ThePhysicist Posted June 10, 2022 Share Posted June 10, 2022 I recently got started sculpting digitally, and with this new hammer I am now excitedly looking for nails! My thoughts turned to some of my microfossils, specifically some of my really old shark teeth. Microfossils in general are difficult to appreciate without a microscope, so I figured it would be fun to sculpt a few. My first subject is a Devonian Phoebodont shark tooth that I thought looked neat enough. Besides being some of the oldest teeth I know of (380-390 Ma), they look very different from the teeth of modern sharks (except for those of the frilled shark). Most of the teeth are broken, but I luckily had enough fragments to get a good picture of what a complete tooth looked like. With these fossils as my reference I quickly squashed and shaped a chunk of virtual clay into a passable shark tooth: And thanks to the wonders of today's technology, I can actually share that model directly in an interactive manner: I didn't do so much work on the bottom since I intended to 3D print it. And after warming up the printer and waiting for 3 hours... I was able to do all this in an evening. I'm hoping to do more possibly throughout the Summer as my time and inspiration allow. There are a couple of other sharks I had in mind, but I'm open to crowd-sourcing suggestions/requests. 3 11 Forever a student of Nature Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Dente Posted June 10, 2022 Share Posted June 10, 2022 4 hours ago, ThePhysicist said: With these fossils as my reference I quickly squashed and shaped a chunk of virtual clay into a passable shark tooth: That’s really cool. How long did it take to do the virtual shark tooth? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fossildude19 Posted June 10, 2022 Share Posted June 10, 2022 Wow! Great results! Very cool - thanks for sharing this with us. 1 Tim - VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER VFOTM --- APRIL - 2015 IPFOTM -- MAY - 2024 _________________________________________________________________________________ "In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." John Muir ~ ~ ~ ~ ><))))( *> About Me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Misha Posted June 10, 2022 Share Posted June 10, 2022 That is awesome! Great model, and a good idea to visualize these tiny specimens I've been wanting to get into 3D sculpture for a long time, specifically to make models of Devonian fishes but have been putting it off and haven't really made any progress despite having all the necessary software and a tablet to use specifically for that. This might finally push me to learn it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePhysicist Posted June 11, 2022 Author Share Posted June 11, 2022 19 hours ago, Al Dente said: That’s really cool. How long did it take to do the virtual shark tooth? Maybe an hour and a half. 1 Forever a student of Nature Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mahnmut Posted June 13, 2022 Share Posted June 13, 2022 Very cool sculpt and print! I thought about sculpting conodont teeth some time ago but never found the time... Cheers, J 1 Try to learn something about everything and everything about something Thomas Henry Huxley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Misha Posted June 13, 2022 Share Posted June 13, 2022 I forgot to ask, what program are you using here? I've used blender and zbrush but this doesn't look familiar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePhysicist Posted June 13, 2022 Author Share Posted June 13, 2022 3 hours ago, Mahnmut said: Very cool sculpt and print! I thought about sculpting conodont teeth some time ago but never found the time... Cheers, J I've thought of that too, conodonts may be next... 2 hours ago, Misha said: I forgot to ask, what program are you using here? I've used blender and zbrush but this doesn't look familiar This is an app for ipad - nomad sculpt. It seems to be working well even as I'm learning how to use it. 2 Forever a student of Nature Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePhysicist Posted July 12, 2022 Author Share Posted July 12, 2022 Next up: another Phoebodont, but from the Genundewa Limestone of NY. None of the teeth I found had cusps, so I had to take some creative liberties, though inspired from other Phoebodonts. ^ Ginter, Michał and Alexander O. Ivanov. “Devonian phoebodont shark teeth.” Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 37 (1992): 55-75. This one took a bit longer with a total time of a few hours spread over many days. The cusps could stand to be shaped a bit more cleanly, but I'm done with it for now. 1 3 Forever a student of Nature Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePhysicist Posted July 25, 2022 Author Share Posted July 25, 2022 Cladoselache is an oft spoken of early "shark," but I didn't know what their teeth looked like. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot online that I could find that would serve as good reference for sculpting, and I sadly don't have one. I found a couple of images/illustrations of Cladoselache teeth, and used other Cladodont teeth for the parts I couldn't see. ^ via Wikipedia ^ found by Ashley Hall in the Cleveland shale 1 Forever a student of Nature Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jared C Posted July 26, 2022 Share Posted July 26, 2022 This is freaking awesome 1 1 “Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think” -Werner Heisenberg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePhysicist Posted July 26, 2022 Author Share Posted July 26, 2022 16 hours ago, Jared C said: This is freaking awesome Thanks! It's kinda a niche area, glad people other than me are enjoying it too I think prints for the previous two came out nicely: 2 Forever a student of Nature Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePhysicist Posted July 30, 2022 Author Share Posted July 30, 2022 "Cladodont" teeth are one of the earliest tooth styles evolution came up with for sharks; they feature a large primary (median) cusp and reduced lateral and intermediate cusps, arranged like the tines on a trident. Cladoselache is one such Cladodont, but there are other forms, and I decided to do another since they look so darn cool. The tooth I used as my model is Early Permian in age, but oh well. I'm hoping to add a Cladodont to the collection at some point, but until then I can enjoy my artistic homage: 2 Forever a student of Nature Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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