1/40 Puertasaurus reuili

[darth daniel]

Hello,

this is my first post here and I thought I´d not start showing some dinosaur that everybody already owns but with my first and so far only dinosaur sculpture. When I found Nima Sassani´s reconstruction of Puertasaurus reuili, I knew I would have to have one in my collection but I think it´s about 100% certain that no toy company will produce this almost unknown dinosaur, especially not in 1/40. So I decided to try and build the model myself. Thanks a lot to Nima Sassani who allowed me to show the model publicly. After all, it is kind of 'copied' from his plans.

It is meant to represent a 35m long individual, so the model is about 875mm long along the spine. Unfortunately it´s not as detailed as some of the newer toys showing every tiny scale, which is out of my skills so I decided for "elephant skin" with lots of wrinkles. I also changed the pattern of tiny armor plates on its back, the head is built after pics of the reconstruction of an Argentinosaurus´ skull and the body is narrower around the shoulders. Apart from that, it´s pretty close to the drawings.

I have yet to decide on colors and a paint scheme, but painting will have to wait till next spring when it´s warmer outside to spray primer.

I´m thinking about building more dinos at some point, most likely Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum, Futalognkosaurus dukei or Sauroposeidon proteles.

I hope you´ll like it. I´d be grateful for any comments or criticism.

[tyrantqueen]

Oh my, this is awesome. Do you accept commissions? I want one

I love Nima Sassani's work too.

[Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus]

Oh my, this is awesome. Do you accept commissions? I want one

I love Nima Sassani's work too.

Make that two people! My only question is about the belly-it seems to protrude awfully far out on each side. Is this purposeful, or is that just how it turned out? At any rate, like TQ, I want one! 

[tyrantqueen]

Oh my, this is awesome. Do you accept commissions? I want one

I love Nima Sassani's work too.

Make that two people! My only question is about the belly-it seems to protrude awfully far out on each side. Is this purposeful, or is that just how it turned out? At any rate, like TQ, I want one! 

That's how it appeared in Nima Sassani's artwork. I believe it's a noted feature of the species. Puertosaurus was definitely an odd looking titanosaur.

[MrRabbid]

It's looks pretty good for a home project! Just some color and it'll be perfect. However is it just me, the way Puertasaurus is, or is the underside of the belly unusually flat?

[Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus]

Oh my, this is awesome. Do you accept commissions? I want one

I love Nima Sassani's work too.

Make that two people! My only question is about the belly-it seems to protrude awfully far out on each side. Is this purposeful, or is that just how it turned out? At any rate, like TQ, I want one! 

That's how it appeared in Nima Sassani's artwork. I believe it's a noted feature of the species. Puertosaurus was definitely an odd looking titanosaur.

Thanks, TQ.

[wings]

Oh my, this is awesome. Do you accept commissions? I want one

I love Nima Sassani's work too.

Make that two people! My only question is about the belly-it seems to protrude awfully far out on each side. Is this purposeful, or is that just how it turned out? At any rate, like TQ, I want one! 

That's how it appeared in Nima Sassani's artwork. I believe it's a noted feature of the species. Puertosaurus was definitely an odd looking titanosaur.

Thanks, TQ.

I was looking at Nima's link from above and in his description he said "...Puertasaurus probably had the widest and most voluminous rib cage of any animal known to science - although the ribs are missing, the huge width and depth of the wing-like transverse processes of the 2nd dorsal indicates they supported an unusually wide rib cage, perhaps as wide as 7.3 meters (24 ft)..."; So it is hard to know the shape of these ribs, like whether the ribs really do go out that far or if they travel in a steeper angle (than Nima's) and form a more "normal" looking sauropod ribcage.

[tyrantqueen]

Oh my, this is awesome. Do you accept commissions? I want one

I love Nima Sassani's work too.

Make that two people! My only question is about the belly-it seems to protrude awfully far out on each side. Is this purposeful, or is that just how it turned out? At any rate, like TQ, I want one! 

That's how it appeared in Nima Sassani's artwork. I believe it's a noted feature of the species. Puertosaurus was definitely an odd looking titanosaur.

Thanks, TQ.

I was looking at Nima's link from above and in his description he said "...Puertasaurus probably had the widest and most voluminous rib cage of any animal known to science - although the ribs are missing, the huge width and depth of the wing-like transverse processes of the 2nd dorsal indicates they supported an unusually wide rib cage, perhaps as wide as 7.3 meters (24 ft)..."; So it is hard to know the shape of these ribs, like whether the ribs really do go out that far or if they travel in a steeper angle (than Nima's) and form a more "normal" looking sauropod ribcage.

Oh, okay. I still think the sculpture is a good replica of the original artwork, even if it has the same flaws as the artwork does.

