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Fossil And Bone Modeling...


Clayton Jones

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No problem, I'd like to see your finished sculpture when it's done!

Original Sculpey is a little cheaper than super Sculpey but it's not completely suited to the task by itself. Try mixing different amounts of super and original, maybe even the hard super Sculpey (the dark grey stuff), with a hand-crank pasta roller/cutter machine to get just the right consistency. Most sculptors that I know of use mixes as apposed to just one kind or the other.

Try to document the whole process if you can, I would have taken photos of the construction of the Anhanguera, but I kinda just sat down one day and made it, I was too busy making it to remember the camera!

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My attempt at creating a museum and community center to help people find an interest in the world around them.

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Hey Clayton, I also sent out a request for a pterosaur expert to my Houston Museum of Natural Science buddies and Dr. Robert T. Bakker. I will also try Pete Larson at the Black Hills Institute of Geological research. Hope to have someone soon for you.

Tankman

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Wow! Thank you! Getting these skulls looked at by an expert would be awesome!

WhVUieh.png
My attempt at creating a museum and community center to help people find an interest in the world around them.

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Alright, my next skull is finished!

Raptorex kriegsteini, or Tarbosaurus bataar , depending on further research.

A fellow osteological artist much more skilled than I am, Taburin, was gracious enough to send me a few reference photos of a Raptorex skull on display in his local museum. This skull would not have been possible to make, at least not nearly as easily, without those photos. Please take a look at his site and see all the skeletons he's made! Thanks Taburin!

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I have no skeleton projects underway right now, I do have a couple of smaller fossil sculpture ideas in mind, so give me some ideas for the next skull or bone!

WhVUieh.png
My attempt at creating a museum and community center to help people find an interest in the world around them.

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HI Clayton-

Nice work, man. I never did get to talk to my Brazilian buddy about your pterosaur skull, but it looks like you pulled it of nicely anyway. I like the croc skull except for one thing...Texture. Crocodiles have a ton of texturing on their skulls and jaws. It would be a pain in the patootie for ya, but would make it look oh so much more real.

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Thanks! I'm hoping to try to re-sculpt the Anhanguera again in a way that i can make molds of it!

Yeah, the Sarcosuchus is missing a lot of the little details, which i'm going to take a whack at adding soon. I think I'm going to try a second pass at all three skulls; they all have a little detail missing here and there, and it would make them much better looking.

WhVUieh.png
My attempt at creating a museum and community center to help people find an interest in the world around them.

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  • 2 months later...

I've been working in 3d Coat to add all the missing details (pits, muscle-scars, etc...) to the skulls.

73BCg.png

This is more like a test, but I think I've got the idea right for the details. any input would be greatly appreciated.

WhVUieh.png
My attempt at creating a museum and community center to help people find an interest in the world around them.

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All I can say is whoa! I build model airplanes and something like this...just incredible. Awesome work dude!

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Thank you, I try my best to make these skulls as realistic as possible.

WhVUieh.png
My attempt at creating a museum and community center to help people find an interest in the world around them.

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The amount of research you go through to do these is exactly why I don't do skulls or skeletons (yet). It's one thing to make a fleshed-out sculpt with the right proportions. It's entirely different to make skull and skeletal sculpts, so my hat is off to you.

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Once you have the bones, fleshing them out is a lot easier.

I've found that skulls are easier to sculpt in some ways than other bones;

Unless you have access to the real thing or direct casts, you'll have to use photos and schematic drawings as reference. Nobody ever seems to take photos of anything other than the the skull in detail, and they never photograph the interior or the rear of the skull.

You have to go through quite a bit or research to get anything past the basic exterior surface of the skull, but you might not be able to find a good example of a vertebrae or rib at all.

WhVUieh.png
My attempt at creating a museum and community center to help people find an interest in the world around them.

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  • 5 months later...

Alright, I've made another model, but this time it's not an animal!

I've been working on some science videos for my museum project and I've mainly been working on two botany-related episodes. This sigillaria will wind up in one or more videos and I want to make sure I got it just right. If you see anything wrong with the model, let me know so I can fix it.

I've based some of the details of this model off of fossils that were graciously provided by Nala and HD photos provided by docdutronc both of whom I hope will enjoy this reconstruction.

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I'll also be working on a few other coal-forest plants to accompany this sigillaria in the video, you can expect renders of those as well soon!

WhVUieh.png
My attempt at creating a museum and community center to help people find an interest in the world around them.

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Wow! That just toggled my "sense of wonder" switch :)

"There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant

“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley

>Paleontology is an evolving science.

>May your wonders never cease!

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  • 4 months later...

Alright, I guess I win the award for most inconsistent poster or something, but it's the way my mind works :P

I spent today being kinda iced in, so I worked on a project I've been trying to finish for a little while now: Model Velociraptor/Deinonychus arm!

I couldn't get the level of accuracy I wanted in clay, so I'm turning to new technologies to make the bones. I spent today modeling the digits, which came out very well, thanks to a newer feature of Blender called dynamic topology sculpting, which allows me to add or subtract any detail I want in the model, without having to worry about every little vertex in the model.

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I'll be sending these bones, as well as the rest of the arm as soon as I finish those bones, to Shapeways to be printed out in plastic. Once I get them back, I can make mold and sell copies to raise funds for my museum and I will be using the model for a short video on why the arms of dinosaurs are usually rendered incorrectly.

WhVUieh.png
My attempt at creating a museum and community center to help people find an interest in the world around them.

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Alright, just to keep everyone interested and get myself into posting more often, here's the next bone in the deinonychus arm, the Radiale.

post-5406-0-08333100-1385401908_thumb.png

I hope I sculpted that well, or my dinosaur will probably have stiff wrists...

By the way, the research paper I'm using is "Osteology of Deinonychus antirrhopus, an Unusual Theropod from the Lower Cretaceous of Montana", along with any photographs I can find, though the paper does a pretty god job of describing most bones in the skeleton.

WhVUieh.png
My attempt at creating a museum and community center to help people find an interest in the world around them.

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Thanks! I should have the rest of the wrist and maybe the arm done in the next day or so.

WhVUieh.png
My attempt at creating a museum and community center to help people find an interest in the world around them.

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:faint: These are all just... :drool: Amazing! I can't wait to see your museum :D

Stephen

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Thanks again!

I've messed around with the demo of Zbrush and I've used sculptris. I like the sculpting in blender for doing my bone modeling because everything is right there, and it's free :D

Blender's dynamic topology sculpting works pretty much just like sculptris, only I have the added control of being able to movie individual vertices and use modifiers.

I'll probably be osting about my museum on the forum in the next few days!

WhVUieh.png
My attempt at creating a museum and community center to help people find an interest in the world around them.

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Thanks, I'll be using 3D printing for the deinonychus arm, and maybe for some of the other sculpts.

WhVUieh.png
My attempt at creating a museum and community center to help people find an interest in the world around them.

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