guessed at; and new looks at evidence of what the environment was like.

You guys are right, too, when you talke about how model kits (and toys) have followed these developments.  I built the Pyro dinosaur kits when I was a kid.  They were awful, both in terms of accuracy, and in terms of model kits, even for their time.  But I had a lot of fun building them as a six-year-old, and they helped fuel my love of dinosaurs.  Skip ahead to Tamiya's first-generation of dinosaur kits.  They're a vast improvement over the Pyro kits, but they're obsolete by today's standards of research.  The T-rex is a tripod, sitting on its tail.  The new T-rex is much better.  And in between, there were Airfix' dinosaurs, and Aurora's.

I wouldn't say the skin effect is scaly, like a lizard or snake, or even like a crocodile (a cousin of the dinosaurs) or a turtle (a next-door neighbor) but it's more intended to depict a leathery sort of hide, with scales or bumps.  But even that needs updating, depending on the subject, to depict the various kinds of feathers, depending on the subject.

Anyway, it's fun to think about.

Thanks T.B. I'm adding it to my list of projects. 

Problem is it's longer than my arm. I'll be sure to post it whenever I get around to building it though. 

Oh My ;

 Now that would be interesting to see . Go For It ! !   T.B.

Hey guys, thanks! Some great ideas on how to paint these suckas! 

Ya'll have given me a great idea for a diorama! I'm seeing a Triceratops and a guy near it holding up a tiny model in his hand looking at both while a crazy looking machine blinks and whirrs in the foreground. On the base is the caption: 'John Q. Smith, having trouble getting the colours right on this models decided to build his own time machine to get first hand reference material.' 

Hey Capnmac;

 Yeah good point there . Can you imagine a small chicken sized raptor colored like a Brazilian tree frog and poisonous as well ? That would be akin to two snakes I know .

  The very venomous Coral snake and his non poisonous cousin .The color bands are different .You have to know the species to tell the difference though .  T.B.

I remeber a middling recent throw-a-way line by some paleontoligist types to the effect that every new dino discovery doubles the existing dino knowledge.

Frog skin belongs, more properly to aphibians and not reptiels.  However, consider the fine skin on a garter snake, or fence skink--or even a trout.

For mind-blowing, there's brand new speculation that raptor-like dinos were, in fact, feathered.  Which may have been frilly scales--protofeathers, but could have been feathers like a roadrunner or kiwi.

As to colora, that's a bit boggling too.  Modern birds can see up into ultraviolet (like humming birds) others down a bit into the infrared (chickens)--neith or those colors would be perceptible bt man, per se. 

We also know very little about the flora of the time.  We know odern plants in high heat and humidity in the understory will show reds, purples, and yellows (clorophil not much use in the shade).  So, the reptiles might have had similar hues as camoflage, with blazes that wer actually UV or IR hued for threat or mating displays.

But as a paleobotanist I used to drink with pointed out, the herbivorous dinos ight have found a niche in eating plants that concentrated toxins or irritants--uch as how onarch butterflies subsist on milkweed.  And, as with many poisonous creatures, imagine the "keep away" colors a "toxic" dino might have.

Heady stuff.

Hi Gamera ;

   The point is this . I thought that the way the skin on most dino models and toys is configured like lizards we know today ! .Simple ! The Dino you do could also be different because of where he or she lives . Frog skin and colors ? Why Not !

 Pebbled like my Turreted Lizard ? Sure , why not ? Scales ? Sure , why Not ? Now remember this too . Archeopterix  was discovered to have Hollow Bones ! That's a bird thing right ? There you go . They now think many were indeed warm blooded .

    Here's the hitch then . In the smaller Raptors , including Velocirapter , You don't know whether they were colorblind either . They could,ve been as colorful as any bird . Remember some had head crests that they surmise changed color when in rut .

 So with that I close in saying , except candy lime green or apple red go for it .No American La-France red though !  T.B.

Yeah they discovered a bunch of new stuff since I was a kid too. Brontosaur is now Apatosaur and Trachodon apparently no longer exists!

Being able to paint them anyway you want, well lots of freedom there but you have to think about it instead of just copying what you see in a photo like a military subject or an auto. I like your idea about basing them on real animals.