Artist: Mick Cassidy

Film: The Land Before Time

Title: Run, Littlefoot! Run!

Medium: Digital Art on Fine Art Giclee

Measurements: 13”x19”

Signed, unframed print.

Artist's statement:

I'll make no excuses for it: It all comes down to dinosaurs. Fascinated with them as a child (and as an adult!) with every spare second and every spare scrap of paper obsessively dedicated to drawing them. Beautifully illustrated books sent Ireland's way from my aunts in the US. Gorgo. Doug McClure and The Land That Time Forgot. A double-bill of Raquel Welch's bikini and Ray Harryhausen's almighty work searing One Million Years BC into my consciousness. My nine year-old self begging, pleading, beseeching with my grandmother to let me stay up past 11pm to watch King Kong on BBC2. Valley Of Gwangi. Time-travelling cowboys, Old One Eye and Big Hungry roaring from the pages of Flesh in Britain's (still) greatest comic, 2000AD. This list could go on a bit...

You can imagine my excitement at not just acquiring a job at Don Bluth's newly-opened Dublin-based animation studio in 1987 (at the tender age of sixteen, ensuring I got to skip out of high school a year early) but then discovering my first professional job working as an artist would entail drawing dinosaurs! Some things? Well, they're just meant to be.

With all the above in mind, The Land Before Time was a no-brainer for my Amblin art tribute and my poster makes the obvious acknowledgement it was the greatest chase movie ever made before Fury Road came along. (And even Fury Road loses points for not featuring a homicidal and total dick Tyrannosaurus Rex.)

Mick Cassidy has worked extensively in the animation industry for almost 30 years. He's currently a character designer for an obscure little show called Family Guy. His passions include anything Motörhead, Guinness and dinosaur-related. He'll probably draw you something if you give him some money. You can check out more of his work at www.blackmocco.com