If you were the one making the sculpture/artwork, how would you have depicted the rib cage? I'm just interested in your opinion

Also, darth daniel, please check your inbox for a PM

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Very impressive ! As it is, it reminds me of a huge Invicta piece..just awesome !

You should consider casting these for sure !

[dutchdinolover]

If you cast it, i am more than willing to buy!

I would love to have one

[wings]

Oh, okay. I still think the sculpture is a good replica of the original artwork, even if it has the same flaws as the artwork does.

If you were the one making the sculpture/artwork, how would you have depicted the rib cage? I'm just interested in your opinion

This is a tricky question. We didn't have much of this animal; the holotype (MPM 10002) consists of 4 vertebrae (an almost complete neck vertebra, a complete thoracic vertebra and 2 tail centra). I'm not sure whether we can really make an accurate depiction of this animal right now. Like in many reconstructions all we can do to fill in the gaps is by looking at their "more" complete relatives. If we look at its entry at Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puertasaurus), we'll find that Puertasaurus belongs to the Lognkosauria group. So do we have any ribcage elements from this group? We do and it is quite a complete one as well. Futalognkosaurus (http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0001-37652007000300013, side view only...) appears to have its ribcage preserved (apart from this I'm not sure if there are more better preserved ribcages from this group). Here is photo of the reconstruction of it (see below),



Not sure how much of the ribcage is reconstructed though (since we have a reasonable amount of ribs for Futalognkosaurus (see paper above) I doubt they would try to fabricate too much of the thoracic region, unless they are still preparing the elements for casting). Now this is where it gets complicated. If you look at Nima's (http://paleo-king.deviantart.com/art/Futalognkosaurus-recon-Mk-VIII-339561616); you'll find that the mid section of the ribcage is much wider than its hips (the iliac blades) but this depiction is different from the skeletal cast of the animal above. The mid section of the cast (from above) just doesn't seem to be that much wider than the animal's hips. I'm just not too sure who is right about this; since the original Futalognkosaurus paper (from above) didn't have any images of its ribs taken from the front, I'm not sure how much adjustment Nima made for his picture, how deformed these ribs are and I've never seen the actual material in person... Base on this (actual cast and Nima's) all we can say is daniel's model is quite accurate to Nima's but it is hard to say whether Nima's is actually accurate to the actual animal. Probably we have to email the author(s) of the Futalognkosaurus paper if they can send you some photos of the rib elements taken from the front to confirm their curvature. Here is a different interpretation of the ("slab-sided") ribcage by Csotonyi (http://www.csotonyi.com/Futalognkosaurus_dukei.html), so is Julius more correct? Julius also mainly based his painting off the paper as well...

Now if we go back to Puertasaurus; it looks like we just don't have much "reliable" source to do such scaling from...

Here are two more articles concerning the ribcages, if anyone is interested.

http://svpow.com/2011/01/16/how-fat-was-camarasaurus/

http://svpow.com/2013/05/29/how-fat-is-an-elephant/

[radman]

I really like the series of photos showing the progression of the model.  Nicely done!  End product looks very good.

[darth daniel]

Thanks for the great feedback! Much appreciated.

The wide belly is one of the features which I think makes this one special. Converted to 1:1, the belly would be 6m wide, so there´s still 1.3m left to the maximum estimated width of 7.3m which makes my model almost "conservative" (relatively...). The flat body is a result of the width; if the belly should be more rounded, the body would need to be "deeper".
I have no idea how accurate Nima´s reconstruction is, I´m no paleontologist, but it seems to be the only decently researched reconstruction out there not showing just a generic, very huge sauropod. The incomplete skeleton also offers quite some artistic freedom to me as errors are hard to prove.
Regarding Futalognkosaurus, I´m not sure how comparable it is. Puertasaurus´ flat, wide neck shows this is quite a different animal, and it lived roughly 20 million years later. Nima´s reconstruction of Futalognkosaurus shows a much wider ribcage as well, though it´s hard to argue when pictures of the real skeleton show it to be different.
At least I thought the wide belly to be realistic after seeing 'Alpha´s egg', where the Saltasaurs are depicted even fatter (for their size).

I´m sorry to disappoint anyone interested, but I´ve decided not to have this model cast. The mold would be incredibly expensive due to size, and the high prices of the castings would put off most customers making the whole project a financial loss. Not to forget that I don´t want to give it out of hands, and most likely it would have to be cut to several pieces to be cast which is an absolute no-go for me.

[wings]

Regarding Futalognkosaurus, I´m not sure how comparable it is. Puertasaurus´ flat, wide neck shows this is quite a different animal, and it lived roughly 20 million years later. Nima´s reconstruction of Futalognkosaurus shows a much wider ribcage as well, though it´s hard to argue when pictures of the real skeleton show it to be different.
At least I thought the wide belly to be realistic after seeing 'Alpha´s egg', where the Saltasaurs are depicted even fatter (for their size).

