Matt Mannit Ophthalmosaurus

[modelnut]

This is the first resin kit that I completed in our new home some eight years ago. I don't know if I had even joined this group yet. I only learned about the sculptor's name maybe a day ago. Like a lot of people here I bought kits from Brian Vallery of Stone Trolls. I ran into him on Facebook in 2014. But I got one (mostly good) kit from him and a few not so good before I learned that he was a recaster. What tipped me off were a few ammonite resin pieces. He passed them off as copies of real fossils and I believed him until I noticed that they were 100% copies of Safari LTD and Kaiyodo toys. Pretty hard to mistake that since I had the originals in my collection already.

But back to the model.

What I got was a resin kit that was missing one or two inches of its rostrum. And there were assorted voids and bubbles here and there along with the ever present seam lines. I looked up Ophthalmosaurus online and tailored the dorsal fin to be less like a dolphin and more like paleoart of the ichthyosaur. I hadn't built a resin kit in years up to that point. And I didn't really know what I was doing. I just kept at it until I was satisfied. I'm still not satisfied with the paint job. I still argue with myself about that. "What would it really look like???" "Oooh! That art is so cool! I will paint it like that." "No. Wait. How about that one?" See what I mean?

Here is the kit with some bubbles filled and working on the rostrum. I used coat hanger wire for strength and covered it with Apoxie 2-part putty. Apoxie and Bondo red Spot Putty are my go-to's. I used coarse grit sand paper to try and match the texture of the rest of the model.



Here is the art I finally imitated. With the model for comparison.



Here is the model finished on its stand.









I was reminded of this model when someone on Facebook offered a raw kit for sale. My friend was thinning his stash I think.

Until next time. Enjoy!

- Leelan

[Bread]

Wow another beautiful sculpt you have made!
I know you have some sort of museum like display, will you be showing off an update of it soon?

[Libraraptor]

Excellent work! Congratulations!

[modelnut]

Wow another beautiful sculpt you have made!
I know you have some sort of museum like display, will you be showing off an update of it soon?

This is not my sculpt. Matt Mannit sculpted this one.

My "museum" sculpts are 1/24th scale. This model is 13.5 inches or 34.3 cm long. That makes it 1/17 scale or 1/20 if you squint. 

- Leelan