GeoWorld Tyrant King 45" Customization

[Rexxaroo]

Hello everyone! My name is Casey, but you all can refer to me as Rexx here. I am new here, but not new to dinosaurs, models, or customizing! I've been a lurker here for sometime and have enjoyed reading peoples posts and seeing everyone's work. I decided it was high time for me to join in and actually show some of the things I've done.

I recently moved, and dug out my old GW Tyrant King kit, that I have had for some odd amount of years. I have never gotten around to putting it together, due to the reviews i have seen, and knowing that I very well would get frustrated and perhaps ruin the model. But then i remembered, "Hey, I can fix this!" As someone who is no stranger to sculpting and has an extensive love for skeletons and articulation, (I own several skeletons that i have processed and re-articulated but sadly none are beloved dinosaurs) I realized this project would not be nearly as bad as it possibly would have been when I made the initial purchase.

So, to start off let me just say that this model kit is awesome. At a full 45 inches of assembled length, this big old Rex is huge! A very impressive and mostly accurate piece due to the nature of the skeleton itself. I know we have all seen our fair share of botched dinosaur skeleton models, and I was worried that it would be similar for such a large piece. Save for the awkward lower jaw stuffed up inside the skull instead of being properly articulated and the less than appealing upright pose, there are few mistakes that one will find.

Ive included a few photos here of some of the pieces as well as the box to give you an idea of how massive this thing truly is. Most of these photos were taken while i was doing a "quick and dirty" build to get an idea o what needed reposing/ reshaping.

http://

http://

http://

http://

However, the reviews I'm sure many have seen are very true. The model's pieces, (54 of them to be exact, which is nicer than the 5 piece "assembly" kits that are all too over manufactured and riddled with inaccuracy galore!) are horribly warped out-of-box. The paint job is less than savory, and like mentioned above the skull is awkward, the base is flimsy, the pieces are very hard to squeeze together in many places and the directions were mirror imaged making it a bit confusing to set them up on the base. But! There is a silver lining! The kit is made from some type of rubber that is easy-peasy to reshape. By far the EASIEST model I've ever had the pleasure of reworking.

All that being said, it is still a nice piece out of the box if you aren't too picky. I am PICKY.

The first thing I even did before getting too far ahead of myself, was to fix that goofy skull. I chopped off the little nubs that would "snap" into the holes on the inside and sanded down the edges to make it flush with the rest of the lower jaw. You can see in those previous photos on the box just how goofy it did look. (The original pose before my little modifications is also very upright and the tail does touch the ground just barley due to the nature of the heavy rubber the kit is molded from.)

After I was satisfied with my handiwork on the skull, everything went into a nice bath of boiling water for a good minute. Really, 30 seconds is plenty for 75% of the pieces because they are thinner. The thicker pieces need a minute or so to "soak" through and make them workable. This rubber stuff gets so flimsy an so easy to repose! With a hefty serving of Tyrannosaurus soup, i started with the first pieces that needed reshaping: The ribs.

Grab which one you want out of their steaming bath, hold it into the position you need, and dunk into a bowl of ice water... Presto Chango! No more wonky and warped pieces!

I let the reworked pieces stay within their glacial bath whilst I continued working with those still stewing in the volcanic pool. This took several minutes to get everything where I wanted it, and then left everything to dry.
During that time I decided to spruce up the base a bit to make it 1) Hold the weight of this enormous beauty, and 2) Make it a more beautiful Prehistoric Paradise!

http://

I decided to add some moss and other bits and pieces of slate rock and some small plant things I've had lying around for other projects. This definitely added some color and attractiveness to that blah of flat plastic. I also added some expanding foam to the underside of the base and put in a large stone to give it some weigh and keep the base from buckling.

The support beams themselves I decided to modify in order to get the pose into a more accurate position. The support beam beneath the Rex's head I cut off about 1/2" from the bottom thus lowering the skull considerably.

Conversely, the support beam beneath the middle of the tail (there is a connecting caudal vertebrae attached to this beam) i decided to raise up to keep the tail from dragging and to balance the pose further. This was achieved by gluing some large slate pieces to he base and creating a small notch with them that the bottom of the beam could fit into snugly. Much hot glue, super glue and some vulgar words later , I was given success.

Let me tell you, the actual assembly of this thing is a pain in the Aepyornis.  The pieces like i mentioned do have quite a bit of difficult in fitting together unless you press very hard, so a pair of pliers offered a great assistance! In this step, I had only added a bit of hot glue to hold the mandible in place just to get an idea before I wired and glued it permanently.

http://

http://

Its a little bit of a step up from the initial pose and such, but still needed some modification!
My next daunting task: Repainting.