The idea to use Futalognkosaurus is because they (Futalognkosaurus and Puertasaurus) are currently classified in the same group (Lognkosauria) and also Futalognkosaurus has quite a complete ribcage preserved (I'm not sure if we have another more contemporary Lognkosaurian which also has its ribcage ribcage decently preserved). Though these animals (Futalognkosaurus and Puertasaurus) are 20 odd million years apart; they are still closer related than to say Saltasaurus. I'm not too sure why time would really be a concerning factor in this (since Saltasaurines are slightly more "distantly related" to the Lognkosauria group). If you look at the Futalognkosaurus mount from the previous post you will notice that it's neck is also quite wide as well. It is understandable that there are differences between the two animals (different species) but there are also similarities between them if you look at these links (http://www.proyectodino.com.ar/pdfs/140-0020.pdf, figure 14 and http://www.macn.secyt.gov.ar/investigacion/descargas/publicaciones/revista/07/rns_vol07-1_37-41.pdf, figure 2a and 2c); you will find that they both have quite wide and robust transverse processes and they both lack tall distally expanded neural spines on their dorsals (without getting too much into the lengthy features). Having said that from one of the previous comment (How fat is an elephant?) no doubt that not all titanosaurs have the same kind of body type; So what has been said is just a likelihood but not absolute.

[tyrantqueen]

Thanks, wings, for the explanation. I think I understand now

[Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus]

I´m sorry to disappoint anyone interested, but I´ve decided not to have this model cast. The mold would be incredibly expensive due to size, and the high prices of the castings would put off most customers making the whole project a financial loss. Not to forget that I don´t want to give it out of hands, and most likely it would have to be cut to several pieces to be cast which is an absolute no-go for me.

  Well, at any rate, you did a good job on the model, so kudos for giving it a shot (and succeeding at that)! 

[darth daniel]

Regarding Futalognkosaurus, I´m not sure how comparable it is. Puertasaurus´ flat, wide neck shows this is quite a different animal, and it lived roughly 20 million years later. Nima´s reconstruction of Futalognkosaurus shows a much wider ribcage as well, though it´s hard to argue when pictures of the real skeleton show it to be different.
At least I thought the wide belly to be realistic after seeing 'Alpha´s egg', where the Saltasaurs are depicted even fatter (for their size).

The idea to use Futalognkosaurus is because they (Futalognkosaurus and Puertasaurus) are currently classified in the same group (Lognkosauria) and also Futalognkosaurus has quite a complete ribcage preserved (I'm not sure if we have another more contemporary Lognkosaurian which also has its ribcage ribcage decently preserved). Though these animals (Futalognkosaurus and Puertasaurus) are 20 odd million years apart; they are still closer related than to say Saltasaurus. I'm not too sure why time would really be a concerning factor in this (since Saltasaurines are slightly more "distantly related" to the Lognkosauria group). If you look at the Futalognkosaurus mount from the previous post you will notice that it's neck is also quite wide as well. It is understandable that there are differences between the two animals (different species) but there are also similarities between them if you look at these links (http://www.proyectodino.com.ar/pdfs/140-0020.pdf, figure 14 and http://www.macn.secyt.gov.ar/investigacion/descargas/publicaciones/revista/07/rns_vol07-1_37-41.pdf, figure 2a and 2c); you will find that they both have quite wide and robust transverse processes and they both lack tall distally expanded neural spines on their dorsals (without getting too much into the lengthy features). Having said that from one of the previous comment (How fat is an elephant?) no doubt that not all titanosaurs have the same kind of body type; So what has been said is just a likelihood but not absolute.

Yes I´m aware of the various "distances" in their relations and their similarities. All I meant was that if other animals, not too distantly related, could develop such wide rib cages, much wider than their hips, then I think it´s not impossible that Puertasaurus developed a similarily shaped belly. Both Saltasaurus and Puertasaurus lived at the end of the Cretacious, so maybe the vegetation changed and they had to adapt their digestion systems and became so fat? Would that be called convergent evolution?

[wings]

Not to say it is impossible but the method employed seems to be improbable.

[Everything_Dinosaur]

Always a pleasure to see such reconstructions, we love seeing the model slowly coming together as it goes through various stages and developments.  The finished, painted figure should be wonderful to see and we are looking forward to viewing the final results.  As far as we know only elements of the spine have been ascribed to this species, but it would have been a spectacular Titanosaurid to view in life, perhaps the size of Argentinosaurus, maybe bigger, certainly a very wide bodied Titanosaur.

[Jetoar]

Wonderful sculpture friend, congtaulations  .