Now let me just say, this initial paint job is a straight up cretaceous catastrophe. The base color of the rubber itself is a deep brown, almost a burnt umber. On top of that is what I can only describe as some mix between a bile yellow, and a mustard brown. Gross. Not very fossily if you ask me! I also decided that though the base was vastly improved with all its bits of decor, some nice dry brushed color ought to bring it out.

So, if you should decide to undertake a project such as this, I suggest disassembling the skull and paint it first and then reassemble and glue. It will make it far easier to get everything covered. The skull itself is actually in 3 pieces, a nice touch I'd say, that the nasal cavity/ palate is its own piece that fits snugly in the upper cranium.

I decided to use a base color of Raw Umber, and dry brush Raw Sienna on top. This would give a more museum-finish look to the skeleton that will contrast very well with the Light Grey and White that was to be used for the rocky base.

First, the base coat of the Raw Umber, compared to the original paint job on it's pair.
http://

http://
And after dry brushing in some Raw Sienna over the Raw Umber base coat. A vast improvement I would say!

The skull was next, again using the Raw Umber base coat, and dry brushing the Raw Sienna on top. I decided to ad very little of the Sienna to the inner nasal cavity, keeping it dark and shadowed made for far better contrast. The teeth were painted last with a mixture of Mars Black and Raw Umber. Two coats were used on the teeth for good measure, and i have yet to decide if I will add a glossy finish to them. All of the claw cores were also painted with this mixture.

http://

So, after being quite happy with how the color turned out on the leg and skull, I got down and dirty and started to dig into the rest of the bones.. heh..

http://

Here is a close up of a section of vertebrae, highlighting the sheer quality of the sculpt job on this model. Its a very beautiful piece, even with its flaws. While painting some of the smaller pieces, a detailing brush was used afterwards to bring out the connections between vertebrae with some Raw Umber/Black mixture, so as not to lose definition in the pieces.

Some several hours later after everything was well painted and dried, I finally started assembly for the last and final time. This round of assembly we given super glue and wires in several places. Many of the vertebrae were drilled, wired, and glued to make them stronger. The overall final pose was supposed to be reminiscent of the much beloved "Sue", though my model is not nearly 100% accurate to her pose.

The Skull was also finally drilled and wired now only with the lower jaw, but the cervical connection as well for stability.

http://

I also in this step decided to reshape a few more pieces for final OCD sake, and repose the pectoral girdle as well as the fingers.

Once finally happy with the position of her legs, and tweaking the way the toes and tibia aligned, I finally glued what was necessary together and set her on my newly improved base.

http://

http://

And my Papo Spinosaurus decided to make an appearance for scale.

http://

She was a complete and utter joy to work on and i could not be happier with the results. For such a colossal project it was, it wish it would have been longer. In all the project took about a week of working on and off or a few leisurely hours at a time.
The kit did come with a neat little plaster "matrix" block that i had a blast digging out the replica tooth. The Base of the model also had a nice spot for a golden sticker to be placed with the full scientific name, as we as stating the model is at a  "1:10" scale.

Anyhow, thanks for checking out my fun little project and my new re introduction to the world of customization. Any tips or criticism on the model would be greatly appreciated!

Happy digging everyone 

[Viergacht]

That is EPIC! The finished piece is really impressive, and I got a good laugh out of your write-up

[Rexxaroo]

Ha! Thanks! I am quite happy with how the she-rex turned out. And glad you enjoyed the jokes I'm still unsure if the base is a bit too light , perhaps it should be a shade or two darker? The brilliant green moss perhaps should be replaced with something a bit more deab. Not sure yet, I'll wait for some feed back

[Archinto]

This turned out really cool. I was contemplating doing this to my model as well. I likethe colors yo used asthey look alotmore limeactual fossils compared tothe crummy paint job it came with. Id maybe darken the base with a brown/black wash

[Rexxaroo]

This turned out really cool. I was contemplating doing this to my model as well. I likethe colors yo used asthey look alotmore limeactual fossils compared tothe crummy paint job it came with. Id maybe darken the base with a brown/black wash

Thank you! I think that i may take you up on that suggestion.  A darker wash is a great idea. Ill test it out on a small area to see if i like it.

[PumperKrickel]

deleted

[LophoLeeVT]

awesome i really liked reading it!!!